Tool support for security-oriented virtual research collaborations

Collaboration is at the heart of e-Science and e-Research more generally. Successful collaborations must address both the needs of the end user researchers and the providers that make resources available. Usability and security are two fundamental requirements that are demanded by many collaborations and both concerns must be considered from both the researcher and resource provider perspective. In this paper we outline tools and methods developed at the National e-Science Centre (NeSC) that provide users with seamless, secure access to distributed resources through security-oriented research environments, whilst also allowing resource providers to define and enforce their own local access and usage policies through intuitive user interfaces. We describe these tools and illustrate their application in the ESRC-funded Data Management through e-Social Science (DAMES) and the JISC-funded SeeGEO projects

Web Service Testing and Usability for Mobile Learning

Based on the summary of recent renowned publications, Mobile Learning (ML) has become an emerging technology, as well as a new technique that can enhance the quality of learning. Due to the increasing importance of ML, the investigation of such impacts on the e-Science community is amongst the hot topics, which also relate to part of these research areas: Grid Infrastructure, Wireless Communication, Virtual Research Organization and Semantic Web. The above examples contribute to the demonstrations of how Mobile Learning can be applied into e-Science applications, including usability. However, there are few papers addressing testing and quality engineering issues – the core component for software engineering. Therefore, the major purpose of this paper is to present how Web Service Testing for Mobile Learning can be carried out, in addition to re-investigating the influences of the usability issue with both quantitative and qualitative research methods. Out of many mobile technologies available, the Pocket PC and Tablet PC have been chosen as the equipment; and the OMII Web Service, the 64-bit .NET e-portal and the GPS-PDA are the software tools to be used for Web Service testing

Towards Developing an Online Social Media-based Mobile Learning System

The advancement of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) and the Internet revolution gave rise to the several learning technologies on the web and mobile platform. During the last decade, the social media network became available for users to socialise and collaborate among peer group. Hence, The integration of e-learning and social media using mobile device as access point is to allow for learning and collaboration anytime, anywhere. This study seeks to provide learning on the social network platform for users to view the application on a mobile device and also foster collaboration among scholars. The system was developed using an open source Content Management System (CMS) Wordpress and Buddypress running on a WAMP or XAMPP server. MySQL was used as database. The usability of the System on the different mobile devices used was evaluated by identifying the usability attributes; designing a questionnaire based on those attributes and then analyzing the results with Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS). The results showed that the learning system had a good usability score on mobile device

Are e-readers suitable tools for scholarly work?

This paper aims to offer insights into the usability, acceptance and limitations of e-readers with regard to the specific requirements of scholarly text work. To fit into the academic workflow non-linear reading, bookmarking, commenting, extracting text or the integration of non-textual elements must be supported. A group of social science students were questioned about their experiences with electronic publications for study purposes. This same group executed several text-related tasks with the digitized material presented to them in two different file formats on four different e-readers. Their performances were subsequently evaluated by means of frequency analyses in detail. Findings - e-Publications have made advances in the academic world; however e-readers do not yet fit seamlessly into the established chain of scholarly text-processing focusing on how readers use material during and after reading. Our tests revealed major deficiencies in these techniques. With a small number of participants (n=26) qualitative insights can be obtained, not representative results. Further testing with participants from various disciplines and of varying academic status is required to arrive at more broadly applicable results. Practical implications - Our test results help to optimize file conversion routines for scholarly texts. We evaluated our data on the basis of descriptive statistics and abstained from any statistical significance test. The usability test of e-readers in a scientific context aligns with both studies on the prevalence of e-books in the sciences and technical test reports of portable reading devices. Still, it takes a distinctive angle in focusing on the characteristics and procedures of textual work in the social sciences and measures the usability of e-readers and file-features against these standards.Comment: 22 pages, 6 figures, accepted for publication in Online Information Revie

Report of the user requirements and web based access for eResearch workshops

The User Requirements and Web Based Access for eResearch Workshop, organized jointly by NeSC and NCeSS, was held on 19 May 2006. The aim was to identify lessons learned from e-Science projects that would contribute to our capacity to make Grid infrastructures and tools usable and accessible for diverse user communities. Its focus was on providing an opportunity for a pragmatic discussion between e-Science end users and tool builders in order to understand usability challenges, technological options, community-specific content and needs, and methodologies for design and development. We invited members of six UK e-Science projects and one US project, trying as far as possible to pair a user and developer from each project in order to discuss their contrasting perspectives and experiences. Three breakout group sessions covered the topics of user-developer relations, commodification, and functionality. There was also extensive post-meeting discussion, summarized here. Additional information on the workshop, including the agenda, participant list, and talk slides, can be found online at http://www.nesc.ac.uk/esi/events/685/ Reference: NeSC report UKeS-2006-07 available from http://www.nesc.ac.uk/technical_papers/UKeS-2006-07.pd

Usability Evaluation in an Exploratory Design-Based Research Approach of Convenience Store New Employee Training e-Learning Material

[[abstract]]A large number of organizations have adopted e-Learning programs, and far fewer have addressed the usability of their learning applications. To ensure the quality of e-Learning training material, we utilized the usability evaluation heuristic in the design and development processes. The application of exploratory, and usability evaluations during the design-based research study is described. Additionally, participant selection, data collection and analysis; and results relevant to usability portions of this study are presented.[[sponsorship]]IEEE Taipei Section; National Science Council; Ministry of Education; Tamkang University; Asia University; Providence University; The University of Aizu; Lanzhou University[[conferencetype]]國際[[conferencetkucampus]]淡水校園[[conferencedate]]20091203~20091205[[booktype]]紙本[[iscallforpapers]]Y[[conferencelocation]]Tamsui, Taipei, Taiwa

User-oriented security supporting inter-disciplinary life science research across the grid

Understanding potential genetic factors in disease or development of personalised e-Health solutions require scientists to access a multitude of data and compute resources across the Internet from functional genomics resources through to epidemiological studies. The Grid paradigm provides a compelling model whereby seamless access to these resources can be achieved. However, the acceptance of Grid technologies in this domain by researchers and resource owners must satisfy particular constraints from this community - two of the most critical of these constraints being advanced security and usability. In this paper we show how the Internet2 Shibboleth technology combined with advanced authorisation infrastructures can help address these constraints. We demonstrate the viability of this approach through a selection of case studies across the complete life science spectrum

Designing an Effective Interactive E-book for Computer Science Education

There’s a need to develop more computer science teachers around the world. As massive open online courses have been failing, an interactive e-book used for distance learning might fulfill this need. This research seeks to determine what makes for good usability in a computer science e-book and measuring if teachers learn using them. The study investigates participants’ preferences for interactive computer science e-book designs and usability, in an attempt to review and develop guidelines for educational e-book creation. Comparisons and preferences were made between three interactive educational computer science e-books and specific multimedia widgets within them. Based on the reported findings, some general guidelines were suggested for increasing usability within interactive e-books and ways to enhance their educational value. The results of the study suggest that interactive educational e-books are an effective alternative to current distance learning methods for teaching computer science.Undergraduat

Supporting security-oriented, collaborative nanoCMOS electronics research

Grid technologies support collaborative e-Research typified by multiple institutions and resources seamlessly shared to tackle common research problems. The rules for collaboration and resource sharing are commonly achieved through establishment and management of virtual organizations (VOs) where policies on access and usage of resources by collaborators are defined and enforced by sites involved in the collaboration. The expression and enforcement of these rules is made through access control systems where roles/privileges are defined and associated with individuals as digitally signed attribute certificates which collaborating sites then use to authorize access to resources. Key to this approach is that the roles are assigned to the right individuals in the VO; the attribute certificates are only presented to the appropriate resources in the VO; it is transparent to the end user researchers, and finally that it is manageable for resource providers and administrators in the collaboration. In this paper, we present a security model and implementation improving the overall usability and security of resources used in Grid-based e-Research collaborations through exploitation of the Internet2 Shibboleth technology. This is explored in the context of a major new security focused project at the National e-Science Centre (NeSC) at the University of Glasgow in the nanoCMOS electronics domain