Mohamed Sarrab

Towards a quality model of technical aspects for mobile learning services

Quality issues are commonly reported following the development of mobile learning applications. To evaluate and increase the chance of the successful development of new mobile learning products, the adoption of a complete and well-defined set of technical quality aspects for mobile learning development and their adoption in the education environment are proposed. This work describes a model that captures most abstract and generic technical aspects of mobile learning service quality, including availability, fast response times, flexibility, scalability, usability, maintainability, functionality, functionality, reliability, connectivity, performance, user interface and security. A set of technical quality aspects was developed following a literature study focussing on standards and guidelines for learning and mobile application software quality. The presented case studies point to a set of contextual technical quality factors that influence the choice of mobile learning application. The findings also indicate that there are causal relationships between learner satisfaction and the overall proposed model technical quality aspects. The model has a positive impact on overall learning process outcomes by evaluating the technical aspects while maintaining the quality of mobile learning delivered. The model components purportedly affect learning outcomes by assessing and improving the acceptability to stakeholders of the technical aspects of mobile learning. We propose a new model that captures most abstract and generic technical aspects of mobile learning.Four case studies were conducted with selected technical quality aspects in cumulative exercise.The case studies point to set of contextual technical quality factors influence mobile learning.The model evaluates technical aspects while maintaining delivered mobile learning quality.This effort is part of an Omani-funded research project investigating mobile learning in Oman.

Exploring Major Challenges and Benefits of M-learning Adoption

Recently, E-learning tools have proven to be potential platforms for management and progress in the education sector. The usage of mobile learning (M-learning) tools in the field of Learning Management Systems (LMS) is an interesting area of research that worth to be investigated. M-learning can offer higher learning and teaching autonomy for the education sectors and individual learners alike. M-learning can support ubiquitous learning hence portraying it as a potential candidate for future distance education. Various research works have been performed in M-learning related to its design needs and application development challenges. This paper highlights the trends of traditional learning systems and establishes a relation between modern mobile technologies and current learning paradigm. It discusses the major benefits that can reflect on the education sector, whereas the major challenges are also put into consideration while adopting M-learning services. The potential economic impact of M-learning adoption is also considered while taking into account the students, staffs and the concerned organizations. Three case studies were used to achieve and complement the research objectives in exploring major challenges

Mobile cloud computing: advantage, disadvantage and open challenge

With modern smart phones and powerful mobile devices, Mobile apps provide many advantages to the community but it has also grown the demand for online availability and accessibility. Cloud computing is provided to be widely adopted for several applications in mobile devices. However, there are many advantages and disadvantages of using mobile applications and cloud computing. This paper focuses in providing an overview of mobile cloud computing advantages, disadvantages. The paper discusses the importance of mobile cloud applications and highlights the mobile cloud computing open challenges

An empirical study on cloud computing requirements for better mobile learning services

Information technology and its applications change not only the way students learn but also how they are taught. M-learning provides many advantages to our education system. Cloud computing is the new technology that has started to be widely adopted for use with several applications by many education providers. A number of issues that have delayed the complete adoption of M-learning applications through cloud computing services still need to be solved. This paper defines an appropriate set of requirements, i.e. availability, quick response, flexibility and ease of use, long-term storage, elasticity and scalability, integrity, privacy and confidentiality and the control of information flow. The dimensions of these requirements are tailored to criteria developed from the literature study, standards for software quality and their guidelines. The paper then highlights the level of importance of each defined requirement for higher educational institutions, training centres, research laboratories, infant and junior schools.

Development and validation of Mobile Learning Acceptance Measure

ABSTRACT The growth of Smartphone usage, increased acceptance of electronic learning (E-learning), the availability of high reliability mobile networks and need for flexibility in learning have resulted in the growth of mobile learning (M-learning). This has led to a tremendous interest in the acceptance behaviors related to M-learning users among the information systems researchers. Despite a large amount of significant research in the field of M-learning, the measurement of user acceptance of M-learning has not received attention. This research study intends to develop and validate a survey that measures users’ acceptance of M-learning. A total sample of 806 university and higher college students from different institutes in Oman participated in this study. This research study was conducted in two stages. The first stage using a sample size of 388 students initiated a generic questionnaire, and examined factorial validity and reliability. The second stage that was conducted using different sample of 418 students employed confirmatory factor analysis to establish factorial validity and measurement invariance. A correlated six-factor model (Flexibility, Suitability, Enjoyment, Efficiency, Economic and Social) was fit using maximum likelihood estimation. The internal consistency and item reliability of Mobile Learning Acceptance Measure was found to be at acceptable level for both samples.

Mobile learning: a state-of-the-art review survey and analysis

Mobile learning (M-learning) represents a way to address a number of traditional, distance and electronic learning issues and limitations. Using mobile devices such as PDAs, tablets and smart phones as learning tools enable innovation and support learners, instructors, parents and decision makers accessing to digital material and personalised achievements assessment. Many research studies have been performed in M-learning related to its requirement analysis, design needs and application development issues and challenges. In order to ascertain the current knowledge and research state, an extensive review of M-learning literature and research background have been undertaken to pinpoint and harness potential factors and gaps in its implementation and adoption. This paper surveys the state of the art on the use and research of different aspects related to M-learning following a systematic methodology. The paper seeks in helping researchers to understand and distinguish the main characteristics and features surrounding M-learning in one solid article reviewed 169 selected articles. The effort is part of an Omani-funded research project investigating the development, adoption and dissemination of M-learning in Oman.

Controlling data dissemination

We present a policy-based approach for the control of information flow between services. The controlled dissemination of information shared between services is achieved by the communication and enforcement of policies associated with shared information. The presented approach integrates easily as a communication middle-ware in existing service-based information systems keeping the management and distribution of policies transparent to the service implementation. This article focuses on the architecture and presents initial results that show the feasibility of the approach.

Crowd sourced testing through end users for Mobile Learning application in the context of Bring Your Own Device

Mobile Learning (M-Learning) has gained considerable popularity among the learners. Accessibility and compatibility of M-Learning application is no more restricted to limited number of mobile devices. Now M-Learning providers have given freedom of learning on any mobile device owned by the user in the environment called Bring Your Own Device (BYOD).

Cybercrime Investigation Challenges for Gulf Cooperation Council Governments: A Survey

Computer crimes are criminal activities that involve the use of information technology. Modern life is increasingly relying on information technology; however, the more sensitive the information, such as government intelligence, credit card information or personal information the more important it is to improve the systems of computer crime investigation. Crime investigation helps detect illegal access to computer systems with the intent of deleting, modifying, damaging or stealing the data and information. Such activities may cause financial damages and may also result in publishing or destroying secret or confidential information. This survey study focuses mainly on highlighting the main challenges of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) cybercrime investigation system and the need of information security laws in these particular countries. To achieve that personal knowledge, literature review and case study are used to complement and maintain the authors’ statement about the challenges of cybercrime Investigation in GCC. KeywordsCybercrime; Computer Crime; Cybercrime investigation procedure.

Runtime verification using policy-based approach to control information flow

Computer systems are monitored to check the performance or verified to check the correctness of the software systems with respect to security properties, such as integrity, availability and confidentiality. The more sensitive the information such as credit card information, military information or personal medical information being processed by the software, the more necessary and important to monitor and control the flow of the sensitive information. Monitoring and controlling untrusted program to ensure the information confidentiality during runtime in an environment, where confidential information is presented, is difficult and unnerving. The issue is how to monitor and control the flow of the confidential information at runtime of untrusted program. In this paper, we present a novel runtime verification approach for monitoring and controlling information flow that supports user interaction with running program.