Measuring the Application of Anthropomorphic Gamification for Transitional Care; A Goal-Question Metric Approach

The gamification of anthropomorphic interfaces is one of technology interventions in health. Applying them into transitional care may encourage a patient to learn about their condition, so that they are able to self-manage. This research is based on the researcher’s previous developed framework to develop a rigorous scale that assesses the applicability of anthropomorphic interfaces gamification for transitional care in an application. By measuring, it may inform the software developer or designer of the design requirement for the application. We adopt a Goal-Question-Metric (GQM) approach to develop a new measurement instrument. The GQM offered a stepwise approach to refine a theoretical perspective of anthropomorphic gamification for transition care into measurable values. Thus, this research presents how the measurement items can be created using GQM. Later, these items will be grouped together as an instrument called Transitional Anthropomorphs Gamification Scale (TAGS). This instrument needs for further validation, ensuring they measured the right construct

Assistive tools towards personal learning environment in higher education

This study explores the tools and materials used in personal learning environment (PLE) by investigating the impact of embedding a mashup technology into learning environment. With Web 2.0 technologies, mashing up several materials into learning repository helps learners to form their own scope of learning. A PLE mashup model is suggested in determining suitable tools and materials. Based on the current trends in Web 2.0, another aspect of PLE that could be further investigated is the adoption of social media application for formal higher education level. A study on student perception shows a positive acceptance towards PLE in their learning activities. In order to serve as learning tool, how the technology could be implemented, and its limitation towards efficiency was highlighted

The emerging of rich internet applications in web applications: their usability towards good user experience

The internet technology has been evolved from static web information to dynamic web presentation and now come to the rich internet application environment. The evolvement come through due to pursue the massive web technologies in Rich Internet Application (RIA). The main emphasis of this project is to evaluate the application usability concerning of two feedback types. One of these would be an e-commerce application system with RIA implementation and the other would be a standard e-commerce application. In order to determine the direction of this experiment, an empirical study was conducted with 62 participants where all of them were undergraduate students. This study was implementing a within users design as a method for this experiment. An e-commerce application system was developed as a model to obtain the evaluation result. Statistical analysis was then applied to present the significant outcome. There was a statistically significant difference for this preference where it is clearly showed that in this context of study, an e-commerce application system with the presence of RIA element gives a significant result and thus, user preferred the RIA implementation for this e-commerce web application

Retrieval based on skin color to detect the malicious images

Image filtering and retrieval application process has been explored widely. The most basic filtering and retrieval system that is based on extensions of textual database search, is a system where keywords interpreting the images usually describing the certain aspects of the image content. Digital image processing algorithms should extract all the relevant features from the image in the same way a human would do. Unfortunately, it is far beyond our knowledge. There still a lot of current algorithms are quite successful in using low-level features of the images such as color histogram and texture. This paper presents an enhancement method of image retrieval. The enhancement method will partitioned the image into sub-regions and the frequency of skin color in each sub-region will be calculated based on skin color and texture features. Over than 80% of skin color is defined as a malicious image. This method was then implemented in our experiment in order to verify whether the enhancement method has successful on determining the image is a malicious image or not. 100 participants have been involved in this experiment where all of them are student from University Malaysia Sabah, Labuan International Campus. Based on the testing and experiment activity, it is clearly showed that our method could retrieve and define a malicious image. However, the limitation is still there to be improved in the future

Developing Virtual Data Warehouse for Rehabilitation Registry in Sabah, Borneo: Towards Big Data Analytics and Geomapping

Clinical registry, defined as an organised system for the collection, storage, retrieval, analysis, and dissemination of information on individuals with a condition that predisposes to the occurrence of a health-related event, are designed through data repository or data warehouse. Data repository is described as a real-time database that consolidates data from a variety of clinical sources that offers a comprehensive source for storage and retrieval of relevant clinical information needed. However, data warehouse is a data repository that concentrates on data queries and data analytics. Rehabilitation registry in Malaysia is still at its infancy with lack of data sharing and integration. As rehabilitation is a subspecialty concerned with the prevention, diagnosis, and rehabilitation of disabling conditions, a registry would allow identification of patients’ demographics, clinical and functional outcomes improvement, benchmarking the delivery of rehabilitation services, and research purposes. The application of virtual data warehouse, cloud computing, big data analytics and geomapping for clinical registries have been implemented well in countries like China and United Kingdom. The main objectives of this research-in-progress paper are to demonstrate the feasibility of developing and designing virtual data warehouse framework based on cloud computing technology, in an attempt towards big data analytics and geomapping implementation for inpatient rehabilitation registry in Sabah, Malaysia

Modelling the player and avatar attachment based on student’s engagement and attention in educational games

The Player and Avatar attachment help to motivate a student to strengthen their engagement in gameplay. The different types of avatar designs deployed in a game have an impact on students' engagements. The avatars are designed with different roles, wherein each role offers varying motivational effects on students' engagement. Several research in human and computer interaction have assessed user engagement and user attention in a computer or system application as well as in gameplay. Among the usual approaches to assess user engagement are using questionnaire and eye-tracking. Investigating the possible use of these approaches in determining the player and avatar attachment, particularly the attachment that associated with the various avatar designs and their effect on students' engagement are inconclusive and remains untapped. Essentially, studying students' engagement and attention perception while learning enriches one's comprehension about engagement in the education segment. As such, this study proposes a new model of player and avatar attachment based on the students' engagement and focus attention on the gameplay of digital educational games (DEGs). The model is developed follows a stepwise approach consisting component identification, relationship of the components, model development, and model validation. Several components were scrutinized, summarized, and developed into the model proposed in this study. A significant attachment can determine the avatar design that may influence a student's engagement in gameplay. Hence, this study offers several constructive recommendations for future avatars in game design for education purpose, which may validate the user's engagement based on his or her focus attention

A survey on gamification for health rehabilitation care: applications, opportunities, and open challenges

Research trends in gamification have shown a significant diversity in various areas of e-health, particularly in addressing the issues of rehabilitation and physical activity. Rehabilitation requires better engaging tools that help to increase the patient’s motivation and engagement in particular forms of rehabilitation training. Adopting gamification in rehabilitation offers different treatment and care environments when implementing rehabilitation training. As gamification is increasingly being explored in rehabilitation, one might not realize that using various techniques in gamified applications yields a different effect on gameplay. To date, varied gamification techniques have been utilized to provide useful experiences from the perspective of health applications. However, a limited number of surveys have investigated the gamification of rehabilitation and the use of suitable game techniques for rehabilitation in the literature. The objective of this paper is to examine and analyze the existing gamification techniques for rehabilitation applications. A classification of rehabilitation gamification is developed based on the rehabilitation gamifying requirements and the gamification characteristics that are commonly applied in rehabilitation applications. This classification is the main contribution of this paper. It provides insight for researchers and practitioners into suitable techniques to design and apply gamification with increased motivation and sustainable engagement for rehabilitation treatment and care. In addition, different game elements, selection blocks, and gamification techniques are identified for application in rehabilitation. In conclusion, several challenges and research opportunities are discussed to improve gamification deployment in rehabilitation in the futur

Avatar design types and user engagement in digital educational games during evaluation phase

Avatar design types can range from human representations to abstract representations. In digital educational games (DEGs), avatars are frequently used to encourage users to play the game. However, the role of avatar design types and their engagement in digital games are still unclear and empirically under research. Therefore, a bespoke digital educational game in geography was developed and validated by six expert users. Then forty-five users participated in the evaluation phase to investigate engagement and avatar types on digital educational games using the user engagement scale (UES). The results reported aesthetics and satisfaction factors somehow influenced the avatar design types, but none of the UES subscales was influenced by preferred avatar design types. Moreover, the human-cartoon avatar, which was not entirely human and cartoonish, was the most popular avatar design type among young adults. Other issues discussed for future developers and research included incorporating more avatar design selections into the study, integrating social interaction features into the game, using the same drawing style for avatars and provide easy access to the bespoke game during data collection

A Food Waste Mobile Gamified Application Design Model using UX Agile Approach in Malaysia

Food waste is a significant worldwide issue in landfill management. Due to improper implementation, technology applications related to food waste collection and its management system are still lacking in practice. The available applications have yet to address the issue of food waste management. Constructing an interactive mobile application is necessary for managing food waste collection for the decomposition process using Black Soldier Fly (BSF) treatment. Furthermore, as the mobile application requires participation from various user backgrounds, maintaining user involvement has become a priority. Gamification has emerged as one of the approaches that might favorably affect individual engagement behavior. A comprehensive game element design is required where it focuses on how gamification can influence user engagement. This study aims to model the food waste gamified mobile application design to benefit Malaysia's decomposition ecosystem. It includes gamification, management features, and data visualization for reporting and will involve users from households, businesses, and the BSF farm. This paper presents the modelling process of a new mobile application design for this concept of study. The UX agile approach was used in gathering and designing the application requirements as it allows for active participation from all stakeholders. The result shows that the experts agree on the application design. This research will indirectly benefit the BSF industry in Malaysia, and it will have a significant impact on gamification, user experience, and food waste management in the direction of a sustainable environment

Avatar design types and user engagement in digital educational games during evaluation phase

Avatar design types can range from human representations to abstract representations. In digital educational games (DEGs), avatars are frequently used to encourage users to play the game. However, the role of avatar design types and their engagement in digital games are still unclear and empirically under research. Therefore, a bespoke digital educational game in geography was developed and validated by six expert users. Then forty-five users participated in the evaluation phase to investigate engagement and avatar types on digital educational games using the user engagement scale (UES). The results reported aesthetics and satisfaction factors somehow influenced the avatar design types, but none of the UES subscales was influenced by preferred avatar design types. Moreover, the human-cartoon avatar, which was not entirely human and cartoonish, was the most popular avatar design type among young adults. Other issues discussed for future developers and research included incorporating more avatar design selections into the study, integrating social interaction features into the game, using the same drawing style for avatars and provide easy access to the bespoke game during data collection