Eleni Berki

Towards Lightweight Requirements Documentation

Most requirements management processes and associated tools are designed for document-driven software development and are unlikely to be adopted for the needs of an agile software development team. We discuss how and what can make the traditional requirements documentation a lightweight process, and suitable for user requirements elicitation and analysis. We propose a reference model for requirements analysis and documentation and suggest what kind of requirements management tools are needed to support an agile software process. The approach and the reference model are demonstrated in Vixtory, a tool for requirements lightweight documentation in agile web application development.

Towards a contingency approach with whitelist-and blacklist-based anti-phishing applications: what do usability tests indicate?

In web browsers, a variety of anti-phishing tools and technologies are available to assist users to identify phishing attempts and potentially harmful pages. Such anti-phishing tools and technologies provide Internet users with essential information, such as warnings of spoofed pages. To determine how well users are able to recognise and identify phishing web pages with anti-phishing tools, we designed and conducted usability tests for two types of phishing-detection applications: blacklist-based and whitelist-based anti-phishing toolbars. The research results mainly indicate no significant performance differences between the application types. We also observed that, in many web browsing cases, a significant amount of useful and practical information for users is absent, such as information explaining professional web page security certificates. Such certificates are crucial in ensuring user privacy and protection. We also found other deficiencies in web identities in web pages and web browsers that present challenges to the design of anti-phishing toolbars. These challenges will require more professional, illustrative, instructional, and reliable information for users to facilitate user verification of the authenticity of web pages and their content.

A usability test of whitelist and blacklist-based anti-phishing application

Anti-phishing tools on a web browser warn about spoofing pages or/and prompt to essential and necessary information that assists users to identify spoofing and potentially harmful pages. In order to discover how well users can identify phishing pages with these tools after they understand how the tools work, we designed and conducted usability tests for two detection mechanisms of anti-phishing tools: the blacklist-based and whitelist-based anti-phishing toolbars. As a result, we report that no significant performance differences between the blacklist-based and whitelist-based applications were found; but some other interesting findings and observations were collected. The most valuable observation is that due to the deficiency of existing web identities on the web pages and web browsers, e.g. abstract and professional web page security certificate information, anti-phishing toolbars need to be more illustrative and instructional in order to assist users to find reliable information for identifying the authenticity of the content on the web pages.

The Human Context of Information Systems

In its past, IS research has focused on IT and the organizations that use IT. Human issues have been studied in HCI and the Human Factor Studies of MIS. Yet recently a new wave of attention has emerged to focus more explicitly on issues rising from the human context of information systems. Studies in this area are still scattered, but there seems to exist a common paradigmatic orientation in their basic assumptions of human beings and their interaction. The end-users of information systems should be seen holistically as physical, cognitive, emotional, and social beings, whose communication is rich and uses multiple media. These views add to and improve our understanding of information and knowledge effective in various kinds of human-oriented information systems.

Action-oriented classification of families' information and communication actions: exploring mothers' viewpoints

Action-oriented service and technology development begins with the idea that people use technologies to reach their action goals. Consequently, we should investigate user needs and how they can be satisfied, and adapt services and technologies to the natural course of actions. Here, we focus on family communication and investigate mobile communication service types for families. For this study 10 mothers were interviewed; we investigated the nature of their everyday information and communication needs and the different knowledge and information transfer actions that were discovered in their families. Qualitative analysis of these interviews was used to generate a taxonomy, which, in turn, can help in providing enhanced individual services and family-centred design models.

Problem-Focused Higher Education for Shaping the Knowledge Society

Higher education HE has not efficiently targeted a knowledge-shaped economy and has not kept up with the knowledge and IT skills demanded to resolve the problems from social-and work-exclusion. While recently unemployed knowledge workers are searching for new jobs, re-educating policies and career development options have not kept pace with work changes. There is an urgent need for a HE reform in order to address the current socio-economic and work-life crises. For this reform, the authors compare and contrast three promising learning approaches: problem-based learning PBL, work-based learning WBL and problem-focused education PFE. While in PBL and WBL work-and problem-related knowledge is transferred sufficiently, PFE seems to outperform. The paper points to an effective re-organisation of HE by 1 investing in PFE as the means to achieve quality in the learning process and its outcomes and 2 identifying ICT quality features for supporting the PFE learning process.

Exploring Games as Formal Models

Computer games have become increasingly complex. Modern game specifications need to accommodate many detailed design documents, which results in increasing complexity. Complex games are difficult to understand, maintain and update, but their software cannot be extensively functional, as this might confuse the player. Consequently, game developers can benefit from following precise guidelines to design games for players. Formal methods can provide a suitable specification environment to formalize static and dynamic game aspects and realistically model game rules and events. At a higher level of abstraction, a formal game model can provide understandability and communication of the activities within a development process.

The re-production process of gender bias: a case of ICT professors through recruitment in a gender-neutral country

ABSTRACT Women’s under-representation in the fields of science and technology is strong; both in software houses and academic posts. We focus on the academic field by gender sensitive analysis of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) academics. The general picture given by statistics’ meta-analyses illustrates male dominance even in Finland, which is often presented as a country which values gender equality high. For achieving deeper understanding about the process of gender bias reproduction, we focus on one university and its selection of ICT professors. Although every professorship fulfilling is a situated process, they all together shape a homogeneous male-dominant picture. This paper continues on early gender-focused discussion of Studies in Higher Education by presenting an organisational point of view.

Open Source Software Process: A Potential Catalyst for Major Changes in Electronic Health Record Systems

Electronic health records implementation has been a challenge for many governments worldwide, who have tried to realise a quality and cost-effective implementation through closed and/or open source software. The paper discusses the background and rationale for implementing health records through an open source software development process model. Whilst there are many benefits from the adoption of an open source software process model there are also many challenges. The paper discusses the ongoing research and outlines the position of the authors on why an open source software process would be a quality solution and a challenge for the implementation of electronic health records at national and potentially at European level.

Applying Weighted Finite State Machines to Protocol Performance Analysis

This work proposes the use of a weighted Finite State Machine to serve as a computational model for analyzing the performance of communication protocols. The new model’s use is demonstrated by concentrating on web-based services, Internet level-5 protocols in particular, because when the latter are ported onto mobile handsets, fail to meet performance expectations. The same modeling technique can also be used for lower layers, and for other communication protocols. Utilizing the new model, this work analyzes one of the most important use cases found in the agenda of the Internet Engineering Task Force, that of presence. More specifically, the new model is used in the measurement of the Session Initiation Protocol for Instant Messaging and Presence Leveraging Extensions protocol suite performance in two different scenarios. Investing on the application of the new model the paper outlines the benefits of using Presence Event Packages for Session Initiation Protocol in the analysis and enhancement of performance. Mathematical rigor and modeling accuracy improve the precision of protocol performance evaluation and offer an improved understanding on the way various web-based services function.