1

Geotemporal aware, mobile networking systems: The example of

SmartCampus

Presented by Starr Roxanne Hiltz, NJIT

Researchers include: Quentin Jones, Constantine Manikopoulos, Cathy Dwyer,

Eunhee Kim and Maria Plummer

HICSS Socialware Tutorial January 2007

2

Outline

1. Conceptual foundation: P3 systems

2. The Smart Campus Testbed– Hardware – Software design approach and initial applications

3. Semi-structured interviews with prospective users: methods

4. Results

3

1. P3-Systems: Person to Person to Place

P3 systems involve the use of mobile devices that record location and time, and collect this information for use in applications.

4

Two Main Types of P3-Systems Interfaces

People Centered

Mrs. Weasley's Clock

Place Centered

The Marauders Map

5

P3-Systems Framework

SystemDesign Approaches

Synchronous Communication or

Synchronous Location Awareness

Asynchronous Communication or

Asynchronous Location Awareness

People Centered

Absolute User Location

Where is my ‘buddy’ now?Where has my ‘buddy’ been?

Co-location / Proximity Who is close to me now?

Who has my geotemporal routines?

Place Centered

Use of Physical Spaces by People

Who is in this place now?Who uses this place regularly?

Interactionsin Matching Virtual Places

Who can I talk to in this place?

What did people have to say about activities in this place?

6

Example P3-Systems

Nokia Sensor

LoveGetyHocMan

ActiveCampus Explorer

ULocate

7

2. The SmartCampus Initiative

PIs- Constantine Manikopoulos (ECE) & Quentin Jones (IS)

Other Faculty Involved: B. Amento (IS and AT&T), C. Borcea (CS), S.R. Hiltz (IS),

Katia Passerini ( Management)

8

SmartCampus is

• A mobile, wireless campus community system that will serve as a dispersed laboratory for the study of People-To-People-To-Places (P3) Services in terms of studies of: – Community building– Co-ordination of mobile teams– User privacy [personal location data] and other

concerns and – Security

9

SmartCampus Overall Goal:

• To improve geographically concentrated social connectivity/ capital through the use of our People-to-People–to-Place (P3) systems.

• We believe that its use can lead to more social interaction, more collaborations, and larger and more inter-connected social networks, thus building the overall strength of community.

• But: many potentially negative social impacts as well as technical issues are of concern.

10

Hardware/ Equipment

• Provisioning 500+ students with personal computing devices (smart phones and tablet PCs), which will run a suite of applications; central server to run the applications

• Locatability is achieved through a modified version of Intel’s PlaceLab’s code, and complete WiFi coverage of our campus, which is complimented by a small number of WiFi access points that do not provide connectivity but rather act as beacons to improve location accuracy.

We can now locate within about five feet, show the location on a real-time map, and identify a place name.

11

• Wi-Fi+Bluetooth enabled - TabletPCs, Notebooks, HandComputers – locatable from 5-20m indoors and outdoors at NJIT.

• PDAs Wi-Fi+Bluetooth and PDA phones GSM+Wi-Fi+Bluetooth

• GSM+Wi-Fi+Bluetooth SMARTphones locatable from 5-15m indoors and outdoors at NJIT.

• Wearable Group – Heads Up Displays, Twiddlers, OQOs, + More

Initial Client Technologies

12

Initial Applications / Systems

First field site to cover entire design space:

– NJIT’s Active Campus Explorer– NJIT’s SmartCampus Web/WiKi– NJIT’s CampusMesh– GeoMemory System– SmartCampus Middleware– CampusBorgs– Security Protection Systems:

ConexGuard

13

Location-aware applications in various stages of development and deployment include:• NJIT’s ActiveCampus Explorer (modified from

UCSD version), which enables map based “buddy tracking”, location aware instant messaging, and digital graffiti;

• SmartCampus WiKi which provides context aware editable web pages about NJIT places, people and organizations according to location and season via an analysis of wireless access point used and DNS lookup;

• GeoMemory an in situ multi-media and location aware capture tool for mobile phones; and

• CampusMesh a location-aware friend-of-friend system for social introductions and reminders.

14

Some Overall Research Questions

• What kinds of people will want to use these applications, and for what?

• What kinds of concerns about privacy and interruptions, vs. convenience and benefits? How are these related to place, time, and the characteristics of the users?

15

Completed: three rounds of semi-structured interviews

• Round one, results available and to be summarized today: based on scenarios- with a cross section of 65 students, faculty and staff.

• Round two: students, based on working prototype of CampusWiki

• Round three: faculty, reactions to walkthroughs of mockups of Campus Mesh

16

Methodology• The first set of semi-structured interviews were

conducted with a cross section of representatives of types of users (students and faculty and staff; residents and commuters; undergraduates and graduates, etc.) during the first few months of test-bed development.

• Students in research courses interviewed and transcribed

• Thus, the opinions gathered at that time were used to influence the features and even the name of the systems under development.

17

Interview Guide

• At the time of the initial interviews, no prototypes were available to present to subjects.

• Our aim was therefore not to test core usability concerns but rather to derive a general understanding of user perceptions

• The interview guide included a brief description of the SmartCampus project and a brief description of the then hypothetical applications being developed for the project. The guide presented a brief scenario to illustrate the possible uses of each of these hypothetical applications.

18

(round 1)- Some sample scenarios and questions, semi-structured interviews

Jane is working on a group project for her graduate course in Management. The group has been communicating by email but has a number of unresolved issues. It’s an hour before class, and she wonders if they might already be on campus.

They have all made each other “buddies” for the Campus Explorer System, so when she looks, she sees that two out of three are on campus already- one in the Library and one in the parking lot. She Instant Messages them and they agree to meet in Starbucks.

After talking for a half hour, they have a question for the professor; Jane checks and he is visibly in his office, so they go to talk to him. By the time class starts they have been able to improve their plans a lot.

19

(Questions following the scenario)• Anticipated use - Do you think you would like to

use the Active Campus Explorer? (If yes, what do you think you would use it for? If not, why not? )

• If yes: Follow-up/ probes• What kinds of people do you imagine you would

be willing to make a “buddy” who could track your location on campus?

20

Concerns--• When you think about the Campus Explorer

“buddy locator” system, what kinds of reactions and concerns come to mind?

• (Follow up with many probes on each of these… and finally “anything else?”)

• PLACE probes:Are there places on campus where you would not like your exact location to be known, even to your buddies?

• TIMES probes: Are there times of the day or week when you think you would want to turn off this tracking system, or that it should be turned off for the whole campus?

21

Round one results

Anticipated use of SmartCampus

No. of Subjects (%)

CampusWiki - Yes 48 (73.8) No 8 (12.3) Not sure 6 (9.2) N/A 3 (4.6)

SmartCampus Explorer 68%

CampusMesh 40%

22

Coding of Anticipated Benefits

CampusWiki

Check campus events (26)

Exchange information (13)

Check crowdedness of places (10)

Explorer

Find people on campus (30)

Increase communication channels (5)

Campus Mesh

Social networking (16)

Make friends (8)

Identify people (7)

23

Leading Concerns

SmartCampus Explorer

Privacy (37)Interruption (7) Stalking (7) Personal security (5) Tracking by (unauthorized) others ( 5)

CampusWiki

Validity of data (22) Privacy (10)Absence of moderation (8) Overload of irrelevant information (4)Slander and negative comments (4)

CampusMesh

Privacy (10) Intrusiveness (9) Validity of data (9) Loss of control (8)

24

Privacy concerns

• Big brother (6)• Identity theft (5)• Personal information collection (5)• Mugging (3)• Different levels of information disclosure (3)• Stalking (2)

25

Examples of “big brother” quotes

• “I don’t want a computer knowing everything, and I don’t know who’s looking at this stuff…. someone else that you didn’t want knowing where you are, asks your friend who knows where you are.” (male junior)

• “Well, first of all, being tracked all the time and knowing where everyone is. That’s a little bit of invasion of privacy.” (Female Freshman)

• “…but something out there is still monitoring where you are. So yes, I would feel a little creeped out or angry if I ever, ever discover that that was being used in any [unintended] way.” (Hispanic grad student)

26

Conclusions

• Even though most prospective users express privacy concerns, they nevertheless say they will use this type of system.

• Similar results have been found for the use of social networking systems with personal profiling, such as Facebook and MySpace.