Dimitri Schuurman

Smart ideas for smart cities: investigating crowdsourcing for generating and selecting ideas for ICT innovation in a city context

Within this article, the strengths and weaknesses of crowdsourcing for idea generation and idea selection in the context of smart city innovation are investigated. First, smart cities are defined next to similar but different concepts such as digital cities, intelligent cities or ubiquitous cities. It is argued that the smart city-concept is in fact a more user-centered evolution of the other city-concepts which seem to be more technological deterministic in nature. The principles of crowdsourcing are explained and the different manifestations are demonstrated. By means of a case study, the generation of ideas for innovative uses of ICT for city innovation by citizens through an online platform is studied, as well as the selection process. For this selection, a crowdsourcing solution is compared to a selection made by external experts. The comparison of both indicates that using the crowd as gatekeeper and selector of innovative ideas yields a long list with high user benefits. However, the generation of ideas in itself appeared not to deliver extremely innovative ideas. Crowdsourcing thus appears to be a useful and effective tool in the context of smart city innovation, but should be thoughtfully used and combined with other user involvement approaches and within broader frameworks such as Living Labs.

Forecasting broadband Internet adoption on trains in Belgium

Thanks to the massive success of mobile access devices such as netbooks or Apples iPhone 3G, Internet on the move has become one of the prominent features of todays information society. With the emergence of wireless and mobile communication networks, the railroad industry is now catching up on this new technology in their battle with low-cost operators to bring more productivity and entertainment possibilities to its passengers. With millions of daily commuters as potential service users, this transport branch offers high business opportunities. However, while most field trials and research effort have mainly focused on the enabling technology, little research effort has been conducted to forecast the demand-side. This article tries to fill this gap by presenting original results gathered from a large-scale survey amongst 1324 regular train travellers. By means of the Product Specific Adoption Potential method, we predict the potential market penetration of wireless Internet services onboard trains and estimate the size and nature of five adopter segments in terms of socio-demographics, drivers and thresholds, willingness to pay, applications and quality of service. We will discuss the practical implications of these insights in order to develop viable business models, set up introduction strategies and build out user-driven infrastructure networks.

Access to premium content on mobile television platforms: The case of mobile sports

As broadcasting sports content has proved to be a popular strategy for driving the growth of the digital premium content marketplace in the past, mobile service operators aim to enter the sports rights market. However, as the markets for live sports broadcasting are still dominated by established broadcasters, mobile network operators are facing significant barriers to access premium content creating bottlenecks in the construction of business models. Therefore, content regulation is seen as essential for the development of mobile television platforms. This article aims to stress the strategic importance of content in the development of sustainable business models for mobile broadcasting services and will discuss the implications of bundling strategies and regulations for the viability of these emerging platforms.

RMLEditor: A Graph-Based Mapping Editor for Linked Data Mappings

Although several tools have been implemented to generate Linked Data from raw data, users still need to be aware of the underlying technologies and Linked Data principles to use them. Mapping languages enable to detach the mapping definitions from the implementation that executes them. However, no thorough research has been conducted on how to facilitate the editing of mappings. We propose the rmleditor, a visual graph-based user interface, which allows users to easily define the mappings that deliver the rdf representation of the corresponding raw data. Neither knowledge of the underlying mapping language nor the used technologies is required. The rmleditor aims to facilitate the editing of mappings, and thereby lowers the barriers to create Linked Data. The rmleditor is developed for use by data specialists who are partners of ii¾źa companies-driven pilot and iii¾źa community group. The current version of the rmleditor was validated: participants indicate that it is adequate for its purpose and the graph-based approach enables users to conceive the linked nature of the data.

Fanboys, competers, escapists and time-killers: a typology based on gamers' motivations for playing video games

In this paper, the different general motivations of gamers for playing video games are explored. Surprisingly, to date little research has been devoted to the characterization of the gamer, based on general game motivations. By means of an online survey, we questioned 2985 Flemish gamers on 11 general game motivations. K-means clustering was used to distinguish four distinctive gamer profiles: the overall convinced gamer, the convinced competitive gamer, the escapist gamer and the pass-time gamer.

Empowered Cities? An Analysis of the Structure and Generated Value of the Smart City Ghent

Smart cities have gained momentum as a conceptual model which embodies a fresh wave of techno-optimism and emphasizes the positive effects of ICT and other innovative technologies in a city, often in combination with multidisciplinary collaborative partnerships. This article assesses a series of six smart city initiatives within one local city ecosystem by proposing a conceptual framework which is then used to analyze the architecture, value flows and contextual dimensions of the smart city Ghent. The results of our analysis show the multi-level collaborative value creation potential in a smart city and shed light on the complexity of these processes. The main conclusion is that current smart city initiatives face the challenge of evolving from demonstrators towards real sustainable value. Smart cities often have a technological deterministic, project-based approach, which forecloses a sustainable, permanent and growing future for the project outcomes.

Specification and Implementation of Mapping Rule Visualization and Editing: MapVOWL and the RMLEditor

Visual tools are implemented to help users in defining how to generate Linked Data from raw data. This is possible thanks to mapping languages which enable detaching mapping rules from the implementation that executes them. However, no thorough research has been conducted so far on how to visualize such mapping rules, especially if they become large and require considering multiple heterogeneous raw data sources and transformed data values. In the past, we proposed the RMLEditor, a visual graph-based user interface, which allows users to easily create mapping rules for generating Linked Data from raw data. In this paper, we build on top of our existing work: we (i) specify a visual notation for graph visualizations used to represent mapping rules, (ii) introduce an approach for manipulating rules when large visualizations emerge, and (iii) propose an approach to uniformly visualize data fraction of raw data sources combined with an interactive interface for uniform data fraction transformations. We perform two additional comparative user studies. The first one compares the use of the visual notation to present mapping rules to the use of a mapping language directly, which reveals that the visual notation is preferred. The second one compares the use of the graph-based RMLEditor for creating mapping rules to the form-based RMLx Visual Editor, which reveals that graph-based visualizations are preferred to create mapping rules through the use of our proposed visual notation and uniform representation of heterogeneous data sources and data values.

Triple screen viewing practices: diversification or compartmentalization?

This paper presents the results of a large-scale survey on viewing practices. Data from over 10,000 cases are used to explore the correlational structure in the frequencies of the use of multiple channels on multiple devices. The results indicate a stable tendency to use multiple channels within devices, rather than forming a pattern between devices. Furthermore, our data mildly suggest a spill-over effect: people who own multiple devices to play back video also seem to consume content on other devices more frequently.

Content for Mobile Television: Issues Regarding a New Mass Medium Within Today’s ICT Environment

The industries of mobile and television technologies are heading toward convergence in the shape of mobile television. Content is assumed to be a main key factor for the success of this ICT innovation as a possible new mass medium. As most trials to date tend to be sponsored by strategic stakeholders and have a technology-driven approach, we aimed for a more user-centric research methodology within MADUF, Flanders’ mobile TV trial. To this end, a meta-analysis on mobile TV user studies was carried out, a panel of 35 experts was surveyed and a user study with 405 respondents was conducted. Within this chapter, we present a SWOT-analysis for possible content on mobile TV, based on all previous research results.

The effectiveness of involving users in digital innovation: Measuring the impact of living labs

Innovation in digital products and services is often dependent on leveraging knowledge on a global scale, fostering an ecosystem of complementary artefacts and accounting for yet unknown uses and practices. For such reasons, it has become widely accepted that the inclusion of external stakeholders early on in the innovation process is an important source of competitive advantage for Information and Communication Technology (ICT) firms. Many succesful ICT companies are said to have adopted open R&D and open innovation strategies. The idea that users should also be included in this has been stressed by various scholars and practitioners, even though the degree to which this is feasible and effective, is still intensely debated. So-called ‘living labs’ are one of the most prominent tools to have been developed for such user-centric innovation of ICTs (von Hippel, 1988; Berker et al., 2005; Frissen and Van Lieshout, 2006; Gassman, 2006; Ståhlbröst, 2008; García-Guzmán et al., 2013). Over the last two decades, a few thousands of organisations and initiatives that label themselves as ‘living labs’ have sprung up across the world. In parallel, several national and regional governments, as well as international bodies such as the European Union, have gradually introduced the moniker of ‘living labs’ into their innovation instrumentarium (Eriksson et al., 2005; Almirall et al., 2012; World Bank and ENoLL, 2014; Schuurman, 2015; Leminen et al., 2017). The concept of a living lab refers to the involvement of multiple stakeholders, including users, in the exploration, co-creation and evaluation of (usually ICT-related) innovations within a realistic setting (Dutilleul et al., 2010; Leminen et al., 2012; Ballon, 2015). The aims of such labs are manifold: bring digital innovation processes and outcomes more in line with user preferences and practices, discover unexpected uses, identify potentially sound business and revenue models, stimulate cooperation between stakeholders, enable specific stakeholder groups to influence design features, increase acceptance, understand and tackle inhibiting factors, minimise failures, or study effects of introduction. As living lab initiatives proliferate, the question whether these aims are being reached, becomes indispensable (Følstad, 2008; Ståhlbröst, 2012). However, studies indicate that there are several issues with regards to the current living labs movement. First of all, the notion of a living lab is used to describe a broad spectrum of activities and organisations, which results in conceptual unclarity and different perspectives on their theoretical basis (Leminen and Westerlund, 2016). Second, a recent study discovered ‘mortality rates’ of living labs associated to the European Network of Living Labs of at least 40% (Schuurman, 2015). Perhaps most problematic is the apparent lack of empirical, comparative studies on living labs to go beyond describing the phenomena or anchoring them to theoretical frameworks (Schuurman et al., 2016). This paper first makes the point that the pragmatic, practice-oriented nature and overall heterogeneity of living lab initiatives until now have stood in the way of any thorough impact evaluation. Secondly, it discusses the applicability of impact assessment and evaluation principles and approaches to living labs. Finally, the results of the first systematic impact evaluation of a series of living lab projects are presented and analysed.