Quality of experience in affective pervasive environments

The confluence of miniaturised powerful devices, widespread communication networks and mass remote storage has caused a fundamental shift in the user interaction design paradigm. The distinction between system and user in pervasive environments is evolving into an increasingly integrated loop of interaction, raising a number of opportunities to provide enhanced and personalised experiences. We propose a platform, based on a smart architecture, to address the identified opportunities in pervasive computing. Smart systems aim at acting upon an environment for improving quality of experience: a subjective measure that has been defined as an emotional reaction to products or services. The inclusion of an emotional dimension allows us to measure individual user responses and deliver personalised services with the potential to influence experiences positively. The platform, Cloud2Bubble, leverages pervasive systems to aggregate user and environment data with the goal of addressing personal preferences and supra-functional requirements. This, combined with its societal implications, results in a set of design principles as a concrete fruition of design contractualism. In particular, this thesis describes: - a review of intelligent ubiquitous environments and relevant technologies, including a definition of user experience as a dynamic affective construct; - a specification of main components for personal data aggregation and service personalisation, without compromising privacy, security or usability; - the implementation of a software platform and a methodological procedure for its instantiation; - an evaluation of the developed platform and its benefits for urban mobility and public transport information systems; - a set of design principles for the design of ubiquitous systems, with an impact on individual experience and collective awareness. Cloud2Bubble contributes towards the development of affective intelligent ubiquitous systems with the potential to enhance user experience in pervasive environments. In addition, the platform aims at minimising the risk of user digital exposure while supporting collective action.Open Acces

Contextual healing: Privacy through interpretation management

Contextual privacy is an essential concept in social software communication. Managing privacy of data disclosed in social software dependence strongly on the context the data is disclosed in. The sheer amount of posts and audiences may lead to context ambiguity. Ambiguity can affect contextual privacy management and effective communication. Current contextual privacy management approaches can be either too complex to use, or too simple to offer fine-grained control. In many cases, it is challenging to strike a balance between effective control and ease-of-use. In this article, we analyse contextual privacy by in relation to context and communication. We examine a relevant contextual privacy management framework based on the maintenance of the interpretation of data. We propose an architecture based on the utilisation of intelligent mechanisms. We conceptually analyse the usability aspect of the proposed architecture. We conclude by arguing how our conceptual framework can enhance communication and privacy in private and public spaces

User-centric privacy preservation in Internet of Things Networks

Recent trends show how the Internet of Things (IoT) and its services are becoming more omnipresent and popular. The end-to-end IoT services that are extensively used include everything from neighborhood discovery to smart home security systems, wearable health monitors, and connected appliances and vehicles. IoT leverages different kinds of networks like Location-based social networks, Mobile edge systems, Digital Twin Networks, and many more to realize these services. Many of these services rely on a constant feed of user information. Depending on the network being used, how this data is processed can vary significantly. The key thing to note is that so much data is collected, and users have little to no control over how extensively their data is used and what information is being used. This causes many privacy concerns, especially for a na ̈ıve user who does not know the implications and consequences of severe privacy breaches. When designing privacy policies, we need to understand the different user data types used in these networks. This includes user profile information, information from their queries used to get services (communication privacy), and location information which is much needed in many on-the-go services. Based on the context of the application, and the service being provided, the user data at risk and the risks themselves vary. First, we dive deep into the networks and understand the different aspects of privacy for user data and the issues faced in each such aspect. We then propose different privacy policies for these networks and focus on two main aspects of designing privacy mechanisms: The quality of service the user expects and the private information from the user’s perspective. The novel contribution here is to focus on what the user thinks and needs instead of fixating on designing privacy policies that only satisfy the third-party applications’ requirement of quality of service

Developing sustainable business models for institutions’ provision of open educational resources: Learning from OpenLearn users’ motivations and experiences

Universities across the globe have, for some time, been exploring the possibilities for achieving public benefit and generating business and visibility through releasing and sharing open educational resources (OER). Many have written about the need to develop sustainable and profitable business models around the production and release of OER. Downes (2006), for example, has questioned the financial sustainability of OER production at scale. Many of the proposed business models focus on OER’s value in generating revenue and detractors of OER have questioned whether they are in competition with formal education. This paper reports on a study intended to broaden the conversation about OER business models to consider the motivations and experiences of OER users as the basis for making a better informed decision about whether OER and formal learning are competitive or complementary with each other. The study focused on OpenLearn - the Open University’s (OU) web-based platform for OER, which hosts hundreds of online courses and videos and is accessed by over 3,000,000 users a year. A large scale survey and follow-up interviews with OpenLearn users worldwide revealed that university provided OER can offer learners a bridge to formal education, allowing them to try out a subject before registering on a formal course and to build confidence in their abilities as learners. In addition, it was found that using OER during formal paid-for study can improve learners’ performance and self-reliance, leading to increased retention and satisfaction with the learning experience

Open educational resources for all? Comparing user motivations and characteristics across The Open University’s iTunes U channel and OpenLearn platform.

With the rise in access to mobile multimedia devices, educational institutions have exploited the iTunes U platform as an additional channel to provide free educational resources with the aim of profile-raising and breaking down barriers to education. For those prepared to invest in content preparation, it is possible to produce interactive, portable material that can be made available globally. Commentators have questioned both the financial implications for platform-specific content production, and the availability of devices for learners to access it (Osborne, 2012). The Open University (OU) makes its free educational resources available on iTunes U and via its web-based open educational resources (OER) platform, OpenLearn. The OU’s OER on iTunes U reached the 60 million download mark in 2013; its OpenLearn platform boasts 27 million unique visitors since 2006. This paper reports the results of a large-scale study of users of the OU’s iTunes U channel and OpenLearn platform. A survey of several thousand users revealed key differences in demographics between those accessing OER via the web and via iTunes U. In addition, the data allowed comparison between three groups: formal learners, informal learners and educators. The study raises questions about whether university-provided OER meet the needs of users and makes recommendations for how content can be modified to suit their needs. As the publishing of OER becomes core to business, we reflect on reasons why understanding users’ motivations and demographics is vital, allowing for needs-led resource provision and content that is adapted to best achieve learner satisfaction, and to deliver institutions’ social mission

A Privacy-Enhancing Framework for Mobile Devices

The use of mobile devices in daily life has increased exponentially, leading to them occupying many essential aspects of people’s lives, such as replacing credit cards to make payments, and for various forms of entertainment and social activities. Therefore, users have installed an enormous number of apps. These apps can collect and share a large amount of data, such as location data, images, videos, health data, and call logs, which are highly valuable and sensitive for users. Consequently, the use of apps raises a variety of privacy concerns regarding which app is allowed to access and share; to what degree of granularity, and how to manage and limit the disclosure of this data. Accordingly, it is imperative to develop and design a holistic solution for enhancing privacy on mobile apps to meet users’ privacy preferences. The research design in this study involved an attempt to address the problem in a coherent and logical way. Therefore, the research involved different phases, starting with identifying potential user requirements based on the literature, and then designing a participatory study to explore whether the initial requirements and design meet users’ preferences, which in turn led to the design of a final artefact. Design science requires the creation of a viable artefact for the current problem in the field. Thus, this study reviews the current use of privacy technologies and critically analyses the available solutions in order to investigate whether these solutions have the capability to meet personal privacy preferences and maximise users’ satisfaction. It is evident that most of the prior studies assume the homogeneity of privacy preferences across users, yet users’ privacy preferences differ from one user to another in the context of how to control and manage their data, prioritisation of information, personalised notifications, and levels of knowledge. Moreover, solutions with a user interface designed according to the users’ perceptions and based on HCI principles are not readily available. Therefore, it is paramount to meet and adopt user’s need and requirements to enhance privacy technology for mobile apps. A survey of 407 mobile users was undertaken to discover users’ privacy preferences. The outcome of the survey shows that it is possible to prioritise information into 10 unique profiles. Each profile effectively represents a cluster of likeminded users and captures their privacy-related information preferences. The outcomes of the analysis also revealed that users differ not only in the context of prioritisation of their information, but also regarding design, protection settings, responses, and level of knowledge. This, in turn, emphasises the need to develop and design a holistic solution for users, considering all these dimensions. As such, the thesis proposes a novel framework for enhancing privacy technology in a modular and robust manner that would support such a system in practice. This system provides a comprehensive solution that has been developed by considering different dimensions, and it includes a personalised response, prioritisation of privacy-related information, multilevel privacy controls, and also considers users’ varying levels of knowledge. As a result, this approach should enhance users’ privacy awareness and meet their needs to protect their privacy. Additionally, the proposed of the system consists of user interfaces designed according to the users’ perceptions and based on HCI principles to overcome the usability issues without compromising the users’ convenience. Ultimately, the evaluation of the effectiveness of the proposed approach shows that it is feasible and would enhance privacy technology as well as user convenience. This, in turn, would increase trust in the system and reduce privacy concerns

Critical infrastructure protection

Postgraduate seminar series with a title Critical Infrastructure Protection held at the Department of Military Technology of the National Defence University. This book is a collection of some of talks that were presented in the seminar. The papers address threat intelligence, a protection of critical supply chains, cyber security in the management of an electricity company, and privacy preserving data mining. This set of papers tries to give some insight to current issues of the critical infrastructure protection. The seminar has always made a publication of the papers but this has been an internal publication of the Finnish Defence Forces and has not hindered publication of the papers in international conferences. Publication of these papers in peer reviewed conferences has indeed been always the goal of the seminar, since it teaches writing conference level papers. We still hope that an internal publication in the department series is useful to the Finnish Defence Forces by offering an easy access to these papers

ECSCW 2013 Adjunct Proceedings The 13th European Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work 21 - 25. September 2013, Paphos, Cyprus

This volume presents the adjunct proceedings of ECSCW 2013.While the proceedings published by Springer Verlag contains the core of the technical program, namely the full papers, the adjunct proceedings includes contributions on work in progress, workshops and master classes, demos and videos, the doctoral colloquium, and keynotes, thus indicating what our field may become in the future

Privacy-invading technologies : safeguarding privacy, liberty & security in the 21st century

With a focus on the growing development and deployment of the latest technologies that threaten privacy, the PhD dissertation argues that the US and UK legal frameworks, in their present form, are inadequate to defend privacy and other civil liberties against the intrusive capabilities of body scanners, CCTV microphones and loudspeakers, human-implantable microchips, and other privacy-intrusive technologies. While there are benefits derived from the use of these technologies in terms of public security, for instance, these benefits do not necessarily need to come at the expense of privacy and liberty overall. The interests of privacy, liberty and security can be balanced and safeguarded concurrently. In order to accomplish this worthy objective, new laws must further regulate directly and proactively the design and manufacture of these privacy-intrusive technologies in the first place, rather than only regulate their use or operation. Manufacturer-level rules/regulations should, therefore, require the incorporation of the fundamental privacy principles through what is known as __Privacy by Design__.LEI Universiteit LeidenEffective Protection of Fundamental Rights in a pluralist worl

Online Socialization and Delinquency: Expanding the Study of Peer Influence in Criminology

Criminologists typically study peer influence within traditional contexts such as schools and neighborhoods. Spurred by the ubiquitous use of electronic devices, recent research finds that online peer delinquency can also have deleterious effects on adolescent behavior. This has important implications for the study of delinquency since youth today are digital natives, meaning their developmental years are spent in a world reliant on technology and Internet-connected devices. Through the use of computer-mediated communication (CMC), adolescents can forge friendships with those found within the cyber context, a virtual environment unrestricted by the confines of space and time. This context not only provides access to a distinct group of online peers, it connects youth with their face-to-face (FTF) friends, thereby enabling instantaneous contact with offline associations. Furthermore, extant research on CMC has revealed that individuals are disinhibited and disclose personal information when communicating online. The cyber context thus (1) extends the view of peer groups by providing access to online peers, (2) increases the frequency, duration, and intensity of contact with existing FTF peers, and (3) affects the content of communication which may alter what is perceived as peer deviance. This dissertation uses self-reported data from a multi-site study of 3,641 middle school students to explore how youth interact with their friends as well as the association between peer delinquency and personal delinquency. Results indicate that few respondents prefer communicating online, but many find it easier to make friends online, and most communicate online with their FTF friends. The cyber context generally does not enable exposure to new peer delinquency; rather, it enhances the peer delinquency of those who are already exposed offline. Moreover, online peer delinquency from those who are not regularly seen in person emerges as a robust, independent predictor of self-reported delinquency. These results are discussed in terms of their implications for how criminologists should proceed with incorporating the cyber context into the study of delinquent peer influence