Yuen-Yan Chan

Mobile learning: a new paradigm in electronic learning

As mobile phones become popular, with many people being able to afford them, the demand for mobility is extended to teaching and learning purposes. One recent and significant change in learning environments is the demand for mobility. We introduce a proposed framework of mobile learning. It consists of four functional levels: (1) mobile learning applications, (2) mobile user infrastructure, (3) mobile protocol and (4) mobile network infrastructure. The framework can simplify the design and development so that different parties (e.g. vendors, service providers, designers, developers) can address individual levels. A single party can build on functionalities provided by others. The functions of these four levels are described with some examples. Moreover, practical knowledge management and learning community are two major issues in mobile learning.

Network Forensic on Encrypted Peer-to-Peer VoIP Traffics and the Detection, Blocking, and Prioritization of Skype Traffics

Skype is a popular peer-to-peer (P2P) voice over IP (VoIP) application evolving quickly since its launch in 2003. However, the ability to traverse network address translation (NAT) and bypass firewalls, as well as the induced bandwidth burden due to the super node (SN) mechanism, make Skype considerably a threat to enterprise networks security and availability. Because Skype uses both encryption and overlays, detection and blocking of Skype is non- trivial. Motivated by the work ofBiondi and Desclaux [3], we adopt the view of Skype as a backdoor and we take a forensic approach to analyze it. We share our experience in this paper. With the forensic evidence, we identify a transport layer communication framework for Skype. We further formulate a set of socket-based detection and control policies for Skype traffics. Our detection method is a hybrid between payload and non-payload inspections, with improved accuracy and version sustainability over the traditional payload-only approaches. Our solution is practicable both inside and outside the NAT firewalls. This breakthrough makes the detection, blocking, and prioritization of Skype traffics possible in both the enterprise internal networks and the Internet Services Providers carrier networks.

Knowledge Community: A Knowledge-Building System for Global Collaborative Project Learning

The wave of a knowledge economy drives todays education to equip students with knowledge building abilities. While collaborative learning has been proven to be an effective constructivist pedagogy, it is difficult to elicit, coordinate, and capture the corresponding knowledge construction process. The situation becomes more challenging when learning is conducted in a distributed environment in which the participants are scattered in different geographical locations. In this paper, we depict the theories, architecture, applications, and analysis of a Web-based computer-supported collaborative learning and knowledge-building system called Knowledge Community (KC), which currently serves a series of 3I (interdisciplinary, interschool, and international) Project Learning activities with more than 10 000 students and teachers participating globally. We also describe the corresponding 3I Project Learning model, a novel technology-enabled pedagogy in which learners perform collaborative, comparative study projects with peers from other countries. Technologically, KC is the use of Web technologies to provide a collaborative learning environment. Pedagogically, KC with its embedded learning theories has created a new learning culture that meets the demands of knowledge economy.

WebQuest markup language (WQML) for sharable inquiry-based learning

WebQuest is a model for constructivist inquiry-based learning in which the information used by learners is collected from the Web. A WebQuest exists in form of a Web site that contains a defined set of componential Web pages. In this paper, we specify the WebQuest Markup Language (WQML) for WebQuest construction. WQML enables WebQuests to be implemented as sharable courseware objects and thus to be interoperable with most learning management systems (LMS).

Weakest link attack on single sign-on and its case in SAML v2.0 web SSO

In many of the single sign-on (SSO) specifications that support multitiered authentication, it is not mandatory to include the authentication context in a signed response. This can be exploited by the adversaries to launch a new kind of attack specific to SSO systems. In this paper, we propose the Weakest Link Attack, which is a kind of parallel session attack feasible in the above settings. Our attack enables adversaries to succeed at all levels of authentication associate to the victim user by breaking only at the weakest one. We present a detailed case study of our attack on web SSO as specified in Security Assertions Markup Language (SAML) V2.0, an OASIS standard released in March, 2005. We also suggest the corresponding repair at the end of the paper.

MobiLP: a mobile learning platform for enhancing lifewide learning

Lifewide learning recognizes learning to occur in a wide variety of contexts; geographical mobility is therefore important to its technological support. Such a requirement could perfectly be met by mobile computing. We propose MobiLP - a Web-based learning system which supports accesses from both mobile and nonmobile computing devices. It aims at providing educational contents and communication services to teachers and students anytime, anywhere.

Single sign-on and key establishment for ubiquitous smart environments

In a smart environment, users often need to access multiple service providers. Multiple authentications and key establishments are required as these resources may reside in different security domains. Therefore we are in quest of a solution that combines multiple logins and key exchanges into one single process. Motivated by this need, we propose a scheme for single sign-on and key establishment (SSOKE) for ubiquitous smart environments. We examine the computational model and design considerations for smart environments, and address them in our scheme construction. Security and privacy considerations of our proposal are also provided.

Evaluation on security and privacy of Web-based learning systems

Web-based learning systems are becoming popular in the recent years. Many courses and lectures are now conducted online. Similar to other Web-based applications, security and privacy of Web-based learning systems should not be overlooked. We evaluate the security and privacy of general Web-based learning systems. We address the security and privacy requirements specific to them. Recommendations on design and implementation of a secure Web-based learning system are also presented. In particular, we have evaluated the security services of two popular Web-based learning tools.

Engineering education outreach in Chinese social context: An ethnographical study on IEEE-TISP implementation with rural schools in Hong Kong

Engineering education outreach at pre-university level has become a recent focus of engineering education. Some initiatives, such as IEEEs Teacher-In-Service Programme (TISP), have been offered by professional organizations to support engineering education outreach for pre-university sectors by professional engineer volunteers. The support being offered consists of a variety of forms, e.g., web-based teaching plans, on-campus support for teachers and on-campus experiment sessions. The resourceful support by professional organizations may be appropriate in the urban area but in fact needs much adaptation and customization in the less privileged rural schools. One issue is to address the cultural differences between the city and rural contexts. While the city schools favor professionalism when promoting the outreach programmes, the rural schools emphasize more on trust and social networks with the local community to foster initial acceptance and whole-community support to the programme. We adopt an ethnography approach to investigate the implementation of IEEE TISP in two rural small schools in the Frontier Closed Area (FCA) along the Hong Kong and Mainland China boundary. Our experience provides a set of best practices for those who plan about engineering education outreach programmes in a rural community especially in China.

A generic construction of secure signatures without random oracles

We show how to construct an existentially unforgeable secure signature scheme from any scheme satisfies only a weak notion of security in the standard model. This construction method combines a weakly secure signature and a one-time signature. However, key generation of the resulted fully secure signature is the same as the key generation of weak signature. Therefore the length of the public key in our fully secure signature is independent of that of the one-time signature. Our conversion from a weakly secure signature scheme to an existentially unforgeable secure signature scheme is simple, efficient and provably secure in the standard model (that is, security of the resulting scheme does not rely on the random oracle model). Our results yield a new construction of existentially unforgeable secure signature in the standard model. Furthermore, we show two efficient instantiations without random oracles converted from two previous weakly secure signature schemes.