This chapter presents the activities and outcomes of the "People's Voices: Developing Cross Media Services to Promote Citizens Participation in Local Governance Activities" project.

The aims of the project were a) to identify and describe a number of cross media services that can be used to promote citizens’ participation in political decisions and civic activities, and b) to develop a conceptual design and a prototype system of such a service. The project included a number of field trips from Sweden to Uganda, and used participatory design and ethnographic techniques for requirements elicitation, actively involving the different stakeholders. The developed system allows people in Uganda to use their mobile phones to submit reports of irregularities in local governance or poor services delivery using an interactive voice menu interface.

We hope that our specific contribution will emphasize on how novel ways of integrating and using ICT can provide opportunities to encourage and facilitate civic engagement in North Uganda. The potential massive adoption of the kind of interactive mobile services described in this book chapter can be used in unique ways to provide opportunities to make governmental services more innovative, transparent and cost-effective, as well as to encourage citizens to become more engaged and goal-focused for the common good of their society.

In recent years, it is becoming more common for people to use applications or devices that keep track of their life and activities, such as physical fitness, places they visited, the music they listen to, or pictures they took. This generates data that are used by the service providers for a variety of (usually analytics) purposes, but commonly there are limitations on how the users themselves can also explore or interact with these data. Our position paper describes a new approach of visualizing such Quantified Self data, in a meaningful and enjoyable way that can give the users personal insights into their own data. The visualization of the information is proposed as an avatar that maps the different activities the user is engaged with, along with each such activity level, as graphical features. An initial prototype (both in terms of graphical design and software architecture) as well as possible future extensions are discussed.

This paper presents our initial efforts towards the development of a framework for facilitating public engagement through the use of mobile Augmented Reality (mAR), that fall under the overall project title "Augmented Reality for Public Engagement" (PEAR). We present the concept, implementation, and discuss the results from the deployment of a mobile phone app (PEAR 4 VXO). The mobile app was used for a user study in conjunction with a campaign carried out by Växjö municipality (Sweden) while exploring how to get citizens more engaged in urban planning actions and decisions. These particular activities took place during spring 2016.One of the salient features of our approach is that it combines novel ways of using mAR together with social media, online databases, and sensors, to support public engagement. In addition, the data collection process and audience engagement were tested in a follow-up limited deployment.The analysis and outcomes of our initial results validate the overall concept and indicate the potential usefulness of the app as a tool, but also highlight the need for an active campaign from the part of the stakeholders.Our future efforts will focus on addressing some of the problems and challenges that we have identified during the different phases of this user study.

Recent studies in science and engineering education support that inductive learning activities encouraging active student involvement may improve students’ motivation, development of soft skills and academic performance, compared to traditional lectures. Until recently, several technology-enhanced learning environments have been proposed to facilitate such activities in classrooms. However, these commonly depend on dedicated hardware devices, such as clickers or tablet PCs. Contrastingly, smartphones are being massively adopted by society as these become increasingly powerful and inexpensive. Even so, the use of smartphones as learning tools in lecture halls has still not been widely adopted. In this paper we present CollPhoto, a paper-plus-smartphone environment that supports face-to-face problem solving activities in the classroom. CollPhoto provides the instructor with instant visibility of students’ work, and facilitates him/her conducting discussions, based on a selection of students’ responses. We report on the design and initial validation of CollPhoto in the context of two computer science courses.

Education systems worldwide must strive to support the teaching of a set of New Media Literacies (NMLs). These literacies respond to the need for educating human capital within participatory cultures in a highly technologized world. In this paper, we present Collboard, a constructivist problem solving activity for fostering the development of specific NMLs in classrooms: collective intelligence, distributed cognition and transmedia navigation. Collboard encompasses successive individual and collaborative work phases that prompt active student participation and engagement. It integrates digitally augmented appliances, namely, digital pens as a means to support individual work, and interactive whiteboards as a collaborative knowledge construction space. We report on the conceptual design of Collboard, its different technological and software components, as well as our findings from experiences we conducted in a Swedish school with 12 students from a 7th grade maths class. Findings from the experience provide an indication that Collboard can be well integrated in classroom teaching, and that it can foster the development of collective intelligence, distributed cognition and transmedia navigation in different knowledge domains. (C) 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Tidigare forskning har registrerat en pågående rekryteringskris vid datavetenskapliga utbildningar, där problematiken främst tycks bero på avsaknad av motivation hos studenterna. I denna uppsats undersöktes huruvida studenters motivation i en programmeringsinriktad speldesignskurs kunde påverkas genom att utveckla spel för en arkadmaskin och dess innehåll. Undersökningen är genomförd i form av en fallstudie och behandlar fall mellan 2002 och 2014. Datan som behandlades var sekundärdata i form av betygsstatistik och kursutvärderingar. Uppsatsen presenterade resultatet i form av riktlinjer och slutsatser som kan ligga till grund för att förbättra studenters motivation i programmeringsinriktade universitetskurser och särskilt för kurser som involverar spel och speldesign. 

As digital gaming technology has evolved and the games has become more advanced, the amount of information that the player can get about their avatar (the player's digital representation) has increased. Depending on the layout and design of the game, this information is more or less readily available. The information that always seems to have a more or less evident place in HUD (static parts of the graphical interface) is the avatar's state of health. There are several guidelines on how to visualize this information, but game designers are constantly exploring new ways to apply it. Pros and cons of how the information is implemented is discussed by players and game journalists in several forums. Frequently focusing on what it does for the game's challenge and the gaming experience.Previous research that attended the avatar's health has investigated how different mechanics behind the graphic visualization affect the gaming experience. However, there is a research gap when it comes to how the graphic visualization of the avatar's health affects the player's performance.This study examines how a player's performance is influenced by obtaining information about the avatar's health through the graphical interface. The study is based on an ongoing discussion of how the mechanics of the avatar's health and its visualization affects the game's challenge.A literature study was conducted on the subject game design focusing on how the graphic interface of a game should be designed. After that, a game prototype was developed for the study in which the literature study formed the basis for how a graphic representation of the avatar's health was implemented. In the prototype, functionality was added to completely exclude the graphic representation of the avatar's health every other time the game started. Functionality was also applied in the prototype to collect data during the game. The data was saved in a database set up for the study.With use of the two game modes of the prototype, a qualitative preliminary study was conducted in the form of supervised game sessions with follow-up semi-structured interviews. A comparative study was conducted by letting half of the participants play with a visible health bar and the other half without. The participant's reasoning on issues related to the research question was analyzed to give a deeper understanding of the quantitative data that was collected by making the prototype available through the web.After each completed game of the prototype, it was registered alongside the score if the game had been played with a visible health bar or not. Other information intended to answer the research question for the study was also registered. After the preliminary study was conducted the prototype was published on the web, this resulted in data from 259 game rounds was collected and stored in the database. After selection according to study delimitations, data from 62 game rounds have been used for the for the study's quantitative research backing.To conclude, the results differ between the qualitative and the quantitative studies. During the qualitative study, a distinction was made in the reasoning between those who played with a visible health bar and those who had been playing without. This was used to analyze and compare the collected data from the web-based prototype. The collected quantitative data, however, does not show any statistically safe difference in performance between those who played with a visible health bar and those who played without one.

Despite being explored and constantly improved through the years, onboarding of new hires in corporate organizations has remained a challenge. Many of the issues can be linked to a lack of communication between the organization and the new employee, as well as the common nature of these environments where information is spread across job titles and sources.

This thesis discusses the feasibility of implementing a basic chatbot that will allow new hires to ask questions and request varied information at all times, using an interface such as a messaging app. This research explores the way chatbots should be designed in order to be effective, reliable and enjoyable from a user experience perspective.

The chatbot was developed using the Chatfuel platform and tested by new employees at a corporate environment. The users were requested to explore the chatbot freely and then asked to answer a survey. The interactions were also recorded and analyzed from in both qualitative and quantitative ways (chat logs and analytics).

The study proves that an onboarding chatbot is a useful tool for new hires and can be used as a communication facilitator between the organization and the new hires during the first weeks of employment, and also after that, serving as an information source and a broadcasting method. The chatbot gives the new hires an accessible source of information that helps on the process of getting to speed, and enables a positive experience that increases familiarity in the new workplace. 

When examining the boundaries and issues imposed by the traditional ways of learning, questions about the role that new technologies can play in eliminating these boundaries easily emerge. This thesis intends to shed light onto these issues and better understand the effectiveness of using new technologies to overcome pupils’ problems in learning mathematics.

The empirical study conducted involves investigating how touch features available on tablets can enhance children’s learning. The aim is to study the significance of touch features existing on tablets in helping young pupils learn mathematical concepts like timetables. So, the general question underlying this research is “what functionalities of tablet technologies are effective to enhance children’s learning and what barriers are there to more effective use of them?”

Although previous research has studied the role of tablets on pupils’ learning, less attention has been directed towards the study of the effect of touch-input functionality in tablets to facilitate children’s learning. This thesis wants to contribute to the topic by analyzing how a particular functionality available, the touch-input functionality, can be utilized to foster learning.

We present the design of an online environment that provides mechanisms for the exploitation of school ICT infrastructure by empowering teachers to discover and comment on educational activities that can be implemented in their schools.

Numerous recommendation approaches are in use today. However, comparing their effectiveness is a challenging task because evaluation results are rarely reproducible. In this article, we examine the challenge of reproducibility in recommender-system research. We conduct experiments using Plista’s news recommender system, and Docear’s research-paper recommender system. The experiments show that there are large discrepancies in the effectiveness of identical recommendation approaches in only slightly different scenarios, as well as large discrepancies for slightly different approaches in identical scenarios. For example, in one news-recommendation scenario, the performance of a content-based filtering approach was twice as high as the second-best approach, while in another scenario the same content-based filtering approach was the worst performing approach. We found several determinants that may contribute to the large discrepancies observed in recommendation effectiveness. Determinants we examined include user characteristics (gender and age), datasets, weighting schemes, the time at which recommendations were shown, and user-model size. Some of the determinants have interdependencies. For instance, the optimal size of an algorithms’ user model depended on users’ age. Since minor variations in approaches and scenarios can lead to significant changes in a recommendation approach’s performance, ensuring reproducibility of experimental results is difficult. We discuss these findings and conclude that to ensure reproducibility, the recommender-system community needs to (1) survey other research fields and learn from them, (2) find a common understanding of reproducibility, (3) identify and understand the determinants that affect reproducibility, (4) conduct more comprehensive experiments, (5) modernize publication practices, (6) foster the development and use of recommendation frameworks, and (7) establish best-practice guidelines for recommender-systems research. © 2016, Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht.

In the last 16 years, more than 200 research articles were published about research-paper recommender systems. We reviewed these articles and present some descriptive statistics in this paper, as well as a discussion about the major advancements and shortcomings and an overview of the most common recommendation concepts and approaches. We found that more than half of the recommendation approaches applied content-based filtering (55 %). Collaborative filtering was applied by only 18% of the reviewed approaches, and graph-based recommendations by 16%. Other recommendation concepts included stereotyping, item-centric recommendations, and hybrid recommendations. The content-based filtering approaches mainly utilized papers that the users had authored, tagged, browsed, or downloaded. TF-IDF was the most frequently applied weighting scheme. In addition to simple terms, n-grams, topics, and citations were utilized to model users' information needs. Our review revealed some shortcomings of the current research. First, it remains unclear which recommendation concepts and approaches are the most promising. For instance, researchers reported different results on the performance of content-based and collaborative filtering. Sometimes content-based filtering performed better than collaborative filtering and sometimes it performed worse. We identified three potential reasons for the ambiguity of the results. (A) Several evaluations had limitations. They were based on strongly pruned datasets, few participants in user studies, or did not use appropriate baselines. (B) Some authors provided little information about their algorithms, which makes it difficult to re-implement the approaches. Consequently, researchers use different implementations of the same recommendations approaches, which might lead to variations in the results. (C) We speculated that minor variations in datasets, algorithms, or user populations inevitably lead to strong variations in the performance of the approaches. Hence, finding the most promising approaches is a challenge. As a second limitation, we noted that many authors neglected to take into account factors other than accuracy, for example overall user satisfaction. In addition, most approaches (81%) neglected the user-modeling process and did not infer information automatically but let users provide keywords, text snippets, or a single paper as input. Information on runtime was provided for 10% of the approaches. Finally, few research papers had an impact on research-paper recommender systems in practice. We also identified a lack of authority and long-term research interest in the field: 73% of the authors published no more than one paper on research-paper recommender systems, and there was little cooperation among different co-author groups. We concluded that several actions could improve the research landscape: developing a common evaluation framework, agreement on the information to include in research papers, a stronger focus on non-accuracy aspects and user modeling, a platform for researchers to exchange information, and an open-source framework that bundles the available recommendation approaches.

While the purchases of organic food are increasing rapidly, it accounts for only a small fraction of the total consumption, and there is still a big gap between consumer values awareness and the actual consumption. This article explores how detailed personal feedback could help the households to gain insight and reflect on their consumption, the text presents the design process of developing a prototype, the EcoPanel, in collaboration with a major player on the food retail market. Based on the access to detailed tracking of purchase data, the aim of the design was to provide relevant feedback to facilitate for reflection on the user's own food choices. The design prototype is intended to serve as an instrument for insight and reflection and to bring unconscious aspects of grocery shopping to conscious awareness. Following a research through design approach, this article describes the interdependent steps in designing the EcoPanel and design decisions playing a role for users' critical reflection of their food choice practices. It discusses the intention of each module in providing insight. Finally, we discuss how a social practice perspective may be useful for identifying fruitful future research into the design for more sustainable grocery shopping practices

The following bachelor thesis examines an application based on three factors: security, usability and functionality. The work presents a prototype of an identification application that uses QR codes to identify a person. The identification process is supposed to work in eg a line to a pub. The QR-code is in the guest's mobile and the doorman uses the prototype, which this thesis presents, on a tablet or smartphone and scan the guest's QR code. The aim is to investigate how the usability and functionality is affected in an application when it is added a factor that increases the apps security. This is examined through a user test where 8 test subjects will test the developed prototype and provide feedback both from a guest and a doormans perspective.

The results show that the usability decreases while the security increases. The identification with the QR reader takes about 4 seconds longer than it does to identify with the usual method, i.e. comparing an ID card with a membership card. The functionality in the system increases because we add the functionality to scan a QR-code and compare it's information with a database. The prototype that has been developed in this bachelor thesis has development potential and can be used in other contexts and in other environments; for example the prototype would work equally well in a business context in which the business can replace their membership card with a QR code and a reader to give their customers benefits.

In this thesis the behaviours of players in virtual environments using modern HMD VR technology and traditional 2D monitors is studied and compared. By developing a game prototype in 3D using a first-person perspective and placing it in the puzzle genre by having the players goal being that they must find an object in different rooms a comparative study has been carried out. The game prototype was developed by using prototyping and an alpha version was tested before the final version was completed.

Two groups of 7 in each one has performed the test. One group used the HMD VR headset Oculus Rift DK2 and the other one used a traditional 2D monitor. Mouse and keyboard was used for controls. A data logging ran in the background of every test and collected information on the players positional and rotational data. The data was analysed and then compared between the two groups.

In conclusion, there is no strong difference between the two groups. The biggest difference was in how much ground the players covered. The group who played in VR didn’t walk around and explored as much and instead was more stationary. But they were around 5 seconds faster in average. The group who played without VR looked up and down a bit more but the difference was never more than just 5 degrees.

Information searches of various kinds take place daily around the world and search results can often be so large that users have difficulty knowing which results are relevant. In this paper the aim has been to examine how search results can be filtered and sorted by using location-based search to make the results more relevant to the user. Through a literature review and interviews it was possible to investigate how a search result can be filtered and sorted to meet user expectations. The theories and conclusions that emerged were applied in the development of a prototype. Usability tests were performed on the prototype and the results show that the filtering used in the study can provide a more relevant search result.

The following bachelor thesis examines different visualization techniques to view publication patterns and time publication patterns. A prototype is created to test if two different visualization techniques are appropriate for displaying publication patterns between universities, authors and journals; the two visualization techniques that are used are Sankey Diagram and Forced Direct Layout. Users can also investigate time publishing patterns, if you only want to see publications published between certain years.

The result shows that with a large amount of data, both Sankey Diagrams and Forced Direct Layout are not quite suited to display publishing patterns, which was what 10 out of 10 test subjects said in the usability test. Sankey Diagram was able to structure data more than Forced Direct Layout, getting all the patterns and publications in a vertical list while in Forced Direct Layout ended up more compact. However, you can get a better overview of all patterns and publications with Forced Direct Layout to make all publications fit on a page, with Sankey Diagram you have to scroll back and forth to see the full visualization. If you want to create a visualization with a lot of data, there are several interaction techniques and filter options to be added, to reduce what shows in the visualization. The results for time publishing patterns are hard to convey anything concrete because the data used in this work was not complete.

In recent years, mobile devices have become an integral part of our everyday life in various fields. The technology that powers them is used in various devices, such as smartphones, tablets, and PDAs. These devices hold extensive computation capabilities, along with advanced communication abilities, which are supported by an internet connection and diverse types of motion and location sensors. Mobile devices have changed the way people communicate with each other, for example by providing options to send instant text messages, perform live video calls with others in addition to voice conversations. These capabilities have encouraged educators to exploit mobile technology and promote new types of learning options. There are several new learning possibilities based on tools such as mobile dedicated applications, location-based learning activities, and interactive social related tasks. These new uses require adjustments to educational programs to allow support for this type of learning. The uniqueness of mobile learning, in contrast with the classic learning paradigm, is the ability to connect the learner through enhanced learning materials to the outside environment. This breaks the physical borders that exist in the traditional classroom and creates new learning possibilities, but it has its drawbacks. One of the difficulties that arise from this type of learning is the loss of contact in real time between teacher and student, especially when performing outdoor activities. The Treasure-HIT platform was conceived to create outdoor Treasure Hunt-based games, mainly for educational purposes, by introducing an authoring web platform and a supporting mobile application. The platform includes communication capabilities based on social interactions and cooperative learning with the integration of social networks, and yet real-time educator and student communication is still lacking. Adding real-time communication features provides a way to better support ongoing learning activities, and can take pressure off the learning process for the students, by providing them with a more personal experience and immediate support when needed. This thesis follows the process of addressing this concern in TreasureHIT, including the rationale, the background, the possible options and gradual development of a prototype solution to the problem under the existing Treasure-HIT infrastructure. In the thesis, the advantages of two features are explored: (1) the Realtime Group Tracking Map, which provides a way to monitor the movement and action of groups of players during game time, and (2) Instant Text Messaging service, which allows the game instructor to send custom text messages to the different game groups. The research findings indicate that the new monitoring options provide a solid tool for real-time analysis of the progress of the game and the ability to inform about various issues and solve them in real time. ii Furthermore, the instant message service feature received positive responses from the game-manager and players alike, on the grounds of major improvements to the general game flow and problem solving in real-time.

This chapter describes aspects related to the design approaches and innovative learning activities of the research projects, and also illustrates the problem of sustainability and scalability of educational technology innovations with examples from the Swedish educational context. The research projects on mobile learning have been conducted in both formal and informal learning settings. The factors that can be regarded as both barriers and supports for the sustainability and scalability of technological innovations in Sweden are technology, and partnerships. A geometry mobile (GEM) project is an ongoing mobile learning project in the field of mathematics trying to find alternative ways to support the learning of geometry. The chapter presents a math education and playful learning (MULLE) project to introduce mobile learning activities in primary schools. It pays attention to the role played by research, and the resulting knowledge base, both at national and international level.

This paper presents the overall goals and preliminary results of an on-going research project that aims at: understanding the intricacies and complexities of introducing mobile technologies into schools’ curriculum and accepted teaching practices; analyzing actual transformations that the use of mobile technologies in schools brings to contemporary forms of learning. The results of the project will contribute to a better understanding of new media literacies and their implications for curriculum design and everyday educational practices.

In this thesis we are presenting a design-based research aimed to extend an existing mobile-based environment named “Treasure-HIT”. “Treasure-HIT” is an environment which uses the available mobile technology to enable teachers to conduct pedagogical “Treasure Hunt” games for their students. At baseline (January 2013), “Treasure-HIT” was at its early stages and has not yet been officially released; only a few teachers were granted access to it. The goal of this thesis was to test the system with teachres in order to understand the actual needs to detect difficulties and usabily limitations and to improve the system accordingy.The sudy was conducted as a design-based research that included three iterations. Within each iteration we have identified needs expressed by teachers and improved the relevant system features. The outcome of this thesis was the design, development and implementation of 7 different features that increased the usability of the “Treasure-HIT” environment and its potential to effectievy support the creation and enactment of pedagogical location based activities.

Robots designed to co-exist with humans in domestic and public environments should be capable of interacting with people in an enjoyable fashion in order to be socially accepted. In this research, we seek to set up a small humanoid robot with the capability to provide enjoyment to people who pick up the robot and play with it by hugging, shaking and moving the robot in various ways. Inertial sensors inside a robot can capture how its body is moved when people perform such "full-body gestures". Unclear is how a robot can recognize what people do during play, and how such knowledge can be used to provide enjoyment. People's behavior is complex, and naive designs for a robot's behavior based only on intuitive knowledge from previous designs may lead to failed interactions. To solve these problems, we model people's behavior using typical full-body gestures observed in free interaction trials, and devise an interaction design based on avoiding typical failures observed in play sessions with a naive version of our robot. The interaction design is completed by investigating how a robot can provide "reward" and itself suggest ways to play during an interaction. We then verify experimentally that our design can be used to provide enjoyment during a playful interaction. By describing the process of how a small humanoid robot can be designed to provide enjoyment, we seek to move one step closer to realizing companion robots which can be successfully integrated into human society.

Open Networked Learning (ONL) https://opennetworkedlearning.wordpress.com is an open online course that is offered both as an internal professional development course at the partner universities (Karolinska Institute, Lund University, Linnaeus University, KTH in Sweden and IIE Varsity College in South Africa) as well as being open to learners from all over the world. The course has been derived from an earlier model that has in turn led to several other online courses. The primary target group is university teachers, educational technologists and course designers but it also attracts educators from other educational sectors both public and private. Using an open collaborative learning environment learners investigate aspects of connected, collaborative learning with modules based around topics such as digital literacies, collaborative and flexible learning, teaching in open spaces and course design.

We report two studies that fed into user-centred design for pedagogical and technological scaffolds for social, constructive learning through creative, collaborative, reflective video composition. The studies validated this learning approach and verified the utility and usability of an initial prototype (scaffold) built to support it. However, challenges in interaction with the target technology, multi-touch tabletops, impacted ability to carry out prescribed learning activities. Our findings point to the need to investigate an alternative approach and informed redesign of our scaffolds. We propose coupling of distributed user interfaces, using mobile devices to access large, shared displays, to augment capability to follow our constructive learning process. We discuss also the need to manage recognised challenges to collaboration with a distributed approach.

The purpose of this thesis is to analyse and to explore how B2C e-commerce businesses could use social media marketing strategies to increase their consumers purchase intentions on their sites. Findings enabled the development and research of a comprehensive social media marketing system which includes a general set of components and tools aiming at increasing purchase intentions on such sites. The theoretical framework of the thesis is based on literature as well as previous studies of Social Media, Social Media Marketing, Social Media Marketing System, E-commerce, B2C, Social Commerce, S-commerce, Online Purchase Intentions, Trust and Social Trust. A conceptual framework was created and led the research method which used a convergent parallel mixed method design that includes gathering and analysing both qualitative and quantitative data. The data is gathered from potential users and clients of the system and led by the user-centered design (UCD) process. The obtained qualitative and quantitative data was analysed separately and then merged together by a side-by-side comparison. With the use of this approach, several ways businesses can increase consumers purchase intentions towards their B2C e-commerce site were discovered. Social media presence, published content, publishing frequency, content type, special sale promotions and social media friends are variables that have been found to be influential upon purchase intentions. The integration of a social media marketing system combined with these variables was found to be a successful tool for B2C e-commerce businesses wanting to increase consumers purchase intention through social media networks.

Mobile, as in mobile learning, could be defined as a specific upper limit on the screen size of any device. It could also relate to a specific tool being more, rather than less, mobile. This chapter will focus on the concept of embodied learning, the idea that the learning process is enhanced if your body is involved in the actual learning process, and how it possibly balances on the “edge of mobile” – the meaning of which will be presented below. The main point revolves around the design and test of a specific application developed for learning about the physics of motion by moving your finger on a tablet screen. One of the interesting questions at the present stage of the research is whether the tablet screen size, claimed to be on the absolute upper limit of being mobile, is on the lower limit when it comes to the scale of bodily movement needed for embodied learning to contribute positively in the learning process. It might thus be on the “edge of mobile.” To find out we need to further increase our knowledge of embodied learning. I will therefore discuss further possibilities of investigation when it comes to applications used for embodied learning on hardware platforms such as digital interactive whiteboards, Leap Motion, Google Glass, and more. These will make it possible to test the applications on different scales of bodily movement. It also makes it possible to try out different types of embodied learning activities, using your hand, finger, or even your entire body while walking, gesturing, running, or perhaps jumping off a cliff. © 2016 Taylor & Francis. All rights reserved.

A prototype multimodal tablet application for learning the physics of motion has been developed tested and evaluated. By moving their finger across the screen the application enables the user to map its position and velocity in real-time in terms of graphs. The learning outcome of those test subjects using the application was compared to a group that did not use the application but had it shown to them, at the same time as getting an explanation of all the physics involved. There was a small but not significant difference in performance between these groups on a post-test. However, a larger (arguably significant) difference was seen between the male and female test subjects for the sub-set of questions of a more analytical nature. These were the questions targeted in this paper.

Some studies have been reporting encouraging results concerning the possibilities of combining voice and its visual representation for language learning. Following this line of investigation this paper explores the potential impact of two distinct visualization styles for the learning of English pronunciation of syllables for non-native speakers: a) highlighting syllables and b) the visualization of the produced sound wave. In order to evaluate the benefits of the two different styles three distinct digital tool prototypes were created in order to test four study conditions. The conditions under evaluation were a) teaching syllables without the support of any digital tool; b) teaching using a prototype that highlighted the syllables under study; c) using a prototype that displayed the sound wave of the syllable to be learnt and d) a prototype that combined the functionality of b) and c). Results suggest that the combined approach seems to be as effective as the traditional classroom approach of teaching the syllables. However, more research is needed in order to consolidate the findings, being able to explore in more detail how is the learning process occurring and to what extend the tools developed can be integrated into classroom practice.

The number of studies investigating computer use or other technologies used by senior citizens has progressively increased in the last twenty years. The interest stems from a diverse range of research disciplines including human computer interaction, education, and many others. However, this group of people is less likely to use technology compared to younger groups. Senior citizens generally have a positive attitude towards technology, and they are willing to use the product if they need it. Positive attitudes are also more likely to be expressed towards devices used every day at home, such as the television, microwave etc. Even if those devices are now typically digital, senior citizens are familiar and comfortable with them. A common reason for not wanting to learn different technologies was the feeling that it may be too difficult for them or not having access to a computer or tablet. These characteristics drive us to offer a solution by rethinking the use of some existing technologies and making them more affordable and accessible to older people. It is offered on a TV, something that senior citizens are familiar and comfortable with and which most of them have it at home.

As the first step, we identified different requirements and factors that affect senior citizens' daily lives, the things that they do most during the day. Based on these requirements, we had to find services that will fulfill them. The system is constructed from four major services such as video conferencing, news, books and different recreation videos (e.g.: tips about exercise, hunting, cooking or gardening.) Each one of these sections is identified by a review of previous research using a literature survey. These services were chosen, among others, for their effects on senior citizens' quality of life. Thus, our goal was to provide them with an adequate set of required services. The working environment (Smart TV) is based on the different reasons stated below in the research. Some of them are a) a Smart TV is an integrated system which offers features of both a traditional TV and a personal computer, b) it provides a large screen, is easy to use and always ready, and most importantly, c) the TV, the most-user friendly electronic device, is a basic activity of senior citizens in their daily life. Design perspectives and functional requirements are presented. Finally, we describe some scenarios and assessment methods of the proposed system with the target group (senior citizens). Based on the findings, we can conclude that there was great acceptance from senior citizens for the support of daily living and the ability to control their daily activities provided by this service.

The number of studies investigating computer use or other technologies used by senior citizens has progressively increased in the last twenty years. The interest stems from a diverse range of research disciplines including human computer interaction, education, and many others. Senior citizens generally have a positive attitude towards technology, and they are willing to use the product if they need it. Positive attitudes are also more likely to be expressed towards devices used every day at home, such as the television, microwave etc. Even if those devices are now typically digital, senior citizens are familiar and comfortable with them. These characteristics drive us to offer a solution by rethinking the use of some existing technologies and making them more affordable and accessible to older people. It is offered on a TV, something that senior citizens are familiar and comfortable with and which most of them have it at home. On this research we report our experience on developing a prototype service using smart TV application specifically tailored for the senior citizens needs and requirements. Based on the findings, we can conclude that there was great acceptance from senior citizens for the support of daily living and the ability to control their daily activities provided by this service.

Computer assisted language learning (CALL) comprises a wide range of information technologies that aim to broaden the context of teaching by getting advantages of IT. For example, a few efforts have been put on including a combination of voice and its visual representation for language learning, and some studies are reporting positive outcomes. However, more research is needed in order to assess the impact caused by specific visualization styles such as: highlighting syllables and/or wave of sound. In order to explore this issue, we focused at measuring the potential impact that two distinct visualization styles and its combination can have on teaching children the pronunciation of English as a second language. We built a prototype which was designed to assist students while learning pronunciation of syllables. This system was employing two different real-time interactive visualization styles. One of these visualization styles utilizes audio capturing and processing, using a recent technology development: Web Audio API.We evaluated the effect of our prototype with an experiment with children aged from 9 to 11years old. We followed an experimental approach with a control group and three experimental groups. We tested our hypothesis that states that the use of a combined visualization style can have greater impact at learning pronunciation in comparison with traditional learning approach.Initial descriptive analyses were suggesting promising results for the group that used the combined visualization prototype. However, additional statistical analyses were carried out in order to measure the effect of prototype as accurately as possible within the constraints of our study. Further analyses provided evidence that our combined visualizations prototype has positively affected the learning of pronunciation. Nonetheless, the difference was not big comparing to the system that employed only wave of sound visualization. Ability to perceive visual information differs among individuals. Therefore, further research with different sample division is needed to determine whether is the combination of visualizations that does the effect, or is the wave in itself. Slitting groups based on this characteristic and perform the testing will be considered for the future research.Eventually, we can be confident to continue exploring further the possibility of integrating our proposed combination of two visualization styles in teaching practices of second language learning, due to positive outcomes that our current research outlined. In addition, from a technological perspective, our work is at the forefront of exploring the use of tools such as Web Audio API for CALL.

Complex data are being stored daily in databases in an unstructured way. Visualizations techniques can be used to present complex data in a user friendly and understandable way. This thesis presents the implementation of a visualization interactive tool called Eco Donuts. It is part of a set of tools created to visualize complex food data called Ekopanelen. The feature Eco Donuts presents time-dependent food data which are ordered in categories. It gives the opportunity to users to explore their data over time by performing simple interactions. This thesis documents an exploratory study on how this visualization tool can be used to enhance the user experience and provide insights of complex data. The visualization feature was implemented and evaluated with ten participants. The participants were asked to evaluate the visualization tool by accomplishing nine different tasks. The sessions were recorded using a log system as well as video recording. This study shows that the proposed tool can be used to visualize complex information in a user friendly and presentable way.

Food waste - the avoidable loss of edible products - has social, economic and environmentalimpacts. In the poorer nations food security is an issue while in thericher nations, the higher the national GDP, the higher the per capita food waste.Over half the food wasted in Europe occurs in the domestic/consumer section withthe majority of that going for composting which produces excess greenhouses gasses.This study targets the home user with a mobile device application called ‘FeastMe’that is aimed at reducing this domestic waste. FeastMe is designed to integratea pre-existing supermarket, BYOD, self-scan POS system with a novel, multi-user,‘family sync’, database driven storage system and a recipe module.The methodology used was to examine previous works in this sector and note theirshortcomings. These were then addressed in the application design. A barcode scanning,Android app was developed using a standard, iterative design cycle processusing paper prototypes and user feedback prior to building with the Ionic framework.The application backend was also built using Ionic, linking a Google Firestore/Firebasedata storage with the recipe module and the Android app. All communicationbetween these components was using Javascript (or a derivative such as JSON, Typescript,AngularJS) to/from REST APIs via TSL HTTPS links.The number of participants in the study were 15.The prototype was evaluated bya number of user questionnaires. Statistical analysis of the results found a whollypositive response as to whether the prototype could help reduce wastage. This studyshowed that a barcode scanning app could be utilised to reduce shared householdfood waste.

Keywords: Prototype, Food Waste, Recipe, BYOD, Ionic, Firestore, Firebase,Typescript, Angular JS

IT in health care is becoming more common, and with it the possibilities of communication between patient and caregiver. This document aims to examine what benefits and opportunities audio-visual communications, combined with simultaneous viewing of the website Onkonnect, can offer patients and caregivers during cancer consultation. As the enabling technology for this communication WebRTC was used. This document includes interviews, development and testing of a conceptual prototype, development and user testing of the final prototype. The results of the tests and the interviews are then compiled to demonstrate benefits and possibilities of audio-visual communications, combined with simultaneous viewing of web pages in counseling situations. 

The field of virtual reality (VR) is getting increasing attention from the scientific community and it is being portrayed by advertisements as the user interface (UI) of the future. This is a fair statement since the prior uses of VR that used to exist only in fiction movies and books are now widely available in many forms and settings to the public. One of the most interesting outcomes from this technological evolution is that now VR can be experienced through the use of a mobile phone and the addition of some inexpensive means typically in a form of a headset. The combination of the phone’s screen as attached to the headset creates a form of Head Mounted Display (HMD) which can be utilized in order for the user to be immersed within a virtual environment (VE). The argument here is that even if the means to get access to VR are cheap, this should not be the case with the experience as well. On the contrary, the low entry requirements in combination with a high quality experience are the basis for the medium's success and further adoption by the users. More specifically, the capability of utilizing a three dimensional space (3D) should not limit the medium’s use on just that but instead, this space should be used in order to offer immersive environments which make the user feel as if he is there.

   There are many factors that contribute to that result and significant progress has been made to some such as the quality of screen or other hardware parts that allow the user get immersed into the virtual scenery, however, little progress has been made towards the conceptual means that allow the user of better experiencing this VE. Most of the VR applications so far are specifically designed for a single user session. This creates an isolation of the user from any other type of communities which further increases the stigma of VR being a solitary experience. Another issue is the interaction method that is available to users in order to interact with the VE. The use of buttons in most of the available headsets is a counter intuitive method for a person to interact with an environment that wants to be called real. The technological advancements in the field of image processing have resulted in many new methods of interaction and multimodal manipulation within VE and it would be worthy of exploring their effects on the user experience (UX) when used as an interaction method.

   For these reasons, this thesis used the case of VR games as a setting to study how UX can be enhanced from its current state by introducing a bare hand gesture interaction method and expanding the VR setting in order to host two users in shared VE. Two individual studies were conducted where user feedback was collected in order to describe the effects of this approach in both a qualitative and quantitative manner. As results indicate, by utilizing gesture analysis on a headset equipped with a smartphone, it is possible to offer a natural and engaging solution for VR interaction capable of rich UXs while maintaining a low entry level for the end users. Finally, the addition of another player significantly affected the experience by influencing the emotional state of the participants in the game and further enforcing their feeling of presence within the VE.

The work presented in this paper, explored the enhancement of User Experience (UX) by introducing a novel gesture-based controller in a mobile multiplayer Virtual Reality (VR) game. Using only the smartphone's RGB camera, the image input was used for both gesture analysis, capable of understanding user actions, as well as segmenting the real hand that was illustrated in the Virtual Environment (VE). Users were also able to share the VR space by cooperating in a survival-strategy scenario. The results from the user studies indicated that both the bare hand controller and the addition of another player in the VR scene, affected the experience for the participants. Users had a stronger feeling of presence in the VE when participated with an other user, and the visual representation of their hand in the VR world made the interactions seem more natural. Even though, there is still a number of limitations, this project nodes this approach capable of offering a natural and engaging solution of VR interaction, capable of rich UX while maintaining a low entry level for the end users.

Engineering contemporary distributed software applications is a challenging task due to the dynamic operating conditions in which these systems have to function. Examples are dynamic availability of resources, errors that are difficult to predict, and changing user requirements. These dynamics can affect a number of quality concerns of a system, such as robustness, openness, and performance. The challenges of engineering software systems with such dynamics have motivated the need for self-adaptation. Self-adaptation is based on the principle of separation of concerns, distinguishing two well defined systems: a managed system that deals with domain specific concerns and a managing system that deals with particular quality concerns of the managed system through adaptation with a feedback loop. State of the art in self- adaptation advocates the use of formal methods to specify and verify the system's behavior in order to provide evidence that the system's goals are satisfied. However, little work has been done on the consolidation of design knowledge to model and verify self-adaptation behaviors.

To support designers, this thesis contributes with a set of formally specified templates for the specification and verification of self-adaptive behaviors of a family of distributed self-adaptive systems. The templates are based on the MAPE-K reference model (Monitor-Analyze-Plan-Execute plus Knowledge). The templates comprise: (1) behavior specification patterns for modeling the different MAPE components of a feedback loop, and (2) property specification patterns that support verification of the correctness of the adaptation behaviors. The target domain are distributed applications in which self-adaptation is used for managing resources for robustness and openness requirements. The templates are derived from expertise with developing several self-adaptive systems, including a collaborative mobile learning application in which we have applied self-adaptation to make the system robust to degrading GPS accuracy, and a robotic system in which we apply self-adaptation to support different types of openness requirements. We demonstrate the reusability of the templates in a number of case studies. 

Mobile technologies have emerged as facilitators in the learning process, extending traditional classroom activities. However, engineering mobile learning applications for outdoor usage poses severe challenges. The requirements of these applications are challenging, as many different aspects need to be catered, such as resource access and sharing, communication between peers, group management, activity flow, etc. Robustness is particularly important for learning scenarios to guarantee undisturbed and smooth user experiences, pushing the technological aspects in the background. Despite significant research in the field of mobile learning, very few efforts have focused on collaborative mobile learning requirements from a software engineering perspective. This paper focuses on aspects of the software architecture, aiming to address the challenges related to resource sharing in collaborative mobile learning activities. This includes elements such as autonomy for personal interactive learning, richness for large group collaborative learning (indoor and outdoor), as well as robustness of the learning system. Additionally, we present self-adaptation as a solution to mitigate risks of resource unavailability and organization failures that arise from environment and system dynamism. Our evaluation provides indications regarding the system correctness with respect to resource sharing and collaboration concerns, and offers qualitative evidence of self-adaptation benefits for collaborative mobile learning applications.

In this paper, we describe an approach for designing and developing technological solutions to support teachers in creating their own outdoor teaching activities. We elaborate on one particular case, TriGO, in which primary school students perform outdoor tasks to experience concepts and constructions in the field of mathematics. The application designs and an initial evaluation of the developed technological solutions is provided based on the results obtained from school activities performed with more than 10 teachers and 50 students.

Mobile learning applications support traditional indoor lectures with outdoor activities using mobile devices. An example scenario is a team of students that use triangulation techniques to learn properties of geometrical figures. In previous work, we developed an agent-based mobile learning application in which students use GPS-enabled phones to calculate distances between them. From practical experience, we learned that the required level of GPS accuracy is not always guaranteed, which undermines the use of the application. In this paper, we explain how we have extended the existing application with a selfadaptation layer, making the system robust to degrading GPS accuracy. The self-adaptive layer is conceived as a set of interacting MAPE loops (Monitor-Analysis-Plan-Execute), distributed over the phones. To guarantee the robustness requirements, we formally specify the self-adaptive behaviors using timed automata, and the required properties using timed computation tree logic. We use the Uppaal tool to model the self-adaptive system and verify the robustness requirements. Finally, we discuss how the formal design supported the implementation of the selfadaptive layer on top of the existing application.

Designing software systems that have to deal with dynamic operating conditions, such as changing availability of resources and faults that are dificult to predict, is complex. A promising approach to handle such dynamics is self-adaptation that can be realized by a MAPE-K feedback loop (Monitor-Analyze-Plan-Execute plus Knowledge). To provide evidence that the system goals are satisfied, given the changing conditions, the state of the art advocates the use of formal methods. However, little research has been done on consolidating design knowledge of self-adaptive systems. To support designers, this paper contributes with a set of formally specified MAPE-K templates that encode design expertise for a family of self-adaptive systems. The templates comprise: (1) behavior specification templates for modeling the different components of a MAPE-K feedback loop (based on networks of timed automata), and (2) property specification templates that support verification of the correctness of the adaptation behaviors (based on timed computation tree logic). To demonstrate the reusability of the formal templates, we performed four case studies in which final-year Masters students used the templates to design di↵erent self-adaptive systems.

Engineering multi-agent systems (MAS) is known to be a complex task. One of the reasons lays in the complexity to combine multiple concerns that a MAS has to address, such as system functionality, coordination, robustness, etc. A well-recognized approach to manage system complexity is the use of self-adaptation (SA). Self-adaptation extends a system with support to monitor and adapt itself to realize a concern of interest (optimization, fault-tolerance, etc.). We present SA-MAS, an architectural approach that integrates MAS with SA. We present a reference model for SA-MAS and illustrate it with an excerpt from our research.

This position paper presents and analyses thecross-sector and cross-disciplinary Digital Humanities Initiativeat Linnaeus University along the axes of its strengths,weaknesses, opportunities and threats. Our long-term vision is tocreate a leading education in this field and to establish a leadingresearch regional centre that combines in novel ways alreadyexisting expertise from different departments and facultiesworking in close collaboration and co-creation with people anddifferent organizations (both public and private sector) from thesurrounding society.