Home Informatics and Telematics: ICT for The Next Billion: Proceedings of IFIP TC 9, WG 9.3 HOIT 2007 Conference, August 22–25, 2007, Chennai, India

289 Pages·2007·5.611 MB·English

by  Alladi Venkatesh, Timothy Gonsalves, Andrew Monk, Kathy Buckner (auth.)

Job#: 108473
Author Name:Venkatesh
Title of Book: Home Informatics
ISBN #: 9780387736969
HOME INFORMATICS AND
TELEMATICS: ICT FOR THE NEXT
BILLION
IFIP - The International Federation for Information Processing
IFIP was founded in 1960 under the auspices of UNESCO, following the First World
Computer Congress held in Paris the previous year. An umbrella organization for
societies working in information processing, IFIP's aim is two-fold: to support
information processing within its member countries and to encourage technology transfer
to developing nations. As its mission statement clearly states,
IFIP's mission is to be the leading, truly international, apolitical
organization which encourages and assists in the development,
exploitation and application of information technology for the benefit
of all people.
IFIP is a non-profitmaking organization, run almost solely by 2500 volunteers. It operates
through a number of technical committees, which organize events and publications.
IFIP's events range from an international congress to local seminars, but the most
important are:
• The IFIP World Computer Congress, held every second year;
• Open conferences;
• Working conferences.
The flagship event is the IFIP World Computer Congress, at which both invited and
contributed papers are presented. Contributed papers are rigorously refereed and the
rejection rate is high.
As with the Congress, participation in the open conferences is open to all and papers may
be invited or submitted. Again, submitted papers are stringently refereed.
The working conferences are structured differently. They are usually run by a working
group and attendance is small and by invitation only. Their purpose is to create an
atmosphere conducive to innovation and development. Refereeing is less rigorous and
papers are subjected to extensive group discussion.
Publications arising from IFIP events vary. The papers presented at the IFIP World
Computer Congress and at open conferences are published as conference proceedings,
while the results of the working conferences are often published as collections of selected
and edited papers.
Any national society whose primary activity is in information may apply to become a full
member of IFIP, although full membership is restricted to one society per country. Full
members are entitled to vote at the annual General Assembly, National societies
preferring a less committed involvement may apply for associate or corresponding
membership. Associate members enjoy the same benefits as full members, but without
voting rights. Corresponding members are not represented in IFIP bodies. Affiliated
membership is open to non-national societies, and individual and honorary membership
schemes are also offered.
HOME INFORMATICS AND
TELEMATICS: ICT FOR THE
NEXT BILLION
Proceedings of IFIP TC 9, WG 9.3 HOIT 2007
Conference, August 22- 25, 2007, Chennai, India
Edited by
Alladi Venkatesh
University of California, Irvine, United States
Timothy Gonsalves
Indian Institute of Technology-Madras, India
Andrew Monk
University of York, United Kingdom
Kathy Buckner
Napier University, United Kingdom
Springer
Library of Congress Control Number: 2007930691
Home Informatics and Telematics: ICT for the Next Billion
Edited by A. Venkatesh, T. Gonsalves, A. Monk, and K. Buckner
p. cm. (IFIP International Federation for Information Processing, a Springer Series in
Computer Science)
ISSN: 1571-5736/ 1861-2288 (Internet)
ISBN: 13: 978-0-387-73696-9
elSBN: 13: 978-0-387-73697-6
Printed on acid-free paper
Copyright © 2007 by International Federation for Information Processing.
All rights reserved. This work may not be translated or copied in whole or in part without the written
permission of the publisher (Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, 233 Spring Street, New York, NY
10013, USA), except for brief excerpts in connection with reviews or scholarly analysis. Use in
connection with any form of information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software,
or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed is forbidden.
The use in this publication of trade names, trademarks, service marks and similar terms, even if they are
not identified as such, is not to be taken as an expression of opinion as to whether or not they are subject
to proprietary rights.
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Acknowledgements
We gratefully acknowledge the support of the National Science Foundation - USA
(POINT Project - Grant No. IRI 9619695), various academic units of the University
of California, Irvine (CalIT2, CRITO, The Paul Merage School of Business, Center
for Ethnography, Office of Vice-Chancellor for Research), IFIP Head Office, Austria
(International Federation for Information Processing), the Indian Institute of
Technology (IIT)-Madras, India and the TeNet Group (IIT-Madras).
Preface
This volume represents the papers reviewed and accepted for the HOIT2007 conference
held at the Indian Institute of Technology Madras (IIT-M) in the city of Chennai, India,
in August 2007. The conference, entitled "Home/Community Oriented ICT for the Next
Billion," addressed many major themes of current interest in this field. In particular, the
focus was on community-based technologies. The conference was organized by IFIP
working Group 9.3-Home Oriented Informatics and Telematics (HOIT), in association
with the TeNeT Group of the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras. The conference
papers cover a wide range of topics that transcend local/national themes and engage us in
global issues. This was the first time the HOIT conference was held outside Europe or
North America, testifying to the growth and development of other regions of the world.
The conference included paper sessions, panel discussions, special keynote speaker
presentations, and poster sessions. The topics were grouped under different themes.
Following are the five basic themes of the conference and a brief description of the
papers that appear under each theme.
Empowerment and Digital Divide
In their comparative analysis of South Africa and India, Joseph and Andrew show how
ICTs can have dramatic impact in two key areas—alleviating poverty for rural women
and achieving socio-economic development goals. In the next piece, Malhotra and co
authors discuss "DesiCrew" as a unique business process outsourcing (BPO) initiative in
the context of rural areas in India. Directly addressing community-oriented concerns,
Pitula and Radhakrishnan propose an "inclusive technology" that permits greater
participation of rural communities and minimizes the digital divide between rural and
urban dwellers. The setting in their study is Peruvian Amazon. Gonzales and co-authors
transport us to a different setting, in Mexico, and describe in detail the emergence of a
low-income community that has broadband Internet access and other ICT-related
features.
ICT and Learning
Sarma and Ravindran demonstrate how intelligent tutoring systems have been developed
using artificial intelligence techniques to teach autistic students. The next article is an
elaborate case study by Harishankar and co-authors on active teaching and learning
strategies that have become the hallmark of the TeNet online tutorials developed in
collaboration with IIT-Madras. This is followed by a paper written by Javed Khan and
co-authors on how awareness systems can support communication between busy parents
and young children at school.
ICT-Emerging Communities and Societal Issues
Dinesh and Uskudarh extend the community-oriented theme to the school environment
and discuss a community knowledge management system that facilitates ongoing
interactions between the school administration and the local community. Vyas and co
authors shift their focus to work environments and propose a system that mediates casual
viii
and engaging encounters among employees and leads to meaningful and pleasurable
experiences. The idea is to make the work environment less monotonous.
Parmar and co-authors discuss a health information system sensitive to the needs of rural
communities, elaborating on the design challenges in developing such a system.
Subramanian raises an important issue of growing concern whose significance cannot be
ignored: as new economies emerge based on information revolution, how do we protect
information privacy laws? The context is India but the topic has a wider appeal.
Home Applications and Family Uses
One of the central issues facing users of new technologies relates to the quality of their
everyday experiences. Clark and Wright propose a scheme for on-line grocery shopping
based on their survey of consumers. In their study of daily domestic life, Swan and co
authors perform an analysis of how families manage clutter and design a scheme for
domestic management. This is followed by a design-oriented analysis in the domestic
setting by Sondhi and Sloane that focuses on digital photo sharing among family
members and friends. Extending the notion of family experiences directed toward fun,
Monk and Reed examine recreational use of the telephone focusing on many-to-many
situations as opposed to the normal one-to-one approach associated with telephone use.
Darbari and Agarwal offer some practical ideas that incorporate end-user requirements in
sharing and experiencing digital photographs.
ICTs in the Home - Usability and Design Issues
Monk and Lelos extend our traditional concepts of usability by delving into the domain
of aesthetics. They raise the question of whether digital products can be both useful and
aesthetic. Fitzpatrick and Stringer examine the nexus between home, school, and work
and show how such an understanding is critical to the development of next-generation
technologies. As new technologies provide opportunities for social interactions, there is a
growing interest in designing suitable devices for this purpose. Petersen and co-authors
discuss CASOME (context-aware interactive media platform for social computing in the
home), which they propose as an interactive system for family use. Leitner and co
authors go into considerable detail concerning design issues that have occupied our
attention on smart home systems and provide some answers. Choi takes a close look at
the notion of domestic objects by suggesting that the current approach neglects people's
diverse functional uses and comes up with a more inclusive design.
Editors
Alladi Venkatesh - University of California, Irvine, USA
Timothy A. Gonsalves, Indian Institute of Technology-Madras, India
Andrew Monk, University of York, UK
Kathy Buckner, Napier University, UK.
Table of Contents
[A]. Empowerment and Digital Divide
1. Convergence opportunities and factors influencing the use of internet and telephony by 1
rural women in South Africa and India towards empowerment - Meera. K. Joseph and
Theo. N. Andrew
2. Untapped Resources! Amazing Potential! 21
TeNeT's Rural BPO Initiative - Saloni Malhotra, P.Rathi, Timothy A. Gonsalves, Ashok
Jhunjhunwala and Thejus Giri
3. A Set of Heuristic Measurements for Evaluating 35
the Inclusiveness of a Technology - K. Pitula and T. Radhakrishnan
4. The Tech-Enabled Neighborhood: Findings from an experience in Tecamac, Mexico - 49
Victor M. Gonzalez, Kenneth Kraemer, Luis A. Castro and Alladi Venkatesh
[B]. ICT and Learning
5. Intelligent Tutoring Systems using Reinforcement Learning to teach Autistic Students - 65
B. H. Sreenivasa Sarma and B. Ravindran
6. Teaching - Learning Strategies in Interactive Education - A Case Study - VBharathi 79
Harishankar, Archana Ghode, Alankar Bandyopadhayay, Maryma Scotlin, Hema A
Murthy, Timothy A Gonsalves and Ashok Jhunjhunwala
7. On the role of awareness systems for supporting parent involvement in young 91
children's schooling - Vassilis-Javed Khan, Panos Markopoulos and Berry Eggen
[C]. ICT - Emerging Communities and Societal Issues
8. Community Software Applications - T. B. Dinesh and S. Uskudarli 103
9. Being Social @ Work: Designing for Playfully Mediated Social Awareness in Work 113
Environments - Dhaval Vyas, Marek R. van de Watering, Anton Eliens and Gerrit C. van
der Veer
10. Shaping social beliefs: A community sensitive health information system for rural 133
India - Vikram Parmar, David V Key son and Cees deBont
11. "Can we trust the Indians with our data?" An examination of the emergence of 145
information privacy laws in India - Ramesh Subramanian
[D], Home Applications and Family Uses
X
12. Off Their Trolley -- Understanding Online Grocery Shopping Behaviour - Lillian 157
Clark and Peter Wright
13. Containing Family Clutter - Laurel Swan, Alex S. Taylor, Shahram Izadi and Richard 171
Harper
14. Digital Photo Sharing and Emotions In A Ubiquitous Smart Home - Gaurav Sondhi 185
and Andy Shane
15. Telephone conferences for fun: experimentation in people's homes - Andrew F. Monk 201
and Darren J. Reed
16. Enliven Photographs: Enriching User Experience - Akshay Darbari and Pragya 215
Agrawal
[E]. ICTs in the Home - Usability and Design Issues
17. Changing only the aesthetic features of a product can affect its apparent usability - 221
Andrew Monk and Kir a Lelos
18. Exploring technology influences between home, work, school: implications for 235
managing ubiquitous technologies in the home - Geraldine Fitzpatrick and Mark Stringer
19. Designing for Co-located Social media use in the home using the CASOME 251
infrastructure - Marianne Graves Petersen, Martin Ludvigsen, Kaj Gronbcek, Kaspar
Rosengreen Nielsen
20. Usability - Key Factor of Future Smart Home Systems - Gerhard Leitner, David 269
Ahlstrom and Martin Hitz
21. Lessons from the Life of Domestic Objects: 279
Design Considerations for UbiComp Devices for Home - Youngmi Choi