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Reading lists are a pedagogical tool widely used in tertiary education. Reading lists may provide pedagogical ‘scaffolding’ in which academics offer support to students through signposting and rich annotation on required readings. They thus have a critical role to play in transforming students into autonomous learners. However, it has been observed that existing Reading Lists software solutions support student learning in a partial, fractured way and are under-used in their role as a pedagogical tool. Therefore, this thesis examines the barriers to uptake of Reading Lists (i.e., reading lists that has been created using a special reading lists management software application) in universities, and, in particular, to explore possible interventions to improve academics’ experience with Reading Lists. We employed a mixed-methods approach in which we performed user studies (for academics, librarians, and students), content analyses and prototype designs. The results of these studies have been published across six research papers comprising Chapters 2–7 in this thesis. The first paper explores the types of resources that are linked in Reading Lists, in particular the inclusion of electronic materials. We identified that many academics struggle with successfully linking resources, and do not perceive the process to be user friendly. We recommended a number of interventions to improve the reading list experience for academics. In the second paper, we examined in greater detail the make-up of Reading Lists at the University of Waikato. We investigated the experience of academics and librarians when creating Reading Lists and found that uptake of Reading Lists varies widely between different academic disciplines. We recommended developing discipline-specific support to increase Reading Lists numbers and to integrate pedagogical features to increase academic buy-in. The third paper explores the students’ experience with the Reading Lists, in particular, when accessing electron

The use of augmented reality extends navigation in location-based mobile applications. This thesis introduces the concept of narrative navigation and describes the design and testing of four mobile application prototypes that explore the proof-of-concept for narrative navigation. We explored the work related to Augmented Reality and navigation and found that no scholars have focused on the use of Augmented Reality by navigating users in the context of location-based stories. This thesis aims to answer the research question of how Augmented Reality visualisations can reflect location-based data to tell a story on mobile devices. While typical navigation only involves guidance to a single point, narrative navigation requires navigation that focuses on the linearity of the story. The goal of our research is to investigate how augmented reality can be used to visualize location-based information for navigation in a storytelling environment. We carried out the design, development, and testing of the Initial Digital Prototype, exploring the use of Augmented Reality technology to display the Point of Interest (POI) position, direction, distance, and story chapter order, and guide users to the next location in the story. In the subsequent Paper Prototype, we explored four navigation visualisations, showing the next story element through stylized flags of varying heights. We found that showing the next story location nearer to the bottom of the screen was the most successful way to guide users, but also found that many participants preferred to show location order by distance. In the Narrative Navigation Prototype, further POI design options are explored. We improved details such as size, quantity, description and the spacing of POIs, the camera tilt display, and the use of indicator arrows. In the Final Prototype, the concept of narrative navigation was confirmed by the positive evaluation of participants and confirmation of user interactions provided by our behavioural tra

The Semantic Web aims to democratise data by making data open, shareable and recombinable (Berners-Lee, Hendler, & Lassila, 2001). To achieve these characteristics, Semantic Web data, different to data on the web, is structured. However, unlike traditional databases, the structure of Semantic Web data does not have to follow a single predefined schema. we believe that approaches for building user interfaces for data with a known structure are inadequate for the Semantic Web. In this thesis, we propose an adaptive user interface that categorises the Semantic Web data into groups and orders data according to user preference. Placing similar data items close together may make it easier for users to locate data items.

Many workplaces in New Zealand can be described as hazardous. That is, the nature of the work and/or workplace, or the combination of the two, can lead to situations where workers may be at risk of workplace accidents. One contributor to such accidents is worker fatigue, which is the result of the nature and intensity level of the work they are undertaking. This can be exacerbated by factors such as the length of the working day, shift work and roles that require high levels of concentration. Most existing risk minimization processes rely on self-reporting methodologies and health and safety procedures; neither of these are necessarily the most effective methods for dealing with workers in hazardous jobs and work environments. Wearable technology which collects physiological data, such as step and heart rates, as an individual performs workplace tasks has been proposed as a possible solution. While wearable devices are minimally intrusive to the individual and so can be used throughout the working day it is unclear how suitable they are for in-situ measurements in real-world work scenarios. In this work, we describe a series of studies conducted with New Zealand forestry workers and present an analysis of the data gathered to consider the suitability of the collection methods as well as the suitability of the data itself as a method to identify fatigue and reduce risk in the workplace.

Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) occurs when an external mechanical force traumatically injures the brain. The 2010/2011 population-based study shows that the total incidence of TBI in New Zealand has increased to 790 per 100,000 population. Memory impairment is the most common symptom and affects most TBI survivors. Memory impairments resulting from TBI take many forms depending on the nature of the injury. Existing work to use technology to help with memory problems focuses predominantly on capturing all information digitally to enable ‘replaying’ of memories. Other software applications (like calendar that reminders) are designed to assist the average people tracking their schedules. Both are inadequate for supporting TBI survivors. The aim of this research is to build an augmented autobiographical memory system for a mobile device for supporting TBI survivors with their memory problems. I address the lack of information about TBI survivors’ use of digital aids through user studies and interviews. This research includes three studies. The first study is the interview user study, which aims to investigate TBI survivors’ use of their own memory aids/strategies to cope with difficulties caused by memory impairments. The results contribute to develop the conceptual design of the prototype. The second study is the interface user study, which aims to examine the usability of the conceptual design. Findings from this study provide the data and feedback for structuring the implementation of the MyMemory prototype on a mobile device. MyMemory is an augmented autobiographical memory aid specialized for TBI survivors with memory impairments. According to the results from the interface user study, we develop the implementation of the MyMemory prototype. The third study aims to evaluate the effectiveness of MyMemory for improving autobiographical memory for people with TBI. This evaluation study is based on the ABAB case study used in psychology which can provide more accurate ou

The work presented in this thesis aims at supporting children’s digital information seeking. Children are known to have difficulties effectively using the information technologies that are available to them. We hypothesize that an interaction model specifically designed to align with the inquiry-based pedagogies common in education today would be beneficial for children’s digital information search. This thesis verifies this hypothesis by considering the example of the New Zealand education system. Within this context, a requirements analysis is undertaken involving children, parents, and teachers. Through a range of user studies, we identify the information seeking practices and the issues school children encounter when using contemporary digital information seeking technology. We found that contemporary internet search engines are used regularly during daily educational pursuits, and identify children’s issues constructing and reconstructing search queries, identifying websites that will contain relevant information, and mistaken repeat visiting of websites. Internet search engines do not align with how children are taught to search for information. In particular, inquiry-based learning approaches taught in schools, are not appropriately supported by the available information search systems. We begin addressing our hypothesis by identifying a target age range of children for which support for information seeking could be improved. We also analyse the interfaces of current commercial internet search engines to highlight the design decisions and to assist with the development of requirements. Activity theory is used as a lens to analyse the results of our studies in order to develop a list of requirements for an interaction model for children’s information seeking. These requirements are then used to design our interaction model. To examine this interaction model we developed an interface prototype, KidsQuestions. A final user study evaluates the effectiveness of ou

Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) consist of spatially distributed sensor nodes that perform monitoring tasks in a region and the gateway nodes that provide the acquired sensor data to the end user. With advances in the WSN technology, it has now become possible to have different types of sensor nodes within a region to monitor the environment. This provides the flexibility to monitor the environment in a more extensive manner than before. Sensor nodes are severely constrained devices with very limited battery sources and their resource scarcity remains a challenge. In traditional WSNs, the sensor nodes are used only for capturing data that is analysed later in more powerful gateway nodes. This continuous communication of data between sensor nodes and gateway nodes wastes energy at the sensor nodes, and consequently, the overall network lifetime is greatly reduced. Existing approaches to reduce energy consumption by processing at the sensor node level only work for homogeneous networks. This thesis presents a sensor node architecture for heterogeneous WSNs, called SEPSen, where data is processed locally at the sensor node level to reduce energy consumption. We use ontology fragments at the sensor nodes to enable data exchange between heterogeneous sensor nodes within the WSN. We employ a rule engine based on a pattern matching algorithm for filtering events at the sensor node level. The event routing towards the gateway nodes is performed using a context-aware routing scheme that takes both the energy consumption and the heterogeneity of the sensor nodes into account. As a proof of concept, we present a prototypical implementation of the SEPSen design in a simulation environment. By providing semantic support, in-network data processing capabilities and context-aware routing in SEPSen, the sensor nodes (1) communicate with each other despite their different sensor types, (2) filter events at the their own level to conserve the limited sensor node energy resources and

This thesis presents a new content-centered approach to provenance data tracking: the Document DNA. Knowledge workers are overwhelmed as they find it hard to structure, maintain, and find re-used content within their digital workspace. This issue is aggravated by the growing amount of digital data knowledge workers need to maintain. This thesis introduces a concept for tracing the evolution of text-based content across documents in the digital work space, without the need for a centralized tracking system. Our concept is inspired by the DNA common to life forms. We present an analysis and comparison of research undertaken to support knowledge workers and review provenance data tracking systems. Provenance data has been used for data security, databases and to track knowledge workers' interactions with digital content. However, very little research is available on the usefulness of provenance data for knowledge workers. Furthermore, current provenance data research is based on central systems and tracks provenance at the file level. We conducted three user studies to explore current issues knowledge workers face when working with digital content. The first study examined current knowledge workers' problems when re-using digital content. The second study examined to what extend the issues detected in our first study are addressed by document management systems. We found that document management systems do not fully address these issues, and that not all knowledge workers make use of the document management system available to them. The third study examined reasons for low user saturation of available document management systems. As a result of these three studies we identified task categories and a variety of related issues. Driven by these findings, we developed a conceptual model for Document DNA, which tracks the provenance of data used in the identified tasks. To show the effectiveness of our approach, we created a software prototype and conducted a realistic user

This thesis investigates how an interactive software system can support a person in remembering their past experiences and information related to these experiences. It proposes design recommendations for augmented autobiographical memory systems derived from Cognitive Psychology research into human memory – a perspective missing from prior work. Based on these recommendations, a conceptual design of an augmented autobiographical memory system is developed that aims to support users in retrieving cues and factual information related to experiences as well as in reconstructing those experiences. The retrieval aspects of this design are operationalised in an interactive software system called the Digital Parrot. Three important factors in the design and implementation are the context of an experience, semantic information about items in the system and associations between items. Two user studies evaluated the design and implementation of the Digital Parrot. The first study focused on the system's usability. It showed that the participants could use the Digital Parrot to accurately answer questions about an example memory data set and revealed a number of usability issues in the Digital Parrot's user interface. The second study embodied a novel approach to evaluating systems of this type and tested how an improved version of the Digital Parrot supported the participants in remembering experiences after an extended time period of two years. The study found that the Digital Parrot allowed the participants to answer questions about their own past experiences more completely and more correctly than unaided memory and that it allowed them to answer questions for which the participants' established strategies to counteract memory failures were likely to be unsuccessful. In the studies, associations between items were the most helpful factor for accessing memory-related information. The inclusion of semantic information was found to be promising especially in combination with

In the health domain, there are many circumstances where clinicians (i.e. doctors, nurses, allied health professionals) and patients wish to track changes in medical knowledge. However, existing 'news' or 'alert' services provide relatively limited means for selecting which information to receive. The result is that clinicians and patients often receive information that is inappropriate, irrelevant or simply too much. In this paper, we detail alert-relevant findings from several international user studies (e.g. UK, Germany and New Zealand) incorporating both clinical staff (across several hospitals) and patients' perceptions. These findings demonstrate the importance of context, in terms of both the user's task and immediate environment. We introduce a novel alerting architecture that can provide a finely tailored stream of alerts to the user, and provides further support to assist the interpretation of received material.

In the health domain, there are many circumstances where clinicians (i.e. doctors, nurses, allied health professionals) and patients wish to track changes in medical knowledge. However, existing 'news' or 'alert' services provide relatively limited means for selecting which information to receive. The result is that clinicians and patients often receive information that is inappropriate, irrelevant or simply too much. In this paper, we detail alert-relevant findings from several international user studies (e.g. UK, Germany and New Zealand) incorporating both clinical staff (across several hospitals) and patients' perceptions. These findings demonstrate the importance of context, in terms of both the user's task and immediate environment. We introduce a novel alerting architecture that can provide a finely tailored stream of alerts to the user, and provides further support to assist the interpretation of received material.

This paper discusses the challenges facing hybrid, dynamic environments with regard to handling stateful resources and contextual interactions and describes strategies we have and are developing to enable applications to exist in these diverse environments. In particular we describe how combining Grid computing and Web services technologies with Peer-to-Peer technologies can be used to create flexible and dynamic Service Oriented Architectures that support stateful interactions in a loosely coupled way. We describe WSPeer, a SOAP based middleware that enables sophisticated message exchanges in Peer-to-Peer environments, and introduce WSKPeer, a micro-edition of WSPeer currently under development.

This paper describes a generic peer-to-peer architecture, called Alchemist, which provides a peer-to-peer overlay coupled with a data fusion workflow environment for the searching or discovery of distributed resources. The Alchemist is designed to be generic and can host a number of different peer-to-peer applications or other frameworks. We provide an example of how it can be applied to audio and visual searching by using the underlying toolkit to provide workflows for the manipulation of different kinds of audio and visual metadata. This data-fusion capability allows high-level search mechanisms to be built on top of the framework and in addition we demonstrate how other search applications from the scientific community can be implemented.