Andy Phippen

A practical evaluation of Web analytics

E‐commerce has resulted in organisations investing significant resources in online strategies to extend business processes on to the World Wide Web. Traditional methods of measuring Web usage fall short of the richness of data required for the effective evaluation of such strategies. Web analytics are an approach that may meet organisational demand for effective evaluation of online strategies. A case study of Web analytics usage in a large multinational airline company demonstrates an application of the theory to a practical context with a company that invests significant resources in their Web strategies. The attitudes of company individuals toward the evaluation of Web strategy and the value of the approach are shown through a survey of key employees. This work demonstrates the potential value of Web analytics and also highlights problems in promoting an awareness of Web analytics and how it can be applied to corporate goals.

Security beliefs and barriers for novice Internet users

End-users are now recognized as being at increased risk in online scenarios, with a range of threats that seek to specifically target them and exploit their systems. Novice users are particularly likely to face difficulties in this context, as their unfamiliarity with the technology can limit their ability to recognize the threats and understand the required protection. This paper presents the results from a qualitative study, arising from detailed interviews conducted with 20 novice users in order to assess their views and experiences with Internet security. The findings reveal a general awareness of the existence of threats, but less familiarity with the appropriate safeguards beyond a very basic level. Although users generally recognize that they have a responsibility for their own protection, they often appear unconcerned about the potential impacts of the problems. In other cases, they felt unable to address their concerns as a result of their lack of technical knowledge or obstacles posed by security tools.

Risk and restitution: Assessing how users establish online trust

The belief that users must be assured of security prior to engaging with an online service is challenged through the examination of attitudes from participants of a number of focus groups within the UK. What is apparent from our evidence is that rather than accepting simple assurances of protection, the average user is far more informed than service providers often credit, and will carry out a personal risk assessment prior to engaging with a service. Rather than guarantees of security, clearly defined indications of mitigation and restitution in the event of failure or problems are what users consider important. These findings have far reaching implications for service providers and a number of consequent recommendations are defined.

Securing the next generation: enhancing e-safety awareness among young people

Children and young people inhabit a fast-moving, ever-more-complex space, with interconnected technologies forming an underlying communications backbone. 1 Not only do they have their mobile devices, but they are also surrounded by personal computers of many types, shapes and sizes. Moreover, as the UK Office of Communications (Ofcom) report on media literacy illustrates, as young people grow into their teens they amass a large amount of their own technology. 2 They may well have dedicated laptops and desktops along with digital TV and a selection of gaming consoles, all of which provide them with the means to go online.

Multi‐dimensional‐personalisation for location and interest‐based recommendation

During the dot com era the word “personalisation” was a hot buzzword. With the fall of the dot com companies the topic has lost momentum. As the killer application for UMTS has yet to be identified, the concept of multi‐dimensional‐personalisation (MDP) could be a candidate. Using this approach, a recommendation of online content, as well as offline events, can be offered to the user based on their known interests and current location. Instead of having to request this information, the new service concept would proactively provide the information and services – with the consequence that the right information or service could therefore be offered at the right place, at the right time. Following an overview of the literature, the paper proposes a new approach for MDP, and shows how it extends the existing implementations.

Web services: measuring practitioner attitude

Distributed computing architecture has been around for a while, but not all of its benefits could be leveraged due to issues such as inter‐operability, industry standards and cost efficiency that could provide agility and transparency to the business process integration. Web services offer a cross platform solution that provides a wrapper around any business object and exposes it over the Internet as service. Web services typically work outside of private networks, offering developers a non‐proprietary route to their solutions. The growth of this technology is imminent; however, there are various factors that could impact its adoption rate. This paper provides an in‐depth analysis of various factors that could affect adoption rate of this new technology by the industry. Various advantages, pitfalls and future implications of this technology are considered with reference to a practitioner survey conducted to establish the main concerns effecting adoption rate of Web services.

Online privacy: a matter of policy?

Privacy policies are a standard element of most online sites, but can differ markedly in the degree to which they are understandable to users, thanks to the volume of information and the complexity of the language used. Steven Furnell and Andy Phippen of Plymouth University, UK examine the policies of some leading sites and assess the implications for users. They also consider other ways in which users may tend to seek reassurance if understanding the policy is beyond their ability. Privacy is a key topic of interest and concern for those involved with any aspect of online activity. While the concept of privacy may have existed for many hundreds of years, it has become more important as the value of personal data has increased. Indeed, in Magna Carta, one of the first definitions of the rights of the individual in history, there is no mention of privacy, and personal information had little value. With the advent of the merchant classes came competition and with it the concept of competitive advantage, the value of personal information began to increase and with it the need for privacy. However, it is only in post-war capitalist societies that we see an exponential interest. It was the advent of the Internet, with its facilitation of global instant access to information at virtually no cost, that has raised massive concerns for the privacy of ones personal data. And this is due to the number of companies and organisations wishing to access such information, and their reasons for doing so.

Strategies for Content Migration on the World Wide Web.

The World Wide Web has experienced explosive growth as a content delivery mechanism, delivering hypertext files and static media content in a standardised way. However, this content has been unable to interact with other content, making the Web a distribution system rather than a distributed system. This is changing, however, as distributed component architectures are being adapted to work with the Web’s architecture. This paper tracks the development of the Web as a distributed platform, and highlights the potential to employ an often neglected feature of distributed computing: migration. Argues that all content on the Web, be it static images or distributed components, should be free to migrate according to either the policy of the server, or the content itself. The requirements of such a content migration mechanism are described, and an overview of a new migration mechanism, currently being developed by the authors, is presented.

Improving protection mechanisms by understanding online risk

Purpose – The purpose of this research is to examine privacy risks for two groups of individuals for whom privacy is an important issue. Understanding the risks to vulnerable groups leads to the development of a prototype tool used to inform users about areas of potential harm in their online behaviour.Design/methodology/approach – Data collection employed a number of qualitative approaches in order to best understand both the risks and the social context surrounding them. Semi‐structured interviews, focus groups and questionnaires were all utilised where appropriate. Subjects were selected from two groups of individuals for whom the abuse of personal information could lead to serious harm – teenagers and domestic abuse survivors.Findings – The findings provide specific examples of risks posed to the two groups of individuals involved in the study and demonstrate the need for protection mechanisms that promote the awareness of potential risk among vulnerable internet users. These formed the basis of the r...

Device services as reusable units of modelling in a service-oriented environment - An analysis case study

Reusing software components is an important but not standardised task in software engineering. This will become a problem if requirements change in the future. By the use of web services in service-oriented architecture, as a communication interface for devices, the automation area has to define how to handle these reusable units. At the moment, no standardised way is defined. This publication analyses the use of web services in a service-oriented environment as a communication interface of physical devices in the area of automation. An analysis matrix will be built by the use of defined research challenges of web services and known reuse aspects in the area of software engineering. The results of a Device Profile for Web service (DPWS) case study will be compared to this matrix in order to define research steps and important factors for device services for the future.