Designing for reintermediation in the brick-and-mortar world: Towards the travel agency of the future

The Internet and electronic marketplaces have profoundly transformed the travel services industry and challenged the traditional value proposition of travel agencies: What is the reason for their existence if information is abundantly available and transactions can be flexibly conducted in direct buyer-seller interactions on the Internet? Traditional travel agencies are struggling to develop new value propositions which differentiate them against the Internet competition, largely based on expanding their reach through online subsidiaries. We present a reintermediation approach based on a novel way of IT-enabled travel advisory which integrates the advantages of interactive technologies and Internet channels with the advantages of direct customer interaction in the physical agency setting. In particular, we propose a reintermediation framework based on the integration of kernel theories from information seeking behavior, interactive value creation, relationship marketing and the design of hedonic information systems. We argue that physically collocated travel advisory services can create a significant added value, if they succeed in uncovering customers' hidden needs, heightening trust and relationship building in the advisory process and creating a better user experience. Following the design science methodology we validate the proposed framework through the design, implementation and evaluation of a proof-of-concept prototype in a field experiment in a real-world travel agenc

Collaborative Knowledge Visualisation for Cross-Community Knowledge Exchange

The notion of communities as informal social networks based on shared interests or common practices has been increasingly used as an important unit of analysis when considering the processes of cooperative creation and sharing of knowledge. While knowledge exchange within communities has been extensively researched, different studies observed the importance of cross-community knowledge exchange for the creation of new knowledge and innovation in knowledge-intensive organizations. Especially in knowledge management a critical problem has become the need to support the cooperation and exchange of knowledge between different communities with highly specialized expertise and activities. Though several studies discuss the importance and difficulties of knowledge sharing across community boundaries, the development of technological support incorporating these findings has been little addressed. This work presents an approach to supporting cross-community knowledge exchange based on using knowledge visualisation for facilitating information access in unfamiliar community domains. The theoretical grounding and practical relevance of the proposed approach are ensured by defining a requirements model that integrates theoretical frameworks for cross-community knowledge exchange with practical needs of typical knowledge management processes and sensemaking tasks in information access in unfamiliar domains. This synthesis suggests that visualising knowledge structures of communities and supporting the discovery of relationships between them during access to community spaces, could provide valuable support for cross-community discovery and sharing of knowledge. This is the main hypothesis investigated in this thesis. Accordingly, a novel method is developed for eliciting and visualising implicit knowledge structures of individuals and communities in form of dynamic knowledge maps that make the elicited knowledge usable for semantic exploration and navigation of community spaces. The method allows unobtrusive construction of personal and community knowledge maps based on user interaction with information and their use for dynamic classification of information from a specific point of view. The visualisation model combines Document Maps presenting main topics, document clusters and relationships between knowledge reflected in community spaces with Concept Maps visualising personal and shared conceptual structures of community members. The technical realization integrates Kohonen’s self-organizing maps with extraction of word categories from texts, collaborative indexing and personalised classification based on user-induced templates. This is accompanied by intuitive visualisation and interaction with complex information spaces based on multi-view navigation of document landscapes and concept networks. The developed method is prototypically implemented in form of an application framework, a concrete system and a visual information interface for multi-perspective access to community information spaces, the Knowledge Explorer. The application framework implements services for generating and using personal and community knowledge maps to support explicit and implicit knowledge exchange between members of different communities. The Knowledge Explorer allows simultaneous visualisation of different personal and community knowledge structures and enables their use for structuring, exploring and navigating community information spaces from different points of view. The empirical evaluation in a comparative laboratory study confirms the adequacy of the developed solutions with respect to specific requirements of the cross-community problem and demonstrates much better quality of knowledge access compared to a standard information seeking reference system. The developed evaluation framework and operative measures for quality of knowledge access in cross-community contexts also provide a theoretically grounded and practically feasible method for further developing and evaluating new solutions addressing this important but little investigated problem

A Design Framework for Adaptive Gamification Applications

The application of gamification does not always achieve the expected results due to the shortcomings of the quite common one size fits all approach of standard gamification concepts. We therefore propose a design framework that can inform systematic development of adaptive gamification applications. The developed framework draws on the current body of gamification literature, focusing on the emerging research stream of adaptive gamification. It provides design paths and design principles that translate the individual elements into concrete guidelines to assist the design practice. The framework has been successfully applied to the design and implementation of a prototype application using gamification to incentivize knowledge exchange on an existing online platform for physicians in practical medical training. The evaluation in a case study indicated positive user acceptance and increased system usage after the introduction of the developed adaptive gamification solution

DROP and FUNERGY: Two gamified learning projects for water and energy conservation

DROP! is a card game developed by the SmartH2O research consortium, funded by the European FP7 Program. Its goal is to engage people in using a gamified platform which offers a wide set of activities aimed at triggering water saving actions. The game has not been designed as a learning tool but a sort of "fun bridge" to enter the SmartH2O gamified portal and discover how to reduce our daily water consumption. Based on the water saving results achieved with SmartH2O (up to 21% reduction in the case study performed in the city of Valencia) the transfer of the successful approach to the energy domain is being undertaken in a new European project named enCOMPASS, which aims at developing solutions that enable users to save energy without causing a negative impact on their daily quality of life. The project is developing new tools to collect and visualize energy consumption data and to provide personalized recommendations for energy saving in test areas involving schools and public buildings. In conjunction to the tools, a game will also be developed: FUNERGY. In this contribution we present the game concept and lessons learned from the DROP! game for water saving and the first ideas for its adaptation to the energy domain

EnCOMPASS - An integrative approach to behavioural change for energy saving

This paper presents the research objectives of the enCOMPASS project, which aims at implementing and validating an integrated socio-technical approach to behavioural change for energy saving. To this end, innovative user-friendly digital tools will be developed to 1) make energy data consumption available and understandable for different types of users and stakeholders (household residents, office employees, school pupils, building managers, utilities, ICT providers) and to 2) empower them to collaborate in order to achieve energy savings and manage their energy needs in efficient, cost-effective and comfort-preserving ways. The project will demonstrate how this can be achieved with a novel approach that integrates user-centered visualisation of energy data from smart sensors and user-generated information with context-aware collaborative recommendations for energy saving, intelligent control and adaptive gamified incentives enabling effective and sustained behavioural change

Algorithms Aside: Recommendation as the Lens of Life

In this position paper, we take the experimental approach of putting algorithms aside, and reflect on what recommenders would be for people if they were not tied to technology. By looking at some of the shortcomings that current recommenders have fallen into and discussing their limitations from a human point of view, we ask the question: if freed from all limitations, what should, and what could, RecSys be? We then turn to the idea that life itself is the best recommender system, and that people themselves are the query. By looking at how life brings people in contact with options that suit their needs or match their preferences, we hope to shed further light on what current RecSys could be doing better. Finally, we look at the forms that RecSys could take in the future. By formulating our vision beyond the reach of usual considerations and current limitations, including business models, algorithms, data sets, and evaluation methodologies, we attempt to arrive at fresh conclusions that may inspire the next steps taken by the community of researchers working on RecSys

Towards Reflective AI:Needs, Challenges and Directions for Future Research

Harnessing benefits and preventing harms of AI cannot be solved alone through technological fixes and regulation. It depends on a complex interplay between technology, societal governance, individual behaviour, organizational and societal dynamics. Enabling people to understand AI and the consequences of its use and design is a crucial element for ensuring responsible use of AI.In this report we suggest a new framework for the development and use of AI technologies in a way that harnesses the benefits and prevents the harmful effects of AI. We name it Reflective AI. The notion of Reflective AI that we propose calls for adopting a holistic approach in the research and development of AI to investigate both what people need to learn about AI systems to develop better mental models i.e. an experiential knowledge of AI, to be able to use it safely and responsibly, as well as how this can be done and supported

A survey on the design of gamified systems for energy and water sustainability

Abstract In a world affected by the constant growth and concentration of the population in urban areas, the problem of preserving natural resources has become a priority. A promising approach to resource conservation is demand management, i.e., the ability to positively influence the behaviour of the population towards more sustainable consumption. Information and Communication Technology (ICT) tools have shown a great potential in influencing consumers’ behaviour, which could be exploited for the common good. However, the design of so-called persuasive systems for environmental purposes is a challenging task, because it cannot be based solely on the utilitarian motivation of users, but must be able to trigger a broader range of engagement factors deeply rooted in the human psychology. In this paper, we review the main design principles and models at the base of a class of persuasive system that exploits gamification and Games with a Purpose (GWAPs) to engage users towards sustainability; we identify the most commonly used incentive mechanisms for inducing behavioural changes; and present a selection of gamified systems for energy and water conservation. From such a survey, we distill design guidelines to be applied in the design of demand management socio-technical systems