A Study of User Interaction with Context Aware Notifications from a Moodle Learning Environment

Preview:

DESCRIPTION

This paper reports on a user study to gauge user interaction with RSS based mobile electronic updates from a Moodle based virtual learning environment. The mobile reception of such information can be received in three dimensions of context: time, location and activity. With the active participation of fifteen students, the project aims to compare and evaluate the effectiveness of these context dimensions by comparing the level of user engagement initially across one academic term. The mobile updates relate to teaching material, course work feedback, and general announcements from academic staff across the University’s academic departments. As well as user profiling when interaction with the updates, early investigations show that there exists peak times when users interact with these applications. Initial results indicate that interactions occurred generally during office hours and within the confines of the campus environment, although uses of the activity based application were recorded also in informal locations outside of working hours. The results also show that time based electronic updates are the most popular, engagement wise, when compared to location and activity.

Citation preview

School of Computing & Communication SystemsLancaster University, UK

A Study of User Interaction with Context Aware

Notifications from a Moodle Learning Environment

Phil Benachour: p.benachour@lancaster.ac.uk

Laura Crane: l.crane@lancaster.ac.uk

The 13th IEEE International Conference on Advanced Learning Technologies

July 15-18, 2013

Beijing, China

School of Computing & Communication SystemsLancaster University, UK

Motivations of Research

Previous Research Dimensions of

Context Precedence of

Context Rationale of Study Architecture of

Applications Deployment Results Conclusions

School of Computing & Communication SystemsLancaster University, UK

The research carried out was based on the following motivations:

Investigate student interactions with mobile devices

Profile student usage of mobile applications which support their organisation of learning

Attempt to answer the question of:

“Can we utilize context in pervasive learning environments?”

Profile student usage of mobile applications which support their organisation of learning

School of Computing & Communication SystemsLancaster University, UK

School of Computing & Communication SystemsLancaster University, UK

Investigation of RSS as an appropriate information channel for Mobile Learning

Comparison of RSS and Twitter based Web 2.0 systems

The delivery of information based upon either a time or location mechanism

Can we deliver information from a VLE by more than time or location?

School of Computing & Communication SystemsLancaster University, UK

Dey (2001)

“Context is any information that can be used to characterize the situation of an entity. An entity is a person, place, or object that is considered relevant to the interaction between a user and an application, including the user and applications themselves.”

School of Computing & Communication SystemsLancaster University, UK

School of Computing & Communication SystemsLancaster University, UK

School of Computing & Communication SystemsLancaster University, UK

School of Computing & Communication SystemsLancaster University, UK

School of Computing & Communication SystemsLancaster University, UK

School of Computing & Communication SystemsLancaster University, UK

https://www.alohar.com/developer/learnmore.html

• Automatically detect the places (including the name and category) that the user visits.

• Minimize battery power consumption while gathering data from the mobile device.

• Get notifications when a user arrives at or departs from a place.

• Automatically get the number of times a user visits a place, and how much time is spent there per visit.

• Automatically understand a user’s mobile motion state (e.g. stationary, walking or driving).

School of Computing & Communication SystemsLancaster University, UK

Time Application Location Application Activity Application

•3 Groups of participants

•5 participants in each group for Time, Location & Activity

• Deployed onto 15 devices

• Full term of 10 weeks (70 days)School of Computing & Communication SystemsLancaster University, UK

School of Computing & Communication SystemsLancaster University, UK

School of Computing & Communication SystemsLancaster University, UK

School of Computing & Communication SystemsLancaster University, UK

Results – Weeks of the Term

School of Computing & Communication SystemsLancaster University, UK

Results – Weeks of the Term

School of Computing & Communication SystemsLancaster University, UK

Results – Weeks of the Term

School of Computing & Communication SystemsLancaster University, UK

Results – Weeks of the Term

School of Computing & Communication SystemsLancaster University, UK

Results – Weeks of the Term

School of Computing & Communication SystemsLancaster University, UK

Results – Weeks of the Term

School of Computing & Communication SystemsLancaster University, UK

School of Computing & Communication SystemsLancaster University, UK

• Patterns of Usage• Mainly contained in formal hours and spaces• Early afternoons show peaks of interactions• Time mobile application held the most

amount of interactions• Location and Activity very close in numbers

• Build useful user profiles and patterns of usage• Ensure wireless access & infrastructure is

available in situations where interactions take place

• Currently in the second term of academic year long study

• The groups have been deployed with a different context application

• Awaiting results April to May 2013

Contact Us for more information

Email: p.benachour@lancaster.ac.ukl.crane@lancaster.ac.uk

Twitter.com/laura_crane

Twitter.com/benachourP

School of Computing & Communication SystemsLancaster University, UK

Recommended