Skapandet av ett webbaserat ärendehanteringssystem för affärssystemet Pyramid med Scrum : Creation of a web based case management system for the business system Pyramid with Scrum

The business system known as Pyramid does today not provide its user with a reasonable system regarding case management for support issues. The current system in place requires the customer to contact its provider via telephone to register new cases. In addition to this, current system doesn’t include any way for the user to view any of their current cases without contacting the provider.A solution to this issue is to migrate the current case management system from a telephone contact to a web based platform, where customers could easier access their current cases, but also directly through the website create new cases. This new system would reduce the time required to manually manage each individual case, for both customer and provider, resulting in an overall reduction in cost for both parties.The result is a system divided into two different sections, the first one is an API created in Pyramid that acts as a web service, and the second one a website which customers can connect to. The website will allow users to overview their current cases, but also the option to create new cases directly through the site. All the information used to the website is obtained through the web service inside Pyramid. Analyzing the final design of the system, the developers where able to conclude both positive and negative aspects of the systems’ final design. If the platform chosen was the optimal choice or not, and also what can be include if the system is further developed, will be discussed.The development process and the method used during development will also be analyzed and discussed, what positive and negative aspects that where encountered. In addition to this the cause and effect of a development team smaller than the suggested size will also be analyzed. Lastly an analysis of actions that could’ve been made in order to prevent certain issues from occurring will.

Database-backed library web sites: a case study of the use of PHP and MySQL at the University of Nottingham

This paper discusses the advantages of database-backed websites and describes the model for a library website implemented at the University of Nottingham using open source software, PHP and MySQL. As websites continue to grow in size and complexity it becomes increasingly important to introduce automation to help manage them. It is suggested that a database-backed website offers many advantages over one built from static HTML pages. These include a consistency of style and content, the ability to present different views of the same data, devolved editing and enhanced security. The University of Nottingham Library Services website is described and issues surrounding its design, technological implementation and management are explored.

Design de interfaces dinâmicos em sistemas de gestão de conteúdos

Relatório de Estágio para a obtenção do grau de Mestre na área de Educação e Comunicação Multimédia

THE FEASIBILITY OF USING WEB-BASED TECHNOLOGY FOR THE MANAGEMENT OF DREDGING PROJECTS

The research investigates the feasibility of using web-based project management systems for dredging. To achieve this objective the research assessed both the positive and negative aspects of using web-based technology for the management of dredging projects. Information gained from literature review and prior investigations of dredging projects revealed that project performance, social, political, technical, and business aspects of the organization were important factors in deciding to use web-based systems for the management of dredging projects. These factors were used to develop the research assumptions. An exploratory case study methodology was used to gather the empirical evidence and perform the analysis. An operational prototype of the system was developed to help evaluate developmental and functional requirements, as well as the influence on performance, and on the organization. The evidence gathered from three case study projects, and from a survey of 31 experts, were used to validate the assumptions. Baselines, representing the assumptions, were created as a reference to assess the responses and qualitative measures. The deviation of the responses was used to evaluate for the analysis. Finally, the conclusions were assessed by validating the assumptions with the evidence, derived from the analysis. The research findings are as follows: 1. The system would help improve project performance. 2. Resistance to implementation may be experienced if the system is implemented. Therefore, resistance to implementation needs to be investigated further and more R&D work is needed in order to advance to the final design and implementation. 3. System may be divided into standalone modules in order to simplify the system and facilitate incremental changes. 4. The QA/QC conceptual approach used by this research needs to be redefined during future R&D to satisfy both owners and contractors. Yin (2009) Case Study Research Design and Methods was used to develop the research approach, design, data collection, and analysis. Markus (1983) Resistance Theory was used during the assumptions definition to predict potential problems to the implementation of web-based project management systems for the dredging industry. Keen (1981) incremental changes and facilitative approach tactics were used as basis to classify solutions, and how to overcome resistance to implementation of the web-based project management system. Davis (1989) Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) was used to assess the solutions needed to overcome the resistances to the implementation of web-base management systems for dredging projects.

Navegar na web : as redes sociais como espaços de comunicação, partilha de conhecimento e de promoção de competências de aprendizagem

A aprendizagem em rede e as potencialidades do software social trouxeram novos e estimulantes desafios para os sistemas educativos e para os seus profissionais. Um dos principais desafios prende-se com a necessidade de conceber uma “nova” didática para a docência na web social que deve basear-se não só nos conhecimentos científico, tecnológico, curricular e pedagógico, mas também num conhecimento científico e pedagógico da tecnologia que permita planear, conceber e utilizar as redes sociais, como o Facebook, no processo de ensino-aprendizagem de forma eficaz. Assim, e perante esta realidade, neste estudo exploratório procurámos perceber em que medida a utilização do Facebook no processo de ensino-aprendizagem permite a promoção de competências de aprendizagem de estudantes de cursos pós-graduados, a nível da capacidade para aprender, da iniciativa e da autonomia. Os resultados sugerem que os estudantes aceitam o Facebook como um novo contexto para a aprendizagem, que não impede a reflexão crítica sobre os conceitos e as temáticas apresentadas para trabalho, possibilitando o desenvolvimento de comunidades de aprendizagem desde que exista uma intencionalidade educativa explícita.

Collaborative Web-Based Simulation Platform for Construction Project Planning

Part 13: Virtual Reality and Simulation

Design of a project for a film festival

[ES] Shoot&Soul Festival es un festival de cine y música para Bilbao. El proyecto pretende convertir la ciudad en un punto de encuentro multicultural con el uso del inglés como lengua principal; a la vez que promover la cultura y costumbres locales como la gastronomía, el folclore, etc.

Creación y diseño de la plataforma web y aplicación móvil para la realización de la revista digital de carácter académico-estudiantil (ARKHÉ).

El proyecto titulado Creación y diseño de la plataforma web y aplicación móvil para la realización de la revista digital de carácter académico-estudiantil (Arkhé), tuvo como objetivo instaurar un medio propio para la Carrera de Comunicación Social, destinado a la publicación de trabajos e investigaciones de docentes y estudiantes. El proyecto fue estructurado visual y conceptualmente. En cuanto a la estructura visual, se crearon elementos que identifican a la revista, como: logotipo, colores y todo lo relacionado al diseño visual y funcional de la página y su aplicación móvil. En lo referente a la parte conceptual, se elaboraron las bases fundamentales para que exista una revista como: misión, visión, sostenibilidad, concepto de su nombre, creación de la línea editorial, Consejo Editorial, políticas de calidad y normas de publicación; para convertir a Arkhé en una fuente de referencia confiable con posibilidades de indexación. El presente proyecto comprende una investigación teórica y práctica. En el primer capítulo se partió de un marco teórico y se desarrollaron conceptos indispensables para la elaboración de una revista digital. En el segundo se mostró los resultados de la aplicación de encuestas y entrevistas realizadas a estudiantes y profesores. En el tercero se elaboraron las bases de la revista académica y de la estudiantil. Finalmente en el cuarto capítulo se creó el espacio web en donde consta toda la información de la revista para que puedan publicar sus trabajos. En consecuencia, Arkhé es un medio que apoya al proceso de aprendizaje, en el que profesores y estudiantes desarrollan sus habilidades a través de la práctica.

FDOT District Six Pedestrian Safety Web GIS Application

A group of four applications including Top 20 Pedestrian Crash Locations: This application is designed to display top 20 pedestrian crash locations into both map- view and detailed information view. FDOT Crash Reporting Tool: This application is designed to simplify the usage and sharing of CAR data. The application can load raw data from CAR and display it into a web map interface. FDOT Online Document Portal: This application is designed for FDOT project managers to be able to share and manage documents through a user friendly, GIS enable web interface GIS Data Collection for Pedestrian Safety Tool: FIU-GIS Center was responsible for data collection and processing work for the project of Pedestrian Safety Tool Project. The outcome of this task is present by a simple web-GIS application design to host GIS by projects.

The Relationship between Faculty Perceptions and Implementation of Elements of Transactional Distance Theory and Online Web-Based Course Completion Rates

The purpose of this study was to explore the relationship between faculty perceptions, selected demographics, implementation of elements of transactional distance theory and online web-based course completion rates. This theory posits that the high transactional distance of online courses makes it difficult for students to complete these courses successfully; too often this is associated with low completion rates. Faculty members play an indispensable role in course design, whether online or face-to-face. They also influence course delivery format from design through implementation and ultimately to how students will experience the course. This study used transactional distance theory as the conceptual framework to examine the relationship between teaching and learning strategies used by faculty members to help students complete online courses. Faculty members’ sex, number of years teaching online at the college, and their online course completion rates were considered. A researcher-developed survey was used to collect data from 348 faculty members who teach online at two prominent colleges in the southeastern part of United States. An exploratory factor analysis resulted in six factors related to transactional distance theory. The factors accounted for slightly over 65% of the variance of transactional distance scores as measured by the survey instrument. Results provided support for Moore’s (1993) theory of transactional distance. Female faculty members scored higher in all the factors of transactional distance theory when compared to men. Faculty number of years teaching online at the college level correlated significantly with all the elements of transactional distance theory. Regression analysis was used to determine that two of the factors, instructor interface and instructor-learner interaction, accounted for 12% of the variance in student online course completion rates. In conclusion, of the six factors found, the two with the highest percentage scores were instructor interface and instructor-learner interaction. This finding, while in alignment with the literature concerning the dialogue element of transactional distance theory, brings a special interest to the importance of instructor interface as a factor. Surprisingly, based on the reviewed literature on transactional distance theory, faculty perceptions concerning learner-learner interaction was not an important factor and there was no learner-content interaction factor.

Website content and design in SME: insights from Portugal

Although there is a vast amount of literature on website evaluation, relatively little has been written about the analysis of websites of small and medium-sized enterprises (SME). This paper examines a comprehensive set of content and design features of 915 websites of Portuguese SME, as well as the relationship between these features and enterprise size. The results indicate that the majority of the websites are used to convey information, rather than to make transactions, support networking and collaboration or to interact dynamically with users. Accessibility or privacy and security features are not common among websites. Web 2.0 features have a low presence in SME websites, but social media emerged as a construct. In contrast with existing literature, the study has found that website content and design features are positively related with enterprise size. The contributions and implications are discussed together with avenues for further research.

From client's dreams to achievable projects: An expert system for determining web site feasibility

This paper presents a web based expert system application that carries out an initial assessment of the feasibility of a web project. The system allows detection of inconsistency problems before design starts, and suggests correcting actions to solve them. The developed system presents important advantages not only for determining the feasibility of a web project but also by acting as a means of communication between the client company and the web development team, making the requirements specification clearer.

Approche basée sur des patrons pour concevoir des logiciels d’enseignement adaptés aux technologies du Web

Les applications Web en général ont connu d’importantes évolutions technologiques au cours des deux dernières décennies et avec elles les habitudes et les attentes de la génération de femmes et d’hommes dite numérique. Paradoxalement à ces bouleversements technologiques et comportementaux, les logiciels d’enseignement et d’apprentissage (LEA) n’ont pas tout à fait suivi la même courbe d’évolution technologique. En effet, leur modèle de conception est demeuré si statique que leur utilité pédagogique est remise en cause par les experts en pédagogie selon lesquels les LEA actuels ne tiennent pas suffisamment compte des aspects théoriques pédagogiques. Mais comment améliorer la prise en compte de ces aspects dans le processus de conception des LEA? Plusieurs approches permettent de concevoir des LEA robustes. Cependant, un intérêt particulier existe pour l’utilisation du concept patron dans ce processus de conception tant par les experts en pédagogie que par les experts en génie logiciel. En effet, ce concept permet de capitaliser l’expérience des experts et permet aussi de simplifier de belle manière le processus de conception et de ce fait son coût. Une comparaison des travaux utilisant des patrons pour concevoir des LEA a montré qu’il n’existe pas de cadre de synergie entre les différents acteurs de l’équipe de conception, les experts en pédagogie d’un côté et les experts en génie logiciel de l’autre. De plus, les cycles de vie proposés dans ces travaux ne sont pas complets, ni rigoureusement décrits afin de permettre de développer des LEA efficients. Enfin, les travaux comparés ne montrent pas comment faire coexister les exigences pédagogiques avec les exigences logicielles. Le concept patron peut-il aider à construire des LEA robustes satisfaisant aux exigences pédagogiques ? Comme solution, cette thèse propose une approche de conception basée sur des patrons pour concevoir des LEA adaptés aux technologies du Web. Plus spécifiquement, l’approche méthodique proposée montre quelles doivent être les étapes séquentielles à prévoir pour concevoir un LEA répondant aux exigences pédagogiques. De plus, un répertoire est présenté et contient 110 patrons recensés et organisés en paquetages. Ces patrons peuvent être facilement retrouvés à l’aide du guide de recherche décrit pour être utilisés dans le processus de conception. L’approche de conception a été validée avec deux exemples d’application, permettant de conclure d’une part que l’approche de conception des LEA est réaliste et d’autre part que les patrons sont bien valides et fonctionnels. L’approche de conception de LEA proposée est originale et se démarque de celles que l’on trouve dans la littérature car elle est entièrement basée sur le concept patron. L’approche permet également de prendre en compte les exigences pédagogiques. Elle est générique car indépendante de toute plateforme logicielle ou matérielle. Toutefois, le processus de traduction des exigences pédagogiques n’est pas encore très intuitif, ni très linéaire. D’autres travaux doivent être réalisés pour compléter les résultats obtenus afin de pouvoir traduire en artéfacts exploitables par les ingénieurs logiciels les exigences pédagogiques les plus complexes et les plus abstraites. Pour la suite de cette thèse, une instanciation des patrons proposés serait intéressante ainsi que la définition d’un métamodèle basé sur des patrons qui pourrait permettre la spécification d’un langage de modélisation typique des LEA. L’ajout de patrons permettant d’ajouter une couche sémantique au niveau des LEA pourrait être envisagée. Cette couche sémantique permettra non seulement d’adapter les scénarios pédagogiques, mais aussi d’automatiser le processus d’adaptation au besoin d’un apprenant en particulier. Il peut être aussi envisagé la transformation des patrons proposés en ontologies pouvant permettre de faciliter l’évaluation des connaissances de l’apprenant, de lui communiquer des informations structurées et utiles pour son apprentissage et correspondant à son besoin d’apprentissage.

Connecting works of art within the semantic web of symbolic meanings

My doctoral research is about the modelling of symbolism in the cultural heritage domain, and on connecting artworks based on their symbolism through knowledge extraction and representation techniques. In particular, I participated in the design of two ontologies: one models the relationships between a symbol, its symbolic meaning, and the cultural context in which the symbol symbolizes the symbolic meaning; the second models artistic interpretations of a cultural heritage object from an iconographic and iconological (thus also symbolic) perspective. I also converted several sources of unstructured data, a dictionary of symbols and an encyclopaedia of symbolism, and semi-structured data, DBpedia and WordNet, to create HyperReal, the first knowledge graph dedicated to conventional cultural symbolism. By making use of HyperReal's content, I showed how linked open data about cultural symbolism could be utilized to initiate a series of quantitative studies that analyse (i) similarities between cultural contexts based on their symbologies, (ii) broad symbolic associations, (iii) specific case studies of symbolism such as the relationship between symbols, their colours, and their symbolic meanings. Moreover, I developed a system that can infer symbolic, cultural context-dependent interpretations from artworks according to what they depict, envisioning potential use cases for museum curation. I have then re-engineered the iconographic and iconological statements of Wikidata, a widely used general-domain knowledge base, creating ICONdata: an iconographic and iconological knowledge graph. ICONdata was then enriched with automatic symbolic interpretations. Subsequently, I demonstrated the significance of enhancing artwork information through alignment with linked open data related to symbolism, resulting in the discovery of novel connections between artworks. Finally, I contributed to the creation of a software application. This application leverages established connections, allowing users to investigate the symbolic expression of a concept across different cultural contexts through the generation of a three-dimensional exhibition of artefacts symbolising the chosen concept.

On making web accessibility more accessible: strategy and tools for social good

The world currently faces a paradox in terms of accessibility for people with disabilities. While digital technologies hold immense potential to improve their quality of life, the majority of web content still exhibits critical accessibility issues. This PhD thesis addresses this challenge by proposing two interconnected research branches. The first introduces a groundbreaking approach to improving web accessibility by rethinking how it is approached, making it more accessible itself. It involves the development of: 1. AX, a declarative framework of web components that enforces the generation of accessible markup by means of static analysis. 2. An innovative accessibility testing and evaluation methodology, which communicates test results by exploiting concepts that developers are already familiar with (visual rendering and mouse operability) to convey the accessibility of a page. This methodology is implemented through the SAHARIAN browser extension. 3. A11A, a categorized and structured collection of curated accessibility resources aimed at facilitating their intended audiences discover and use them. The second branch focuses on unleashing the full potential of digital technologies to improve accessibility in the physical world. The thesis proposes the SCAMP methodology to make scientific artifacts accessible to blind, visually impaired individuals, and the general public. It enhances the natural characteristics of objects, making them more accessible through interactive, multimodal, and multisensory experiences. Additionally, the prototype of \gls{a11yvt}, a system supporting accessible virtual tours, is presented. It provides blind and visually impaired individuals with features necessary to explore unfamiliar indoor environments, while maintaining universal design principles that makes it suitable for usage by the general public. The thesis extensively discusses the theoretical foundations, design, development, and unique characteristics of these innovative tools. Usability tests with the intended target audiences demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed artifacts, suggesting their potential to significantly improve the current state of accessibility.