Towars web site user's profile: log file analysis.

The Internet is a remote, innovative, extremely dynamic and widely accessible communication medium. As in all other human communication formats, we observe the development and adoption of its own language, inherent to its multimedia aspects. The Embrapa Satellite Monitoring is using the Internet as a dissemination medium of its research results and interaction with clients, partners and web site users for more than one decade. In order to evaluate the web site usage and performance of the e-communication system the Webalizer software has been used to track and to calculate statistics based on web server log file analysis. The objective of the study is to analyze the data and evaluate the indicators related to requests origin (search string, country, time), actions performed by users (entry pages, agents) and system performance (error messages). It will help to remodel the web site design to improve the interaction dynamics and also develop a customized log file analyser. This tool would retrieve coherent and real information

Improving User Involvement Through Live Collaborative Creation

Creating an artifact - such as writing a book, developing software, or performing a piece of music - is often limited to those with domain-specific experience or training. As a consequence, effectively involving non-expert end users in such creative processes is challenging. This work explores how computational systems can facilitate collaboration, communication, and participation in the context of involving users in the process of creating artifacts while mitigating the challenges inherent to such processes. In particular, the interactive systems presented in this work support live collaborative creation, in which artifact users collaboratively participate in the artifact creation process with creators in real time. In the systems that I have created, I explored liveness, the extent to which the process of creating artifacts and the state of the artifacts are immediately and continuously perceptible, for applications such as programming, writing, music performance, and UI design. Liveness helps preserve natural expressivity, supports real-time communication, and facilitates participation in the creative process. Live collaboration is beneficial for users and creators alike: making the process of creation visible encourages users to engage in the process and better understand the final artifact. Additionally, creators can receive immediate feedback in a continuous, closed loop with users. Through these interactive systems, non-expert participants help create such artifacts as GUI prototypes, software, and musical performances. This dissertation explores three topics: (1) the challenges inherent to collaborative creation in live settings, and computational tools that address them; (2) methods for reducing the barriers of entry to live collaboration; and (3) approaches to preserving liveness in the creative process, affording creators more expressivity in making artifacts and affording users access to information traditionally only available in real-time processes. In this work, I showed that enabling collaborative, expressive, and live interactions in computational systems allow the broader population to take part in various creative practices.PHDComputer Science & EngineeringUniversity of Michigan, Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studieshttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/145810/1/snaglee_1.pd

Uso e desempenho de web sites: um estudo de caso.

A Internet é um meio de comunicação remota, inovador, extremamente dinâmico e, cada vez mais, amplamente acessível, que tem adotado uma linguagem própria, inerente à sua natureza multimídia. A Embrapa Monitoramento por Satélite, há mais de uma década, utiliza a Internet como meio de difusão de resultados de pesquisa e de interação com clientes, parceiros e usuários. Com intuito de avaliar o uso do web site por esse público e o desempenho do sistema de comunicação eletrônica envolvido, tem-se utilizado o programa Webalizer que monitora e elabora estatísticas de entradas e saídas do sistema, com base na análise de arquivos de log. Através dos indicadores pelo programa foi possível avaliar aspectos sobre a origem dos acessos, as ações executadas pelos usuários e sobre aspectos do desempenho do sistema em termos de respostas enviadas às solicitações dos usuários. Os resultados podem possibilitar a remodelagem do web site, de modo a melhorar a dinâmica de interação instituição-usuário e promover o desenvolvimento de uma abordagem própria de análise de logs

Behind the computer screens:The use of keystroke logging for genetic criticism applied to born-digital works of literature

The digital environment in which present-day literature is composed, significantly changes the materiality of the sources available for genetic criticism, since common word processors tend to hide the writing operations. This makes it a difficult endeavour to reconstruct the writing process, but does it herald the feared end of genetic criticism??Behind the computer screens argues that this will not be the case as long as genetic criticism adapts to working with digital files. As one of the ways in which genetic criticism can adapt to the Digital Age the study examines the use of one method in particular: keystroke logging. To explore the possibilities of keystroke logging, the study analyses literary writing processes logged with the keystroke logging software Inputlog.When examining all this keystroke logging data, the writing process can be studied at an unprecedented level of granularity, such as the sequentiality of text production and revision. The fine-grained data of keystroke logging therefore allows for a new type of what this study calls ‘nanogenetic’ research, including examining typing habits, the triggers of text production and revision, aspects of discovery in writing, and the transformation of sources during the writing process. The study also explores how genetic narratology may be enriched by keystroke logging data. It examines how and when details of aspects of the narrative text are integrated into the text and how they change during the writing process. When authors are willing to record their writing processes with a keystroke logging tool, the future of genetic criticism seems full of possibilities.<br/

An Instructional Handbook for Creating a Fourth Grade Classroom Home Page

When technology is used in the classroom, students are prepared for the future, the individual needs of students can be met, students are provided with interactive learning and the value of computers are demonstrated to students and faculty. The purpose of this project was to develop a handbook for teachers of fourth grade students at Church Creek Elementary in the Stanwood - Camano School District that would assist in creating a classroom web page. The web page would allow parents and other interested parties to see what was taking place in the classroom. In order to create the handbook, the researcher examined current research on what is available for classroom use and the benefits of using technology in the classroom

Biometrics

Biometrics-Unique and Diverse Applications in Nature, Science, and Technology provides a unique sampling of the diverse ways in which biometrics is integrated into our lives and our technology. From time immemorial, we as humans have been intrigued by, perplexed by, and entertained by observing and analyzing ourselves and the natural world around us. Science and technology have evolved to a point where we can empirically record a measure of a biological or behavioral feature and use it for recognizing patterns, trends, and or discrete phenomena, such as individuals' and this is what biometrics is all about. Understanding some of the ways in which we use biometrics and for what specific purposes is what this book is all about

Vapriikki case : design and evaluation of an interactive mixed-reality museum exhibit

Museums have the challenging job of educating while entertaining. In their attempt to achieve such, they have introduced the concept of “hands-on” exhibits, where visitors can interact first-hand with the phenomena being displayed. With the emergence of new technologies and devices, museums have exploited the opportunities hands-on exhibits can offer to further enhance interactivity. At the same time, researchers and museum workers have become aware of the importance of conducting evaluations to guide and assess the design and development process of these exhibits. Traditionally, exhibit evaluations have utilized ethnographically-oriented methods and gathered all data manually. Though some studies have used log file analysis to explore interaction patterns, evaluations still heavily rely on the traditional methods. This thesis explores the design and evaluation processes of interactive exhibits by presenting a case study of the interactive replica of Abraham Edelcrantz’s shutter telegraph developed for the Vapriikki Museum in Tampere, Finland. Additionally, this work investigates the usage of a semi-automated log analysis in combination with qualitative methods to evaluate interactive museum exhibits. The results of this thesis show that a semi-automated method can be used to separate and analyze sessions and conduct a longitudinal analysis on interactive exhibits. Furthermore, our findings indicate that the exhibit satisfied visitors with different interests because of its multiple appealing elements: problem-solving challenge, communication aspect and historical significance. Additionally, results show that interaction and collaboration in groups differs depending the age composition of group members. Finally, this thesis presents a set of design guidelines for interactive exhibits

Integrating Usability Models into Pervasive Application Development

This thesis describes novel processes in two important areas of human-computer interaction (HCI) and demonstrates ways to combine these in appropriate ways. First, prototyping plays an essential role in the development of complex applications. This is especially true if a user-centred design process is followed. We describe and compare a set of existing toolkits and frameworks that support the development of prototypes in the area of pervasive computing. Based on these observations, we introduce the EIToolkit that allows the quick generation of mobile and pervasive applications, and approaches many issues found in previous works. Its application and use is demonstrated in several projects that base on the architecture and an implementation of the toolkit. Second, we present novel results and extensions in user modelling, specifically for predicting time to completion of tasks. We extended established concepts such as the Keystroke-Level Model to novel types of interaction with mobile devices, e.g. using optical markers and gestures. The design, creation, as well as a validation of this model are presented in some detail in order to show its use and usefulness for making usability predictions. The third part is concerned with the combination of both concepts, i.e. how to integrate user models into the design process of pervasive applications. We first examine current ways of developing and show generic approaches to this problem. This leads to a concrete implementation of such a solution. An innovative integrated development environment is provided that allows for quickly developing mobile applications, supports the automatic generation of user models, and helps in applying these models early in the design process. This can considerably ease the process of model creation and can replace some types of costly user studies.Diese Dissertation beschreibt neuartige Verfahren in zwei wichtigen Bereichen der Mensch-Maschine-Kommunikation und erläutert Wege, diese geeignet zu verknüpfen. Zum einen spielt die Entwicklung von Prototypen insbesondere bei der Verwendung von benutzerzentrierten Entwicklungsverfahren eine besondere Rolle. Es werden daher auf der einen Seite eine ganze Reihe vorhandener Arbeiten vorgestellt und verglichen, die die Entwicklung prototypischer Anwendungen speziell im Bereich des Pervasive Computing unterstützen. Ein eigener Satz an Werkzeugen und Komponenten wird präsentiert, der viele der herausgearbeiteten Nachteile und Probleme solcher existierender Projekte aufgreift und entsprechende Lösungen anbietet. Mehrere Beispiele und eigene Arbeiten werden beschrieben, die auf dieser Architektur basieren und entwickelt wurden. Auf der anderen Seite werden neue Forschungsergebnisse präsentiert, die Erweiterungen von Methoden in der Benutzermodellierung speziell im Bereich der Abschätzung von Interaktionszeiten beinhalten. Mit diesen in der Dissertation entwickelten Erweiterungen können etablierte Konzepte wie das Keystroke-Level Model auf aktuelle und neuartige Interaktionsmöglichkeiten mit mobilen Geräten angewandt werden. Der Entwurf, das Erstellen sowie eine Validierung der Ergebnisse dieser Erweiterungen werden detailliert dargestellt. Ein dritter Teil beschäftigt sich mit Möglichkeiten die beiden beschriebenen Konzepte, zum einen Prototypenentwicklung im Pervasive Computing und zum anderen Benutzermodellierung, geeignet zu kombinieren. Vorhandene Ansätze werden untersucht und generische Integrationsmöglichkeiten beschrieben. Dies führt zu konkreten Implementierungen solcher Lösungen zur Integration in vorhandene Umgebungen, als auch in Form einer eigenen Applikation spezialisiert auf die Entwicklung von Programmen für mobile Geräte. Sie erlaubt das schnelle Erstellen von Prototypen, unterstützt das automatische Erstellen spezialisierter Benutzermodelle und ermöglicht den Einsatz dieser Modelle früh im Entwicklungsprozess. Dies erleichtert die Anwendung solcher Modelle und kann Aufwand und Kosten für entsprechende Benutzerstudien einsparen