Kalyani Chatterjea

Mobile G-Portal supporting collaborative sharing and learning in geography fieldwork: an empirical study

Integrated with G-Portal, a Web-based geospatial digital library of geography resources, this paper describes the implementation of Mobile G-Portal, a group of mobile devices as learning assistant tools supporting collaborative sharing and learning for geography fieldwork. Based on a modified Technology Acceptance Model and a Task-Technology Fit model, an initial study with Mobile G-Portal was conducted involving 39 students in a local secondary school. The findings suggested positive indication of acceptance of Mobile G-Portal for geography fieldwork. The paper concludes with a discussion on technological challenges, recommendations for refinement of Mobile G-Portal, and design implications in general for digital libraries and personal digital assistants supporting mobile learning.

Lessons from learner experiences in a field-based inquiry in geography using mobile devices

Geographical inquiry involves collecting, using and making sense of the data to investigate some geographical phenomena. With the increasing number of mobile devices equipped with Internet access capabilities, there is a wide scope for using it in field inquiry where learning can take place in the form of social interactions between team members while performing a common task. The authors examine the use of MobiTOP (Mobile Tagging of Objects and People), a geospatial digital library system which allows users to contribute and share multimedia annotations via mobile devices, within a geographical field inquiry. A key feature of MobiTOP that is well suited for collaborative learning is that annotations are hierarchical, allowing annotations to be annotated by other users to an arbitrary depth. A group of student and teachers involved in an inquiry-based learning activity in geography was instructed to identify rock types and associated landforms by collaborating with each other using the MobiTOP system. A method combining several data collection methods was used. Four main findings on the affordances of the mobile phone, the need for specialized training in using the application with the mobile phone, design considerations of the application and the authentic context of learning with fieldwork are reported. A discussion on the implication of these findings and how mobile technology may be used for geographical field learning are also included in this paper.

Exploring Hierarchically Organized Georeferenced Multimedia Annotations in the MobiTOP System

We introduce MobiTOP, a map-based interface for accessing hierarchically organized georeferenced annotations. Each annotation contains multimedia content associated with a location, and users are able to annotate existing annotations, in effect creating a hierarchy. MobiTOP’s interface was designed using a participatory design methodology to ensure that the user interface meets the needs of potential users. A pilot study to compare the MobiTOP interface with a space-filling thumbnail (SFT) interface suggested that participants preferred the MobiTOP design for accessing annotations even though the SFT interface was conceptually easier to understand resources.

Sharing Mobile Multimedia Annotations to Support Inquiry-Based Learning Using MobiTOP

Mobile devices used in educational settings are usually employed within a collaborative learning activity in which learning takes place in the form of social interactions between team members while performing a shared task. We introduce MobiTOP (Mobile Tagging of Objects and People), a geospatial digital library system which allows users to contribute and share multimedia annotations via mobile devices. A key feature of MobiTOP that is well suited for collaborative learning is that annotations are hierarchical, allowing annotations to be annotated by other users to an arbitrary depth. A group of student-teachers involved in an inquiry-based learning activity in geography were instructed to identify rock types and associated landforms by collaborating with each other using the MobiTOP system. The outcome of the study and its implications are reported in this paper.

Social navigation in digital libraries by bookmarking

In the age of Web 2.0, users are increasingly familar with social tagging or bookmarking where comments and ratings are added by users to objects on the web for public consumption. Such comments and ratings are represented in bookmarks which can be used for information or opinion sharing, user interest discovery, and content recommendation. In this paper, we investigate social bookmarking in digital libraries and derive the design requirements for digital library incorporating social bookmarking. Instead of implementing social bookmarking functions in digital library systems from ground zero, we have chosen to explore the possibilities of integrating pre-existing digital library systems with preexisting social bookmarking systems, and to derive a feasible system architectural design. We also present a case study where G-Portal, a geography digital library system, is integrated with Scuttle, an open source social bookmarking system.

TagNSearch: Searching and Navigating Geo-referenced Collections of Photographs

TagNSearch is a map-based tool for searching and browsing geo-tagged photographs based on their associated tags. Using Flickr as the dataset, TagNSearch returns, for a given query, photographs clustered by locations, and summarizes each cluster of photographs by cluster-specific tags. A map-based interface is also provided to help users better search, navigate and browse photographs and their clusters. A qualitative evaluation comparing TagNSearch and an existing tag search support in Flickr was also conducted. The task involved finding locations associated with a set of photographs. Participants were found to perform this task better using TagNSearch than Flickr.

Evaluating the use of a mobile annotation system for geography education

Purpose – Mobile devices used in educational settings are usually employed within a collaborative learning activity in which learning takes place in the form of social interactions between team members while performing a shared task. The authors aim to introduce MobiTOP (Mobile Tagging of Objects and People), a mobile annotation system that allows users to contribute and share geospatial multimedia annotations via mobile devices.Design/methodology/approach – Field observations and interviews were conducted. A group of trainee teachers involved in a geography field study were instructed to identify rock formations by collaborating with each other using the MobiTOP system. The trainee teachers who were in the field were guided by their lab counterparts on the tasks required to identify the rock formations.Findings – Participants were able to appreciate the fieldwork task as it augmented their classroom lessons. The system allowed them to communicate with one another in order to meet the objectives of the st...

Supporting Holistic Understanding of Geographical Problems: Fieldwork and G-Portal.

Fieldwork remains the mainstay in the study of geography and in the analysis of the environmental processes. However, an in-depth understanding of the environmental and geographical processes requires extensive as well as intensive fieldwork that involves time and substantial effort, both of which may pose a problem within a given curriculum time. One solution to this could be a collaborative data collection both on extensive temporal and spatial scales and subsequently sharing of this data by all for an in-depth analysis. Having a large data set from extensive areas helps in a more reliable analysis of the given problem, rather than one done with a limited data set for lack of time and scope. Results of such analysis have the potential of providing outcomes beyond mere course grades and may yield results that are useful in solving real life problems. Such an understanding was used for the development and use of an online data resource portal named G-Portal. The portal was used for uploading and later sharing of data collected from extensive, remote sites in a forest (Bukit Timah Nature Reserve, Singapore). Several groups of researchers collected the data within a short time, to be subsequently shared among the groups for a very in-depth analysis of the environmental problem of trail degradation. The article analyses the fieldwork-related issues addressed while developing this portal and also describes how the portal was used by several groups of researchers and subsequently how this data were used for analysis. Responses of users regarding the usefulness of this portal in research and analysis are also examined. The portal has been found to support field inquiry through data collection, data sharing, analysing data, synthesising data and presenting results.

Sharing Hierarchical Mobile Multimedia Content Using the MobiTOP System

We introduce MobiTOP (Mobile Tagging of Objects and People), a map-based application which allows users to contribute and share geo-referenced multimedia annotations via mobile devices. An important feature of MobiTOP is that annotations are hierarchical, allowing annotations to be annotated to an arbitrary depth. MobiTOP’s interface was designed using a participatory design methodology to ensure that the user interface meets the needs of potential users. In an evaluation, a group of student-teachers involved in a geographical field study were tasked to collaboratively identify rock formations using the MobiTOP system. The students who were in the field were guided by their lab counterparts on the tasks required to identify the rock formations. Results suggest the potential of the MobiTOP system for information sharing.

Integration of wikipedia and a geography digital library

In this paper, we address the problem of integrating Wikipedia, an online encyclopedia, and G-Portal, a web-based digital library, in the geography domain. The integration facilitates the sharing of data and services between the two web applications that are of great value in learning. We first present an overall system architecture for supporting such an integration and address the metadata extraction problem associated with it. In metadata extraction, we focus on extracting and constructing metadata for geo-political regions namely cities and countries. Some empirical performance results will be presented. The paper will also describe the adaptations of G-Portal and Wikipedia to meet the integration requirements.