1,720,988 research outputs found
An MDD-based method for building context-aware applications with high reusability
Full text linkAdding context-awareness capabilities to modern mobile and pervasive computing applications is becoming a mainstream activity in the software engineering community. In this respect, many context models and middleware architectures have been proposed with the aim to provide the developers with tools and abstractions that make it easier to produce context-aware applications. However, current solutions suffer from relatively low reusability and lack ease-of-use. In this paper, we propose a two-layer approach based on model-driven development: at the higher layer we introduce the design of reusable context plug-ins which can be used to monitor low-level context data and to infer higher-level information about the users, their computing infrastructure and their interaction. At the lower layer, the plug-ins themselves are synthesized using more elementary, reusable components. We argue that this development approach provides significant advantages to the developers, as it enables them to design, implement, re-use and maintain the code-base of context-aware apps more efficiently. To evaluate this approach, we demonstrate it in the context of a two-part case-study and assess it both qualitatively and quantitatively
Exploring the usability of SeeSaw, an educational kiosk-based mobile application
No full textSEESAW is a mobile kiosk-based app that aims to teach research ethics and integrity principles to students and researchers. The app incorporates various interactive components such as polls, and sorting activities, which aim to engage its users via two decision-making scenarios. This paper evaluates the usability of the app using a mixed-methods approach. This combines USE (Usefulness, Satisfaction, Easy of Use) questionnaires along with a heuristic evaluation and qualitative feedback from users. Our findings reveal that participants perceived SEESAW positively with a high overall rating in terms of learnability, ease-of-use, and user satisfaction. User feedback has also highlighted a few issues with components that violated several heuristics and which could be improved – such as providing more use control, better consistency, and the introduction of better error recovery mechanisms. These findings underscore the need for balancing the guided nature of learning activities with providing more control and freedom to users. Finally, the study offers several insights for the design of kiosk-based applications which can help developers design better interactive experiences within educational contexts
aMazeChallenge: An interactive multiplayer game for learning to code
Full text linkThe accelerating growth of technology in the last decades has led to an ever-increasing demand for computing professionals. At the same time, the number of computing graduates around the world grows at a slower pace, resulting to a bottleneck in the supply for industry vacancies. One of the many reasons for this is a common notion that programming is a tedious and daunting task that is relatively unrewarding. Despite that, extracurricular events such as Hour of Code and CodeWeek have been successful in attracting more young people to computing, and educational programming games hosted during these events have become very popular. In this paper, we report our experience with developing a multiplayer educational game called aMazeChallenge which aims to teach programming to students in a gameful environment. In our game, players must program an avatar to escape a virtual maze arena using simple instructions in a block-based programming language. aMazeChallenge utilizes public cloud infrastructure to enable code execution at the backend while players can participate using an Android client. Through aMazeChallenge, our objective is to engage students in a fun, competitive environment where they can learn the basic concepts of programming. Our preliminary results show that students enjoyed playing aMazeChallenge and that the game increased their awareness of programming concepts as well as of the significance of computing
An Assessment of ML-based Sentiment Analysis for Intelligent Web Filtering
Full text linkMany people are increasingly using the Web both to accomplish tasks but also for entertainment. At the same time, for many people a significant fraction of their web-browsing time is spent on reading news, both from social media sources and traditional news outlets. However, often this comes with a mental price when facing negative news: research shows that doomscrolling can have a negative impact on your well-being. In this paper, we discuss the development and evaluation of an intelligent web filtering mechanism, in the form of a web browser extension (i.e., plugin). This mechanism aims at providing an intelligent assistant that filters out undesired content, aiming at improving the user's well-being. The effectiveness of this approach is assessed with an evaluation involving 50 participants. Our results show that our approach is acceptable by the participants and that there is indeed a need for such tools
A gamification platform for inspiring young students to take an interest in coding
Full text linkCoding skills are widely considered an invaluable asset in today’s and tomorrow’s business landscape. However, universities in North America and Europe are expected to produce computer scientists at a rate that is well below the projected demand. This has called for initiatives like the Computer Science Education Week in the United States and the Europe Code Week in the European Union. This paper proposes a novel, engaging activity that aims at inspiring students to take an interest in Coding via a mobile phone-based treasure hunt. The main contributions of the paper are the description of the platform used to realize the treasure hunt, and the experience report of the event that evaluated its effectiveness
Context awareness: Challenges and opportunities in modern smartphone use
Full text linkCommonly, improvement to smart-phone technology focuses at advancing the connectivity of human users. This results to better and richer information access but, undeniably, it also increases the accessibility of the users themselves, something that could arguably have negative side-effects. This position paper discusses the potential of context awareness in modern smart-phones by presenting the challenges and opportunities in modern smartphone use. In particular, we examine the implications of the advanced network capabilities—and accompanying services—of modern smart-phones and list what we argue to be their main drawbacks. We then present our position which summarizes what we expect the role of context-awareness to be in modern smart-phone applications
A classification platform for security protocols in WSNs
Full text linkWireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) are supporting the operation of a variety of critical infrastructures. In order to secure the operation of WSNs, appropriate security protocols have been specified supporting different operational objectives and security features. Often, it is challenging to identify the protocols’ key operation and key features due to various reasons such as the lack of expert knowledge and the complexity of protocols. This can limit the ability of researchers to identify protocols of interest and apply them at a specific setup. This challenge is addressed by designing a platform to classify a wide-range of security protocols in WSNs, to highlight their key features and to guide users through an interactive and user-friendly approach to select protocols of interest. An appropriate proof-of-concept has been developed
SEESAW: An Educational App for Smart Kiosks
Full text linkThis paper discusses the authors’ experience with designing and developing an interactive app for smart kiosk devices. The app implementation uses a layered design approach, with graphical components operating independently in layers, and is designed to deliver an engaging and reliable user experience on smart kiosks. Early feedback indicates that the app provides an effective way for engaging passers-by, and for delivering an informative, educational experience
Design and Evaluation of a Gamification-based Information System for Improving Student Attendance
Full text linkDeclining student attendance is a recurring concern in most educational environments, including tertiary education. Depending on the assumed cause of low attendance, different approaches have been proposed as a means of intervention for mitigating the problem. On the other hand, gamification is a relatively new approach that aims to increase engagement of participants in non-game contexts by utilizing techniques developed for and used in computer games. In this paper, we propose a novel approach that aims at intervening by applying gamification techniques for the purpose of increasing the extrinsic motivation for attendance in tertiary-level education settings. The approach is based on a cloud-based platform which features web and mobile clients. The main stakeholders are the lecturers, who can configure the environment, and the students who are the targeted participants. Unlike similar works, this approach aims at improving the student attendance at a wider scale, e.g. at the programme level rather than focusing on individual modules or classes. Additionally, it provides fine customization allowing the lecturers to opt in with custom settings. Finally, the paper describes some early results and paves the road for an extensive evaluation
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