Towards personalization in digital libraries through ontologies

In this paper we describe a browsing and searching personalization system for digital libraries based on the use of ontologies for describing the relationships between all the elements which take part in a digital library scenario of use. The main goal of this project is to help the users of a digital library to improve their experience of use by means of two complementary strategies: first, by maintaining a complete history record of his or her browsing and searching activities, which is part of a navigational user profile which includes preferences and all the aspects related to community involvement; and second, by reusing all the knowledge which has been extracted from previous usage from other users with similar profiles. This can be accomplished in terms of narrowing and focusing the search results and browsing options through the use of a recommendation system which organizes such results in the most appropriate manner, using ontologies and concepts drawn from the semantic web field. The complete integration of the experience of use of a digital library in the learning process is also pursued. Both the usage and information organization can be also exploited to extract useful knowledge from the way users interact with a digital library, knowledge that can be used to improve several design aspects of the library, ranging from internal organization aspects to human factors and user interfaces. Although this project is still on an early development stage, it is possible to identify all the desired functionalities and requirements that are necessary to fully integrate the use of a digital library in an e-learning environment

Investigating knowledge management factors affecting Chinese ICT firms performance: An integrated KM framework

This is an Author's Accepted Manuscript of an article published in the Journal of Information Systems Management, 28(1), 19 - 29, 2011, copyright Taylor & Francis, available online at: http://www.tandfonline.com/10.1080/10580530.2011.536107.This article sets out to investigate the critical factors of Knowledge Management (KM) which are considered to have an impact on the performance of Chinese information and communication technology (ICT) firms. This study confirms that the cultural environment of an enterprise is central to its success in the context of China. It shows that a collaborated, trusted, and learning environment within ICT firms will have a positive impact on their KM performance

Personalization in cultural heritage: the road travelled and the one ahead

Over the last 20 years, cultural heritage has been a favored domain for personalization research. For years, researchers have experimented with the cutting edge technology of the day; now, with the convergence of internet and wireless technology, and the increasing adoption of the Web as a platform for the publication of information, the visitor is able to exploit cultural heritage material before, during and after the visit, having different goals and requirements in each phase. However, cultural heritage sites have a huge amount of information to present, which must be filtered and personalized in order to enable the individual user to easily access it. Personalization of cultural heritage information requires a system that is able to model the user (e.g., interest, knowledge and other personal characteristics), as well as contextual aspects, select the most appropriate content, and deliver it in the most suitable way. It should be noted that achieving this result is extremely challenging in the case of first-time users, such as tourists who visit a cultural heritage site for the first time (and maybe the only time in their life). In addition, as tourism is a social activity, adapting to the individual is not enough because groups and communities have to be modeled and supported as well, taking into account their mutual interests, previous mutual experience, and requirements. How to model and represent the user(s) and the context of the visit and how to reason with regard to the information that is available are the challenges faced by researchers in personalization of cultural heritage. Notwithstanding the effort invested so far, a definite solution is far from being reached, mainly because new technology and new aspects of personalization are constantly being introduced. This article surveys the research in this area. Starting from the earlier systems, which presented cultural heritage information in kiosks, it summarizes the evolution of personalization techniques in museum web sites, virtual collections and mobile guides, until recent extension of cultural heritage toward the semantic and social web. The paper concludes with current challenges and points out areas where future research is needed

Adapting e-learning and learning services for people with disabilities

Providing learning materials and support services that are adapted to the needs of individuals has the potential to enable learners to obtain maximal benefit from university level studies. This paper describes EU4ALL project which has been exploring how to present customized learning materials and services for people with disabilities. A number of the technical components of the EU4ALL framework are described. This is followed with a brief description of prototype implementations. This is then followed by a discussion of a number of research directions that may enhance the adaptability, usability and accessibility of information and support systems can be used and consumed by a diverse user population

Effect of emotions and personalisation on cancer website reuse intentions

The effect of emotions and personalisation on continuance use intentions in online health services is underexplored. Accordingly, we propose a research model for examining the impact of emotion- and personalisation-based factors on cancer website reuse intentions. We conducted a study using a real-world NGO cancer-support website, which was evaluated by 98 participants via an online questionnaire. Model relations were estimated using the PLS-SEM method. Our findings indicated that pre-use emotions did not significantly influence perceived personalisation. However, satisfaction with personalisation, and perceived usefulness mediated by satisfaction, increased reuse intentions. In addition, post-use positive emotions potentially influenced reuse intentions. Our paper, therefore, illustrates the applicability of theory regarding continuance use intentions to cancer-support websites and highlights the importance of personalisation for these purposes

A Personalized e-Learning Framework

With the advent of web based learning and content management tools, e-learning has become a matured learning paradigm, and changed the trend of instructional design from instructor centric learning paradigm to learner centric approach, and evolved from “one instructional design for many learners” to “one design for one learner” or “many designs for one learner”. Currently, there are mature technologies that can lead to the construction of a personalized e-learning environment, namely: Ontology, Semantic web, learning objects, and content management systems. In this paper, a personalized e-learning framework is proposed, where learning objects are classified according to their suitability for the different types and styles of learning, and where these learning objects are offered to individual learners according to their personal preferences, skills and needs

The Impacts of Privacy Rules on Users' Perception on Internet of Things (IoT) Applications: Focusing on Smart Home Security Service

Department of Management EngineeringAs communication and information technologies advance, the Internet of Things (IoT) has changed the way people live. In particular, as smart home security services have been widely commercialized, it is necessary to examine consumer perception. However, there is little research that explains the general perception of IoT and smart home services. This article will utilize communication privacy management theory and privacy calculus theory to investigate how options to protect privacy affect how users perceive benefits and costs and how those perceptions affect individuals??? intentions to use of smart home service. Scenario-based experiments were conducted, and perceived benefits and costs were treated as formative second-order constructs. The results of PLS analysis in the study showed that smart home options to protect privacy decreased perceived benefits and increased perceived costs. In addition, the perceived benefits and perceived costs significantly affected the intention to use smart home security services. This research contributes to the field of IoT and smart home research and gives practitioners notable guidelines.ope

Utilizing End-user Requirements to Inform the Knowledge Supply Strategies of IT Project Teams

This research investigates the knowledge sourcing requirements of teams that implement novel IT projects. It then compares those requirements to the mainstream strategy proffered in the literature for knowledge reuse within project environments. Using a grounded theory approach, this research found that the knowledge sourcing requirements do not align with the mainstream strategy, which is based on a codification approach. Rather, the findings indicate the teams that implement novel IT projects rely primarily on a personalization strategy for sourcing complex, incipient, and sensitive knowledge and the Internet for sourcing simple knowledge. These teams generally did not use internal knowledge repositories to fulfill their knowledge sourcing needs