Amberg, Michael

Wehrmann, Jens

English

AIS Electronic Library (AISeL)

Association for Information SystemsAIS Electronic Library (AISeL)AMCIS 2002 Proceedings Americas Conference on Information Systems(AMCIS)December 2002A FRAMEWORK FOR THECLASSIFICATION OF SITUATIONDEPENDENT SERVICESMichael AmbergUniversity of Erlangen-NurembergJens WehrmannUniversity of Erlangen-NurembergFollow this and additional works at: http://aisel.aisnet.org/amcis2002This material is brought to you by the Americas Conference on Information Systems (AMCIS) at AIS Electronic Library (AISeL). It has been acceptedfor inclusion in AMCIS 2002 Proceedings by an authorized administrator of AIS Electronic Library (AISeL). For more information, please contactelibrary@aisnet.org.Recommended CitationAmberg, Michael and Wehrmann, Jens, "A FRAMEWORK FOR THE CLASSIFICATION OF SITUATION DEPENDENTSERVICES" (2002). AMCIS 2002 Proceedings. 253.http://aisel.aisnet.org/amcis2002/2531838 2002  Eighth Americas Conference on Information SystemsA FRAMEWORK FOR THE CLASSIFICATION OFSITUATION DEPENDENT SERVICESMichael Amberg and Jens WehrmannUniversity of Erlangen-Nurembergamberg@wiso.uni-erlangen.de jens.wehrmann@wiso.uni-erlangen.deAbstractSituation Dependent Services are services that significantly depend on the users situation. Considering theindividual needs such services are regarded to be more beneficial to the customer than non-individual services.For the development of Situation Dependent Services it is necessary to better understand the measurableaspects of a users situation that are relevant for customizing a service. From this point of view the paperexamines the term situation in more detail and summarizes the relevant aspects for mobile and internetservices in a framework. By now, the framework helps to classify the level of situation dependency of a serviceand provides an overview of major technologies that are applicable. In the future, it is intended to expand theframework to provide a methodical help for the development and improvement of Situation Dependent Services.IntroductionSituation Dependent Services (SDS) are services that significantly depend on the customers situation and his individual needs.They are especially relevant for internet and mobile services. For instance the mobile operators in Europe made huge investmentsin the UMTS licenses and infrastructure. Therefore the mobile operators are forced to support profitable services to gain a returnon their investments. On the internet the competition between different service providers lead to the development andimprovement of services that better enhance the fulfillment of the demands and expectations of their customers and evenlegitimate rising prices.Table 1.  Chances and Risks of Situation Dependent ServicesTo Service Provider To Customer (User)Chances Competitive Services New Business Models New Marketing Methods Positive Image Individualized Services Better Comfort & Faster Navigation Efficient Search for Services Effective use of infrastructureRisks High Start Investment Possible Malfunction Little Experience Legal and Security Concerns Wrong Adaptations Bad Performance Protection of Privacy  Transparent IndividualThe value of SDS is expected to benefit the customers as well as the service providers. A comparison of chances and risks of SDShelps to identify relevant factors. Table 1 compares the chances and the risks of Situation Dependent Services over the internetand mobile devices from both a service providers and a customers point of view. A service provider extends his opportunitiesto provide more attractive services, establish new business models and increase revenue. The customer is given individualizedand context sensitive services faster and more effectively. On the other side, the arising risks must also be considered. Newtechnologies are needed to automate the customization of a service to the individual demands. As the value of personalinformation increases and the exchange of digital profiles is been facilitated, they may become an object of interest and trade.Thus, the protection of privacy becomes an important factor to be considered.Amberg & Wehrmann/A Framework for SDS2002  Eighth Americas Conference on Information Systems 1839Initial examples for SDS are mobile Location Based Services or personalized internet services. By now, LBS are based on a lowlevel of situation dependency and use mostly simple filtering techniques with database lookups. For the development of serviceswith a higher level of situation dependency, it is necessary to get a better understanding of the users situation. Therefore, the termsituation is examined in more detail in this paper. The measurable aspects of a users situation, that may be relevant forcustomizing a service, are summarized in a framework. The paper also provides an overview of major technologies that are usedto determine the users situation automatically.Understanding the Users SituationDepending on the scope of interest, there are several definitions of the term situation. For the development of SDS, it issufficient to define a users situation as the totality of all aspects that have a measurable influence on the individual. To reducecomplexity furthermore we will focus only on those aspects that are measurable over the internet or mobile devices and arerelevant for customizing a service.Concerning the development of Situation Dependent Services, there are already existing classifications to categorize the relevantaspects of a users situation. These classifications concentrate on mobile and location based services in special. Table 2 comparesthe classifications focused on mobile as well as internet services with the classification proposed in this paper.Table 2.  Comparison of Different Classifications of a Users SituationProposed here Figge (2001) Scheer et. al. (2002) Gessler and Jesse (2000) Time  Time  Time Context  Time Position  Position  Local Context  Location Static Profile Person Personal Context  User Context Dynamic Profile  Action Based Context (Object Context) (General Context)Figge (2001) differentiates only three dimensions and uses these to adapt mobile services. Scheer et al. (2002) differentiates fourtypes of context that are similar to the dimensions proposed here. Their classification is solely used to outline context sensitivityand not to develop and improve SDS. Gessler and Jesse (2000) classify Time, Location and Context. Context is further subdividedinto User Context (the users characteristics), Object Context (other relevant objects nearby i.e. a restaurant) and General Context(other information for example weather). We believe that the Object and General Context do not directly belong to the userssituation but may help to identify the users behavior.In this paper we propose to categorize the measurable aspects of a users situation according to four dimensions: Time, Position,Static and Dynamic Profile. Time and Position are the common and most obvious dimensions that are easy to measure. Time canbe specified absolutely and accurately up to 5*10-9 seconds, whereas the Position is precisely defined by longitude and latitude.The Static Profile summarizes the properties of a person that might change occasionally, only. It includes demographicinformation like identity, name, gender, date of birth and place of residence. The Dynamic Profile describes the behavior of aperson in a particular situation. The main reason for the differentiation of the Static and Dynamic Profile lies in the differenttechniques used to identify relevant aspects. Aspects of the Dynamic Profile are much harder to measure than any other but arestill analyzable (Runte 2000). For instance most web server write log files, which provide an exact protocol of any data transferredfrom and to the user. By analyzing log files, the behavior of a user can be predicted to a certain level.A Framework for the Classification of Situation Dependent ServicesIn this section, a framework is introduced to summarize relevant aspects of a users situation that may be relevant for customizinga service. Additionally, an overview of major technologies is given, that may be used to determine the users situationautomatically.Wireless Information Systems:  M-Commerce and Beyond1840 2002  Eighth Americas Conference on Information SystemsTable 3.  A Framework for SDSDimension Metaphor State of the Art TechnologiesStatus Quoof UseMajorProblem ExamplesTime When? Clock, Calendar Seldom used FindingsuitableapplicationsAlternateappearance ofwebsites at differentpoints of timePosition Where? Global Positioning System (GPS),Assisted GPS (A-GPS), EnhancedObserved Time Difference (E-OTD),Cell of Origin (COO), Cell GlobalIdentity Timing Advance (CGI-TA),Time of Arrival (TOA)Often used by explicituser requestProtection ofprivacyLocation BasedServices (LBS),Fleet Management,Navigation SystemsStatic Profile Who? Cookies, OPS, P3P Often used Protection ofprivacyGMX, Yahoo,AmazonDynamicProfileIn whatcontext?Netlogs Only usedfor simpleapplicationsNo standardtools for thedata analysisContext sensitiveadvertisement insearch enginesTable 3 presents an overview of the framework for SDS. The framework points out the four dimensions which characterize asituation. The second column assigns a metaphor for each dimension. The next column indicates key technologies which arerelevant for the respective dimension. Some of the mentioned technologies are still under development, while others have beenstandardized already. The fourth column illustrates the current usage of technologies, followed by the problems which mightappear when implementing the respective technology. The last column names examples of best practices or future ideas forconceivable services.There are two different strategies to gather information about the users situation. The first strategy is to prompt the user to providethe relevant information. These user made information are very simple to handle but there is no guaranty for correct data. Theother strategy is to detect the relevant information automatically. Such information can be retrieved from the interaction of aservice provider with his customer. But some information are difficult to compute while other information are not computable,at all.The framework may assist service providers who want to implement SDS in a systematical approach. First, the framework helpsidentifying the level of situation dependency for a given or intended service. Based on this initial analysis, the provider mayinspect the other dimensions to conclude what functionality should be added to his existing services. Step by step the providermay decide either to introduce new and additional SDS or to improve existing mobile and internet services by selecting applicabletechnologies.The following sections discuss the specific aspects of each dimension in more detail.Situation Dimension: PositionServices that use the users position significantly are called Location Based Services (LBS). Examples for LBS are routenavigation, location dependent yellow pages or location specific advertising. To analyze the different positioning technologies,it is helpful to split them in two categories: Terminal based technologies use special components in the users device. Their main advantages are preciseness and thefact that the user can decide, whether he wants to be located or not. On the other side, these technologies are relativelycomplex. Network based technologies use the infrastructure of the (mobile radio) network to locate the users device through thenetwork. There is no extra hardware needed in the users device. In contrast to terminal based technologies, thesetechnologies allow push services that are initiated by predefined events.Amberg & Wehrmann/A Framework for SDS2002  Eighth Americas Conference on Information Systems 1841Table 4 compares different technologies for locating a user in respect to mobile and internet services. The selection of a particulartechnology depends primarily on the preciseness needed for a specific service (Ovum 2000).Table 4.  Summary of Positioning TechnologiesTechnology Category Preciseness Usage Devices Future TasksGPS Terminal based ~ 10 - 100 m + GPS-receiver NoneA-GPS Terminal based ~ 10 - 20 m - GPS-receiver Network expansionE-OTD Terminal based ~ 125 m - Not available New software COO Network based ~ 0,1 - 35 km ++ Mobile phone NoneCGI-TA Network based ~ 100 - 550 m + Mobile phone Network expansionTOA Network based ~ 50 - 150 m - Mobile phone Network expansionW-LAN Network based ~ 10 - 100 m - Network adapter Network expansionInternet Network based ~ 1 - 5000 km ++ Internet-terminal NoneThe major task of research is to generate descriptions of the users position that are more appropriate for customizing a servicethan longitude and latitude. Examples for such descriptions are for instance static specifications like the name of the street, districtand town or relative specifications like within walking distance. To compute such descriptions additional information areneeded.Situation Dimension: TimeWhile the point of time is clearly measurable, the time context is harder to specify. Relevant time contexts are either ratherunvarying like daytime, opening hours, weekend and public holiday or more user specific like working hours and spare time. Anexample for a time dependent service is a website with a different appearance at different points of time.For encoding the time, standards like the Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) or the Greenwich Mean Time (GMT) exist. Thenext task is the definition of suitable rules and universal time frames to define the appropriate time context.Situation Dimension: Static ProfileA Static Profile can be defined as an accumulation of properties that will be changed occasionally only. Relevant properties forservice providers are demographic data i.e. age, income and long-term information i.e. interests, preferences, skills or moregenerally the affiliation to a target group of a service. A simple example for a profile based service is the different layout of aservice for adults and children. Most static properties are provided by user made inputs and are thus difficult to verify. Someproperties like preferences may be interpreted automatically by the service provider.To prevent problems with the users privacy, service providers may apply different technologies to handle storage and protectionaspects. Table 5 summarizes major technologies for handling profiles.Cookies are integrated in all current internet browsers. As P3P includes almost all innovation of OPS, it will become moreimportant in the future. Furthermore, its standardized by the W3C (Pandaya 1999). The vCard is a specification to store profileinformation which is especially suitable for mobile services.A key issue is the identification of the users identity. Several techniques exist, to automate the identification of a user: Service identification module (SIM) card number, which is included by any cellular phone. Mobile Station International Subscriber Directory Number (MSIDN) is used to route and address telephone calls. Phone number may be transmitted by an outgoing call when not disabled by the user.Wireless Information Systems:  M-Commerce and Beyond1842 2002  Eighth Americas Conference on Information Systems Medium Access Control (MAC) number is the number of the network interface and allows the unique identification of acomputer.The first three are used in mobile networks normally. The MAC number is typically used by devices in internet networks. As theinformation gained in any kind of profile is a valuable object of trade, the handling of identities and the protection of sensitiveinformation must be considered carefully.Table 5.   Storage and Hosting Technologies for ProfilesTechnology Storage Application User-Control UsageCookies Users harddisk Internet browser Switch on/off ++OPS Users harddisk Special application Access management P3P Repository at theTrusted Third PartyInternet browser planned Access is negotiated +vCard Provider Internet browser, mailclient, PDA, mobile phoneUser Agent Profile(UAProf)++Situation Dimension: Dynamic ProfileA Dynamic Profile can be defined as an accumulation of information that change more frequently than the information of theStatic Profile. Such information summarize the short-term behavior of a user. Examples are short-term preferences concerningthe content as well as the way of using a particular service. They are for instance used by search engines to place context specificadvertising or to provide a better navigation support.The Dynamic Profile is not directly measurable, instead it can be interpreted by analyzing the behavior during interaction. Becauseof the short-term characteristic only an automatic detection of the Dynamic Profile is of interest. Additionally, the computationof the Dynamic Profile depends heavily on the customization potential of a particular service. One computational method forinternet services is the analysis of net logs. Net logs save information about every requested and transferred file. These informationinclude the users IP address, date, time, request method, filename, file status code, file size and referrer log. By now,computational methods that are commonly applicable do not exist and the dynamic adaptation of services is rarely used. The mainreasons lie in the complexity and the diversity of possible interpretations.OutlookThe presented framework intends to simplify the complex topic of situation dependency for services provided over the internetand mobile devices. By now, the framework helps to classify services according to relevant situation dimensions. The discussionof major technologies that are used to determine automatically the users situation, may help to improve an existing service.Dimensions that are not covered at all by a service may give hints for further improvements.In the future, we intend to expand the framework to provide a methodical help for the development and improvement of SDS.We want to refine the framework into a Balanced Scorecard (BSC) for SDS that is based on the situation dimensions defined inthis paper. According to the key concepts of the Balanced Scorecard approach, it is necessary to specify objectives, measures,targets and initiatives for each dimension. Figure 1 illustrates a BSC for SDS. A Balanced Scorecard approach should providean in-depth support for the ongoing development of SDS that are beneficial to the customers as well as to the service providers.Amberg & Wehrmann/A Framework for SDS2002  Eighth Americas Conference on Information Systems 1843Figure 1.  A Balanced Scorecard Approach for Situation Dependent ServicesReferencesFigge, S. Situation Dependent m-Commerce Applications, Kingston, University of Rhode Island, USA: Conference onTelecommunications and Information Markets Proceedings (COTIM 2001), 2001.Gessler, S. and Jesse, K. Advanced Location Modeling to enable sophisticated LBS Provisioning in 3G networks, Atlanta,Georgia: Beigl, M., Gray, P. and Salber, D. (Hrsg.) Proceedings of the Workshop on Location Modeling for UbiquitousComputing, http://www.teco.edu/locationws/9.pdf, 2001.Ovum. Mobile Location Services - Market Strategies. London, UK: http://www.ovum.com/MOBILE, 2000.Pandaya, R. Mobile and Personal Communication Systems and Services, New York, USA: IEEE Series on Mobile & DigitalCommunications, 1999.Runte, M. Personalisierung im Internet, Wiesbaden, Germany: Deutscher Universitätsverlag, 2000.Scheer, A.W., Feld, T., Göbl, M. and Hoffmann, M. Das mobile Unternehmen, Wiesbaden, Germany: Silberer, G., Wohlfahrt,J. and Wilhelm, T. (Hrsg.) Mobile Commerce - Grundlagen, Geschäftsmodelle, Erfolgsfaktoren, Gabler Verlag, 2002.

A FRAMEWORK FOR THE CLASSIFICATION OF
SITUATION DEPENDENT SERVICES

https://aisel.aisnet.org/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1612&amp;context=amcis2002

A FRAMEWORK FOR THE CLASSIFICATION OF SITUATION DEPENDENT SERVICES

Abstract

Similar works

Full text

Available Versions

AIS Electronic Library (AISeL)