Academic Work

UKCDR v2

In my quality of UMAP Information Systems Manager I am also responsible for participating in the JISC-funded UKCDR project.

The UK Collaboration for a Digital Repository (UKCDR) project began in 2005 and aimed to develop a specification for a tool to support development and sharing of high quality, high-stakes assessment items and data. The methods used brought together a range of agencies and institutions in the UK and the outcomes were used in the appraisal of a range of commercial and non-commercial software tools.

In this framework, I have produced a report entitled UKCDR V2: Specification, in which I present a new set of requirements elaborated on the basis of use cases and interviews collected by the prior UKCDR team, as well as the first set of requirements available in the first version of the specification. I tried to perform a loose qualitative data analysis of the data available to me by treating it as 'text' and elaborating a model of the system by coding the data in a fashion close to Strauss's Grounded Theory approach. Looking back at it, I think I used the word 'process' way too much!

Interface Design for a Video Capture and Analysis Software Tool

Performed for my second Master Thesis (MRes in Human Computer Interaction, Lancaster University), and in the framework of the EUNZ exchange program, the objective of this project was to design the interface for a video capture and analysis software tool, with a particular focus on the indexation and “tagging” of the video and audio data produced by the use of such a tool, in order to allow its users to easily retrieve and analyse different pieces of video.

Created by Intranel (a New Zealand-based software company, partner of HitLab New Zealand) VideoScribe allows the gathering and management of observational data, and streamlines the process of recording, annotating and transcribing digital video and audio.

The design process has been undertaken in the framework of an user-centred methodology, and supported by a thorough user study, featuring numerous interviews, questionnaires, and a short ethnographic study.

The results and analyses of the data produced by the user study was then used to support the requirement elicitation and interface design processes. In addition, particular attention has been given to interface design principles and guidelines available in the literature.

Download the Master Thesis for VideoScribe

A Multimedia Virtual Learning Environment

Virtual Learning Environments, or VLEs, are systems designed to support the educational process by providing a computer based environment allowing the members of an academic organisation to interact, through the new means of communication made available by technologies such as the internet, and to perform a variety of tasks in relation with their activity in the framework of such a particular organisation.

The creation of such systems involves numerous delicate issues in regard to their design, which have been well investigated, as some important research material is available on the subject.

For the moment, most of the VLEs currently in use, like for instance the Blackboard for the University of Teesside, are using standard web-based technologies and classic HTML interfaces.

Besides, the evolution of internet-related technologies has now made possible the creation of accessible rich multi-user, truly multimedia application, allowing their user to be highly stimulated by more and more advanced interfaces. In addition, the use of web services for the design of such systems as a VLE can be an interesting approach in terms of data architecture and inter-application communication.

Therefore, the main purpose of this project has been to investigate how these technologies can be transferred and adapted for the design of the prototype of an advanced virtual learning environment, by making use of multi-user and web service technologies, as well as of a particular development method centred on a particular research scheme: the particular issues involved by the characteristics of such a system need indeed to be deeply investigated during the design of such a complex system.

Download the Master Thesis for the MVLE

Miscellaneous Academic Projects

Here are two projects (including a group project) that I have undertaken during my MRes in Human Computer Interaction at the University of Lancaster:

Pin Doctor, a collaborative project exploring the educative applications for of an innovative "interactive surface" called Pin&Play developed at the University of Lancaster.

Recip-o-tron, a prototype for a new kind of online recipe database. The exhaustive documentation presents the user-centred development process of this particular project.