Improving course related information of computing degree courses for enhancing learner development

In this paper, I present action research based on Norton's ITDEM model (Norton, 2009), which I applied to investigate an observed course related information problem in the Department of Computer Science and Technology, University of Bedfordshire. The data collection was a combination of both interviews and surveys. Three lecturers and 100 students from the department participated in the action research. The collected data was analysed using thematic and content analysis. The findings of the investigation identified a problem in course related information integration and presentation. Both the lecturers and some students thought that the problem has impacted on the students' learning and development. In an effort to tackle the problem, useful approaches proposed by other universities and the valuable suggestions made by the participants have been collected for further investigation and adaptation. Overall, action research is found to be a helpful methodology to improve course related information of computing degree courses, which will not only help prospective students' course selection and enhance existing students' learning and development, but also build up the department's and university's reputation

Supporting World War I heritage digitisation and presentation through user-centered web design

© 2016 IEEE. Personal use of this material is permitted. Permission from IEEE must be obtained for all other uses, in any current or future media, including reprinting/republishing this material for advertising or promotional purposes, creating new collective works, for resale or redistribution to servers or lists, or reuse of any copyrighted component of this work in other works.This paper presents a user-centered website design for a museum, which aims to engage local communities with museum digitisation and encourage residents to access and learn about their World War I (WWI) heritage in town. The interface design of the website follows human computer interaction (HCI) design guidelines and based on the review of existing WWI related websites. Considering the majority of users of the website are elderly people, the website especially provides features to support the elderly users. The website will not only contribute to the museum digital transformation project on WWI, but also improve the connection between the museum and the local community through widening the participation

Theory-based user modeling for personalized interactive information retrieval

In an effort to improve users’ search experiences during their information seeking process, providing a personalized information retrieval system is proposed to be one of the effective approaches. To personalize the search systems requires a good understanding of the users. User modeling has been approved to be a good method for learning and representing users. Therefore many user modeling studies have been carried out and some user models have been developed. The majority of the user modeling studies applies inductive approach, and only small number of studies employs deductive approach. In this paper, an EISE (Extended Information goal, Search strategy and Evaluation threshold) user model is proposed, which uses the deductive approach based on psychology theories and an existing user model. Ten users’ interactive search log obtained from the real search engine is applied to validate the proposed user model. The preliminary validation results show that the EISE model can be applied to identify different types of users. The search preferences of the different user types can be applied to inform interactive search system design and development

FSOS: a tool for recommending suitable operating systems to computer users

© 2016 IEEE. Personal use of this material is permitted. Permission from IEEE must be obtained for all other uses, in any current or future media, including reprinting/republishing this material for advertising or promotional purposes, creating new collective works, for resale or redistribution to servers or lists, or reuse of any copyrighted component of this work in other works.Operating system is essential to operate computers. Normally, computers come with preloaded operating systems. However, often the preloaded operating systems are not able to fulfill all requirements of users. The users sometimes need to change the operating system based on their needs. Although some comparative studies and tools are available on operating systems, there is still a lack of tools that provide independent and objective review and recommendation to help the users understand and select from all major operating systems. This paper propose a tool called FSOS, which analyses well-known operating systems used at domestic, commercial and industrial level and suggest suitable operating systems to the users as per their requirements

Exploration of applying a theory-based user classification model to inform personalised content-based image retrieval system design

© ACM, 2016. This is the author's version of the work. It is posted here by permission of ACM for your personal use. Not for redistribution. The definitive version was published at http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=2903636To better understand users and create more personalised search experiences, a number of user models have been developed, usually based on different theories or empirical data study. After developing the user models, it is important to effectively utilise them in the design, development and evaluation of search systems to improve users’ overall search experiences. However there is a lack of research has been done on the utilisation of the user models especially theory-based models, because of the challenges on the utilization methodologies when applying the model to different search systems. This paper explores and states how to apply an Information Foraging Theory (IFT) based user classification model called ISE to effectively identify user’s search characteristics and create user groups, based on an empirically-driven methodology for content-based image retrieval (CBIR) systems and how the preferences of different user types inform the personalized design of the CBIR systems

Applying Cross-cultural theory to understand users’ preferences on interactive information retrieval platform design

Presented at EuroHCIR 2014, the 4th European Symposium on Human-Computer Interaction and Information Retrieval, 13th September 2014, at BCS London Office, Covent Garden, London.In this paper we look at using culture to group users and model the users’ preference on cross cultural information retrieval, in order to investigate the relationship between the user search preferences and the user’s cultural background. Initially we review and discuss briefly website localisation. We continue by examining culture and Hofstede’s cultural dimensions. We identified a link between Hofstede’s five dimensions and user experience. We did an analogy for each of the five dimensions and developed six hypotheses from the analogies. These hypotheses were then tested by means of a user study. Whilst the key findings from the study suggest cross cultural theory can be used to model user’s preferences for information retrieval, further work still needs to be done on how cultural dimensions can be applied to inform the search interface design

Learning computing heritage through gaming – whilst teaching digital development through history

This paper analyses the potential of computer games and interactive projects within the learning programmes for cultural heritage institutions through our experiences working in partnership between higher education and a museum. Gamification is cited as a key disruptive technology for the business and enterprise community, and developments in games technology are also driving the expansion of digital media into all different screen spaces, and various platforms. Our research aims to take these as beneficial indicators for pedagogic development, using gaming to support knowledge transfer related to a museum setting, and using the museum as a key scenario for our students to support the practice of game development. Thus gamification is applied as both a topic and a methodology for educational purposes

A framework for understanding user interaction with content-based image retrieval: model, interface and users

User interaction is essential to the communication between users and content-based image retrieval (CBIR) systems. User interaction covers three key elements: an interaction model, an interactive interface and users. The three key elements combine to enable effective interaction to happen. Many studies have investigated different aspects of user interaction. However, there is lack of research in combining all three elements in an integrated manner, especially through well-principled data analysis based on a systematic user study. In this thesis, we investigate the combination of all three elements for interactive CBIR. We first propose uInteract - a framework including a novel four-factor user interaction model (FFUIM) and an interactive interface. The FFUIM aims to improve interaction and search accuracy of the relevance feedback mechanism for CBIR. The interface delivers the FFUIM visually, aiming to support users in grasping how the interaction model functions and how best to manipulate it. The framework is tested in three task-based and user-oriented comparative evaluations, which involves 12 comparative systems, 12 real life scenario tasks and 50 subjects. The quantitative data analysis shows encouraging observations on ease of use and usefulness of the proposed framework, and also reveals a large variance of the results depending on different user types. Accordingly, based on Information Foraging Theory, we further propose a user classification model along three user interaction dimensions: information goals (I), search strategies (S) and evaluation thresholds (E) of users. To our best knowledge, this is the first principled user classification model in CBIR. The model is operated and verified by a systematic qualitative data analysis based on multi linear regression on the real user interaction data from comparative user evaluations. From final quantitative and qualitative data analysis based on the ISE model, we have established what different types of users like about the framework and their preferences for interactive CBIR systems. Our findings offer useful guidelines for interactive search system design, evaluation and analysis

Structural, Electronic and Optical Properties of CsMI3(M=Ge,Sn,Pb) Perovskite from First Principles

The all-inorganic lead halide perovskites has received wide attention in optoelectronic applications such as solar cells and light-emitting diodes due to its high photoabsorption, suitable bandgap and good stability. Based on the first principles, the electronic structure and optical properties of the structure are studied by substituting all the lead elements in CsPbI3 with Ge and Sn.We found that the structural stability of all the substituted materials was enhanced. The tolerance factors of CsGeI3 and CsSnI3 were 0.934 and 0.874, respectively. The most important point is to replace the toxic Pb element, which not only reduces environmental pollution but also can be more suitable for commercial production. By analyzing the imaginary part of the dielectric function and absorption coefficient, it is found that the blue shift occurs in all the materials which replace Pb element, and the absorption ability of sun light is stronger in the visible light range, which proves the foundation for lead free perovskite solar cells

Cusps of Bishop Spherical Indicatrixes and Their Visualizations

The main result of this paper is using Bishop Frame and “Type-2 Bishop Frame” to study the cusps of Bishop spherical images and type-2 Bishop spherical images which are deeply related to a space curve and to make them visualized by computer. We find that the singular points of the Bishop spherical images and type-2 Bishop spherical images correspond to the point where Bishop curvatures and type-2 Bishop curvatures vanished and their derivatives are not equal to zero. As applications and illustration of the main results, two examples are given