Georgios D. Styliaras

Evaluation of hypermedia application development and management systems

In this paper we propose and study a framework for evaluating Hypermedia Application Development and Management Systems (HADMS) in relation to specific application requirements. We address the need for HADMS capable to efficiently support the main users involved in the life cycle of hypermedia applications, namely designers, programmers/implementers, authors/administrators and end-users. A HADMS consists of a hypermedia application development and management methodology and the respective environment. In this work, we propose and classify a set of evaluation criteria. These are mainly imposed by real life development and the need to support forthcoming, or next generation, features for hypermedia applications. We also introduce a simple framework for a comparative evaluation of HADMS. Furthermore, we demonstrate the use of the criteria and the framework proposed, for the case of three real-life applications. A representative set of seven HADMS is selected and the evaluation of these systems is carried out, leading to some useful conclusions and suggestions for future work.

Student and in-service teachers' acceptance of spatial hypermedia in their teaching: The case of HyperSea

The aim of this study was to use the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) in order to investigate the factors that influence student and in-service teachers’ intention to use a spatial hypermedia application, the HyperSea, in their teaching. HyperSea is a modern hypermedia environment that takes advantage of space in order to display content nodes and social media pages that can be dragged from the Internet. In total, 257 student and in-service teachers completed a survey questionnaire, measuring their responses to four constructs in the TAM. The results of student teachers’ regression analysis showed that all components of the TAM were found to predict their intention to use HyperSea in their teaching. Perceived usefulness was the most important predictor in their attitude and intention. On the other hand, only attitude towards use had direct influence on teachers’ intention. In addition, perceived usefulness influenced teachers’ intention. Perceived ease of use in this study failed to emerge as a significant predictor of teachers’ attitude and perceived usefulness. The results showed that the TAM in general is useful model for predicting and exploring the factors that influence student and in-service teachers’ intention to use spatial hypermedia such as the HyperSea in their teaching in future. Results of the study are discussed in terms of increasing the intention of student and in service teachers to use spatial hypermedia in their teaching.

Implementing Digital Cultural Heritage Map

Digital Cultural Heritage Map is a dynamic, webbased application that combines web-mapping, digital archives and multimedia. User-generated content can be manipulated from a back-end CMS. Applications goal is to gather spatial cultural data of a geographic area. This paper presents the designing and implementation process of the application. We present the philosophy and the guidelines that influenced the functionality and the interface of the applications website. We also describe the details and innovations that brought our application to life and made it suitable for PC and mobile. The Greek county of Aitoloakarnania is our area of interest.

Towards a web-based archaeological excavation platform for smartphones: review and potentials

The paper conducts a review questioning the usability of a web-based platform supporting archaeological excavations and related fields, which will execute on smartphones. Based on the thorough review and comparison of related work, the basic features of such a platform are outlined. The platform should support documenting content on an underlying XML database through a content management system, producing and exchanging notes, map interaction, use of a shared whiteboard, collaboration among archaeologists etc. The architecture of the platform is presented along with two case studies supporting usual practices on an archaeological field, some primary evaluation results and future work.

Architecture and implementation of a network-based educational hypermedia system

ISTOPOLIS is a network-based hypermedia educational system, which addresses needs of end-users (teachers and students) and content providers. ISTOPOLIS operates over the classroom LAN, over a remote connection to a server or as a standalone application. Students locate information placed within specific context categories and reuse it within their projects. This is supported through a set of Web-based navigation services (Access Tools) and a simple authoring environment integrated within a specialized client. In the back-end, original content authoring is supported through a classification based methodology and tools. The system is suitable for a variety of educational areas. Its current implementation addresses History and is undergoing evaluation in high schools.

A survey on developing personalized content services in museums

Abstract The personalized content services in museums are motivated by the need to enhance the visitors’ experience through recommendations which consider the context of their visit, and by the need of curators to measure objectively the exhibition’s impact. We survey the latest advancements in the fields of indoor localization, visitor profiling, content storage and presentation, as well as curator visualization tools, which are the main elements of such systems, and we highlight their strengths and weaknesses. We present an information architecture, which may offer useful insights to researchers and developers. Finally, we present the current challenges and the future trends.

On the implementation of a digital map for cultural heritage

Digital Cultural Heritage Map is a crowd-sourced web application that combines web-mapping, digital archives and multimedia. A back-end CMS allows manipulation of the user-generated content, making the system dynamic and easy to maintain. The goal of the application is to gather cultural data of a specific geographic area and relate them with multimedia, metadata and spatial data. This study presents the philosophy and the guidelines that influenced the interface design and the innovations of the application. We also describe the implementation strategy that can inspire the development of other applications that are device-independent and available to users on the move.

Spatial Environments for m-Learning: Review and Potentials

Nowadays, the technological advancement in mobile user interfaces has made possible the development of hypermedia applications that exploit space. These applications can represent knowledge modules and relations among them both explicitly and implicitly. Such modules may be shared, commented and further reused under other circumstances. Hypermedia spatial applications can benefit educational environments executed on mobile devices. The paper intends to review existing spatial hypermedia interfaces as well as related environments and their potential use in educational platforms for mobile devices. The review includes issues such as content representation, relations, interface operations, sharing and annotation properties, exemplary usage and the exploitation of spatial structures for educational needs.