0000000000179270
AUTHOR
Eleni Berki
Communities, Communication, and Online Identities
Social media and online communities offer increased possibilities for connection, interaction and participation but also new media with tools for self-presentation and identity management. Interacting anonymously or eponymously, having one, none or many identities online expresses richness in online communication. Contentious identities for communication are part of everyday online and offline interaction. The authors examine critically five types of online identity and analyse the differences, similarities, advantages, pitfalls, and disadvantages of using them. Examples illustrate the usage of these identity types, clarify possible misconceptions, and provide the reader with an improved un…
Ethical Issues Invoked by Industry 4.0
Industry 4.0 is universally referred to as the fourth industrial revolution. It is a current trend of automation and data exchange in manufacturing technologies. The computerisation of manufacturing includes, amongst other, cyber-physical systems, the Internet of Things (IoT), cloud computing and cognitive computing. There are many challenges in the realisation of Industry 4.0. In order to adopt a “smart factory” and improved (software) processes many ethical considerations need to be identified and considered if a company is to obtain an ethical development and deployment of Industry 4.0. The purpose of normative ethics is to scrutinise standards about the rightness and wrongness of action…
The Patras blended strategy model for deep and meaningful learning in quality life-long distance education
Life‑long learning is currently being embraced as a central process that could disrupt traditional educational paths. Apparently, the (ideal) type of learning often promoted is deep and meaningful learning, though it is not always required to be so. Deep learning goes beyond superficial knowledge assimilation of unlinked facts; it aims at developing deep disciplinary understanding, transformative knowledge, personal meaning, emotional intelligence, critical thinking, creativity and metacognitive skills. Meaningful learning occurs when learning is active, constructive, intentional, authentic, and cooperative. Technology enhanced teaching and learning methods should prove their potential to t…
Supporting Agile Development by Facilitating Natural User Interaction with Executable Formal Specifications
Agile development benefits from fast feedback from various stakeholders. If implemented in a suitable way, formal methods can enhance the agile development process. With an executable formal specification, it is possible to analyse and simulate the behaviour of the target system before it is being built. However, for the users' and developers' natural participation in the development process, it is necessary to use a real end-user interface and bind it to the execution environment being used in the simulations and animations. This requires, though, that the execution model used to simulate the specification is appropriately changed to facilitate the use of these user interfaces. The authors…
Examining the Quality of Evolution Frameworks and Metamodeling Paradigms of Information Systems Development Methodologies
Information systems development methodologies and associated CASE tools have been considered cornerstones for building quality into an information system. The construction and evaluation of methodologies are usually carried out by evaluation frameworks and metamodels, both considered as meta-methodologies. This chapter investigates and reviews representative metamodels and evaluation frameworks for assessing the capability of methodologies to contribute to high-quality outcomes. It presents a summary of their quality features, strengths, and weaknesses. The chapter ultimately leads to a comparison and discussion of the functional and formal quality properties that traditional meta-methodolo…
Designing a New Method of Studying Feature-Length Films
Measuring viewers’ experiences of films has become a critical issue for filmmakers because all kinds of audiences now have access to new releases from all over the world. Some approaches have focused on the cognitive level of the experience, while others have emphasized the structure of films. Additionally, some have used quantitative objective methods to examine audience reactions to short film sequences, while others have applied qualitative approaches to study feature-length films. However, an integrated method that combines the features of these approaches is needed. In this article, we describe a new method that combines quantitative and qualitative data to study viewers’ experiences o…
Requirements Engineering and Process Modelling in Software Quality Management— Towards a Generic Process Metamodel
This paper examines the concept of Quality in Software Engineering, its different contexts and its different meanings to various people. It begins with a commentary on quality issues for systems development and various stakeholders' involvement. It revisits aspects and concepts of systems development methods and highlights the relevance of quality issues to the choice of a process model. A summarised review of some families of methods is presented, where their application domain, lifecycle coverage, strengths and weaknesses are considered. Under the new development era the requirements of software development change; the role of methods and stakeholders change, too. The paper refers to the …
A Multidimensional Review and Extension of the SPI Manifesto Using STEEPLED Analysis
Over a decade has passed since the inception of the SPI Manifesto. The fact that the signatories of the manifesto emanate from both the academic and the industrial communities enables a robust exchange of ideas and experiences. Continuous enrichment and refinement have been evidenced in publications, industrial projects, and consultancy across both communities. The main publication fora of this cross-disciplinary collaboration have been the EurAsiaSPI conferences, which have stimulated the healthy evolution of innovative ideas and disciplinary action(s). There is a current debate aiming to review and update the SPI Manifesto after ten years of theory and practice whilst major trends and pra…
Countering the negative image of women in computing
A positive image would inspire the capable but underrepresented who might otherwise give up on computing.
DESIGNING AND IMPLEMENTING A BIG OPEN ONLINE COURSE BY USING A 3D VIRTUAL IMMERSIVE ENVIRONMENT – LESSONS LEARNED
Open Education (OE) is a distance learning approach that was strategically chosen by the European Commission (EC) to encourage cost-effective training, upskilling and reskilling of large population groups and workforce with speed and flexibility. Institutions and businesses design and offer Open Online Courses (OOCs) to address skill gaps, organizational and societal needs. OOCs and especially Massive OOCs (MOOCs) are suffering from high rates of attrition, which is attributed to various factors such as learner isolation and lack of motivation to complete the course. Recommendations to address the retention gap in MOOCs include adopting a participation-driven approach, using game design tec…
Time Up for Phishing with Effective Anti-Phishing Research Strategies
Public awareness is a significant factor in the battle against online identity theft (phishing). Advancing public readiness can be a strategic protection mechanism for citizens' vulnerability and privacy. Further, an effective research strategy against phishing is the combination of increased social awareness with software quality and social computing. The latter will decrease phishing victims and will improve information systems quality. First, the authors discuss recent research results on software quality criteria used for the design of anti-phishing technologies. Second, it is argued that the dynamics of social surroundings affect citizens' trust and can compromise social security. Thir…
Cyber-Identities and Social Life in Cyberspace
Information and communication technology gradually transform virtual communities to active meeting places for sharing information and for supporting human actions, feelings and needs. In this chapter the authors examine the conceptual definition of virtual community as found in the traditional cyberliterature and extend it to accommodate latest cybertrends. Similar to the ways that previous social and mass media dissolved social boundaries related to time and space, cyber-communities and social software seem to also dissolve the boundaries of identity. This, in turn, questions the trust, privacy and confidentiality of interaction. The authors present a way of classifying and viewing self-pr…
Action-oriented classification of families' information and communication actions: exploring mothers' viewpoints
Action-oriented service and technology development begins with the idea that people use technologies to reach their action goals. Consequently, we should investigate user needs and how they can be satisfied, and adapt services and technologies to the natural course of actions. Here, we focus on family communication and investigate mobile communication service types for families. For this study 10 mothers were interviewed; we investigated the nature of their everyday information and communication needs and the different knowledge and information transfer actions that were discovered in their families. Qualitative analysis of these interviews was used to generate a taxonomy, which, in turn, c…
Deep and Meaningful E-Learning with Social Virtual Reality Environments in Higher Education: A Systematic Literature Review
Deep and meaningful learning (DML) in distant education should be an essential outcome of quality education. In this literature review, we focus on e-learning effectiveness along with the factors and conditions leading to DML when using social virtual reality environments (SVREs) in distance mode higher education (HE). Hence, a systematic literature review was conducted summarizing the findings from thirty-three empirical studies in HE between 2004 (appearance of VR) and 2019 (before coronavirus appearance). We searched for the cognitive, social, and affective aspects of DML in a research framework and studied their weight in SVREs. The findings suggest that the use of SVREs can provide aut…
Toward Successfully Integrating Mini Learning Games into Social Virtual Reality Environments : Recommendations for Improving Open and Distance Learning
Social virtual reality environments, also known as 3D virtual immersive environments, are threedimensional computer-generated virtual spaces that are increasingly used in attendance-based and distance education. Thanks to their unique characteristics that separate them from two-dimensional virtual learning environments, social virtual reality environments can enhance distance education efficacy when used in combination with applying instructional methodologies such as situated learning, experiential learning and game-based learning. The authors of this paper describe the design and findings of a research study on game-based learning in social virtual immersive environments. The research met…
A STEEPLED Analysis of the SPI Manifesto
Software Process Improvement (SPI) has been founded on the belief that a well-defined and executed process is likely to produce a high-quality pro-duct. Improving a product might provide insights for future improvement efforts. However, this bottom-up approach does not necessarily lead to improvement, considering in particular that software products/artefacts are usually, unique. In contrast, an improved process is a top-down approach, which is applicable to all products (outputs and outcomes). The SPI Manifesto places people, business focus, and organisational change at the core of Software Process Improvement practices. In so doing, certain SPI principles guide the behaviour of individual…
Formal specification of open standards and the case of RSS v2.0
Open standardization seems to be very popular among software developers as it makes the standard's adoption by the software engineering community easier and smoother. Formal specification methods, on the other hand, while very promising, are being adopted by protocol engineers very slowly; the industry seems to have little motivation to move into this, almost unknown, territory.In this paper the authors present the i) idea of applying formal methods (formal specification techniques) to open standards' specifications, and ii) an example of a formal specification of open standards, RSS v2.0 in particular. The authors support and provide evidence for the advantages of the open standards formal…
In-service and prospective teachers’ conceptions of creativity
Abstract Teachers play a crucial role in the development of primary school students’ creative potential in either a positive or a negative way. This paper aims to draw attention to in-service and prospective teachers’ conceptions of creativity and answer three main research questions: “What are the teachers’ conceptions and implicit theories of creativity in general?”, “What are the teachers’ conceptions and implicit theories of creativity in the context of primary education?”, and “How well-trained and equipped do teachers feel to play their key role in the development of students’ creative potential?” A self-report questionnaire was used as an instrument to gather qualitative and quantita…
Applying Finite State Process Algebra to Formally Specify a Computational Model of Security Requirements in the Key2phone-Mobile Access Solution
Key2phone is a mobile access solution which turns mobile phone into a key for electronic locks, doors and gates. In this paper, we elicit and analyse the essential and necessary safety and security requirements that need to be considered for the Key2phone interaction system. The paper elaborates on suggestions/solutions for the realisation of safety and security concerns considering the Internet of Things (IoT) infrastructure. The authors structure these requirements and illustrate particular computational solutions by deploying the Labelled Transition System Analyser (LTSA), a modelling tool that supports a process algebra notation called Finite State Process (FSP). While determining an in…
The Human Context of Information Systems
In its past, IS research has focused on IT and the organizations that use IT. Human issues have been studied in HCI and the Human Factor Studies of MIS. Yet recently a new wave of attention has emerged to focus more explicitly on issues rising from the human context of information systems. Studies in this area are still scattered, but there seems to exist a common paradigmatic orientation in their basic assumptions of human beings and their interaction. The end-users of information systems should be seen holistically as physical, cognitive, emotional, and social beings, whose communication is rich and uses multiple media. These views add to and improve our understanding of information and k…
The case of literacy motivation : Playful 3D immersive learning environments and problem-focused education for blended digital storytelling
The University of Patras' Library Services designed and offered to primary and secondary schools the pilot educational program “From the Ancient to the Modern Tablets”, featuring immersive multimedia learning experiences about the book history. The pilot program consisted of three stages: a playful library tour, followed by an interactive game-based digital storytelling activity with game elements, and a collaborative creative reflective hands-on activity. Utilizing the avatar psychology power, the visualization and simulation affordances of 3D immersive learning environments and the appeal of storytelling and game-based learning, the “gamified” blended narrative on the book evolution enabl…