Developing evaluation tools for assessing the educational potential of apps for preschool children in the UK

Selecting high quality apps can be challenging for caregivers and educators. We here develop tools evaluating educational potential of apps for preschool children. In Study 1, we developed two complementary evaluation tools tailored to different audiences. We grounded them in developmental theory and linked them to research on children’s experience with digital media. In Study 2 we applied these tools to a wide sample of apps in order to illustrate their use and to address the role of cost in quality of educational apps. There are concerns that a social disadvantage may lead to a digital disadvantage, an “app gap”. We thus applied our tools to the most popular free (N=19) and paid (N=24) apps targeting preschoolers. We found that the “app gap” associated with cost is only related to some aesthetic features of apps rather than any observable educational advantage proffered by paid apps. Our study adds a novel contribution to the research on children’s apps by developing tools to be used across a wide range of audiences, providing the first description of the quantity of app design features during app use and evaluating the educational potential of free and paid apps

High-temperature batteries for geothermal and oil/gas borehole applications

A literature survey and technical evaluation was carried out of past and present battery technologies with the goal of identifying appropriate candidates for use in geothermal borehole and, to a lesser extent, oil/gas boreholes. The various constraints that are posed by such an environment are discussed. The promise as well as the limitations of various candidate technologies are presented. Data for limited testing of a number of candidate systems are presented and the areas for additional future work are detailed. The use of low-temperature molten salts shows the most promise for such applications and includes those that are liquid at room temperature. The greatest challenges are to develop an appropriate electrochemical couple that is kinetically stable with the most promising electrolytes--both organic as well as inorganic--over the wide operating window that spans both borehole environments

Being user-oriented: convergences, divergences, and the potentials for systematic dialogue between disciplines and between researchers, designers, and providers

The challenge this panel addresses is drawn from intersecting literature reviews and critical commentaries focusing on: 1) user studies in multiple fields; and 2) the difficulties of bringing different disciplines and perspectives to bear on user‐oriented research, design, and practice. 1 The challenge is that while we have made some progress in collaborative work, we have some distance to go to become user‐oriented in inter‐disciplinary and inter‐perspective ways. The varieties of our approaches and solutions are, as some observers suggest, an increasing cacophony. One major difficulty is that most discussions are solution‐oriented, offering arguments of this sort ‐‐ if only we addressed users in this way… Each solution becomes yet another addition to the cacophony. This panel implements a central approach documented for its utility by communication researchers and long used by communication mediators and negotiators ‐‐ that of focusing not on communication but rather on meta‐communication: communicating about communication. The intent in the context of this panel is to help us refocus attention from too frequent polarizations between alternative solutions to the possibility of coming to understand what is behind the alternatives and where they point to experientially‐based convergences and divergences, both of which might potentially contribute to synergies. The background project for this panel comes from a series of in‐depth interviews with expert researchers, designers, and providers in three field groupings ‐‐ library and information science; human computer interaction/information technology; and communication and media studies. One set of interviews involved 5‐hour focus groups with directors of academic and public libraries serving 44 colleges and universities in central Ohio; the second involved one‐on‐one interviews averaging 50 minutes with 81 nationally‐internationally known experts in the 3 fields, 25‐27 interviews per field. Using Dervin\u27s Sense‐Making Methodological approach to interviewing, the expert interviews of both kinds asked each interviewee: what he/she considered to be the big unanswered questions about users and what explained why the questions have not been answered; and, what he/she saw as hindering versus helping in attempts to communicate about users across disciplinary and perspective gaps. 2 The panel consists of six teams, two from each field. Prior to the panel presentation at ASIST, each team will have read the set of interviews and completed impressionistic essays of what patterns and themes they saw as emerging. At this stage, team members will purposively not homogenize their differences and most will write solo‐authored essays that will be placed on a web‐site accessible to ASIST members prior to the November meeting. In addition, at least one systematic analysis will be completed and available online. 3 At the ASIST panel, each team\u27s leader will present a brief and intentionally provocative impressionist account of what his/her team came to understand about our struggles communicating across fields and perspectives about users. Again, each team will purposively not homogenize its own differences in viewpoints, but rather highlight them as fodder for discussion. A major purpose will be to invite audience members to join the panel in discussion. At least 20 minutes will be left open for this purpose

Quality of experience-LAOS : create once, use many, use anywhere

This paper proposes QoE-LAOS, a Quality of Experience-oriented adaptive authoring model that enables performance-aware adaptation. It extends the existing LAOS authoring model in order to consider display and delivery performance issues. QoE-LAOS involves the addition of three new QoE sublayers: QoE Content Features sublayer, QoE Characteristics sublayer and QoE Rules sublayer. These proposed QoE sublayers are deployed at LAOS's Domain, Adaptation and Presentation Models, respectively. This paper formalises and exemplifies QoE-LAOS and discusses authoring-related issues in relation to each new sublayer