Technical reports

Permanent URI for this collectionhttps://hdl.handle.net/1807/230

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Open Access
Academic TikTok Report
(2022-08) Facca, Danica; Jacob, Arun; kimm, junoh; King, J.P.; Ozceylan, Mujgan; Grimes, Sara M.
This report is the main deliverable of a pilot study that looked at the use of TikTok in academic contexts, specifically for teaching and knowledge mobilization (i.e., sharing research findings and academic theories). The pilot study included a review of the relevant literature from both academic and industry sources, an environmental scan, and the compilation of a collection (or playlist) of examples of noteworthy educational TikToks. “Academic TikTok” makes a unique, timely intervention into emerging scholarly discussions about and interest in using a corporately owned social media platform—initially made popular by adolescents creating and sharing user-generated videos—for research knowledge mobilization and pedagogical outreach. While the project’s findings are preliminary, this report provides an informed starting point and lays the groundwork for future research. The intended audience of this report is academics across disciplines and in all stages of their careers who are thinking about using TikTok for professional purposes. To help readers get started with making TikToks of their own, the report provides background and contextual information about the app and the videos that circulate on it; highlights the app’s place within youth culture; describes the aesthetics that shape content on the platform and the features that make TikTok so successful; and concludes with advice for building a community of creators and best practices for using TikTok.
Open Access
Predicting Emergency Department Visits Based on Cancer Patient Types
(2016-02) Rouzbahman, Mahsa; Chignell, Mark; Lisa, Barbera
This study evaluated the predictive ability of patient types (clusters of similar patients) in identifying cancer patients at high risk for ED visits within one year (365 days) following their index date. A descriptive and retrospective cohort study of 254,552 unique cancer patients with only one primary cancer type was done using linked administrative sources of health care data. Three outcomes were investigated in this study. First, the time of ED visit following an index date was predicted using multiple linear regression. Second, those patients who visited an ED within seven days of their index date were detected using logistic regression. In addition to predicting emergency department visit, vital status of patients was also predicted using logistic regression. We implemented the linear/logistic regression once on unclustered raw data. Then cluster analysis was done before the prediction step and the results of these two analyses were compared to each other. Clustering was found to contribute to a modest improvement in prediction accuracy for all three outcome variables. In addition, for the first outcome variable, a privacy preserving analysis was carried out using summarized clustered data (mean, standard deviation and correlation). The results are discussed in terms of the ability of summarized patient type data to provide clinical support tools while also respecting the privacy of patients.
Open Access
Exploring the Use of Capacitive Sensing to Externally Measure Liquid in Fluid Containers
(2016-01-19) Fan, Mingming; Truong, Khai N.; Ranjan, Abhishek
One potential way to track or infer the amount of intake of different fluids—ranging from water to caffeinated beverages as well as liquid medication—is to determine the level of these fluids in the containers from which the user may consume them. To do so, we propose four capacitive sensor designs that can be easily added to the outside of containers of different shapes and sizes. Our evaluation of these four sensor designs with containers made of different materials (i.e., ceramic, glass, paper, plastic) show that a multi-layer perceptron model can be learned to accurately predict liquid level with correlation coefficients higher than 0.98 and relative absolute error less than 16%. We then demonstrate that a prototype of this sensor can be constructed and affixed at the bottom of a liquid medication bottom to measure the amount of liquid medication in it.
Open Access
Towards a Model for Likelihood to Recommend (L2R) based on Accumulated Experience with an Online Service
(2015-12) Zucherman, Leon; Chignell, Mark; Jiang, Jie
As online services become more pervasive and complex, customer experience is becoming a key competitive differentiator. Customer expectations are rising, and bandwidth requirements of online services are increasing. Internet service providers are faced with a difficult tradeoff between managing the costs of services and bandwidth requirements on the one hand, and meeting customer expectations on the other. At present there is little to guide service providers in managing the human side of this tradeoff. While there is considerable interest in quality of experience from an engineering perspective, there is a need to supplement that work with research based on a human factors approach. The goal of the research reported here is to determine how a series of satisfying experiences and frustrating events lead to longer term attitudes of satisfaction or dissatisfaction over time and, ultimately, to loyalty towards a service provider or Likelihood to Recommend (L2R). The ultimate objective of the research will be to develop models that can predict overall satisfaction, and likelihood to churn, based on network probe data (data relating to online service impairments and failures experienced by a customer), service context and customer profile. These models can then be used to optimize services design and delivery, leading to more satisfied consumers and more profitable companies. In this report we introduce the initial outlines of a model of likelihood to recommend for online services. The ultimate goal is to develop a detailed model based on data that is either available from marketing sources or that can be collected automatically from network probes.
Open Access
Frustration in Response to Impairments and Failures in Online Services, and Resulting Impact on Customer Attitudes
(2014-10-29) Chignell, Mark ; Jovanovic, Andrea ; Chelsea, de Guzman ; Jiang, Jie ; Leon, Zucherman
In spite of the development of high-speed networks, the bandwidth intensity and real-time requirements of many online services continue to push the limits of current network implementations. This has resulted in services that may have frequent interruptions (impairments) or where there may be unavailability or loss of service (failures). While the issue of frustration, specifically in response to impairments and failures in online services, has received relatively little attention, there has been considerable research on frustration in general. In practice, every service implementation is a tradeoff between the need for high quality service delivery, and the need for efficient use of resources. This tradeoff is especially relevant for wireless services. In this paper we review the literature on frustration. We discuss the implications of past research findings relevant to understanding user experience with online services. We also discuss the tradeoff that exists between efficiency on the one hand, and quality that is acceptable for users, so that they do not become frustrated, on the other.
Open Access
Using Multiple Membership Multilevel Models to Examine Multilevel Networks in Networked Organizations
(2014-07-14) Mo, Guang Ying ; Wellman, Barry
As the network structures of work and community have grown more complex, multilevel networks have emerged as the main structural feature in organizational settings. Stressing the importance of the affiliation ties of the meso-level network, we propose a conceptualization of multilevel networks within networked organizations. To examine such networks, researchers have used both hierarchical linear models(HLMs, and exponential random graph models(ERGMs)and both show strengths and weaknesses. HLMs have focused on the effects of group characteristics on individual level nodes, and assumed that each node is affiliated with only one group. Thus they are unable to analyze the complexity of the cross-cutting ties in multievel network data from networked organizations. ERGMs, on the other hand, have been used for analyzing such networks and are able to show if the presence of certain ties shapes the development of others. However, these models assume that networks are self-organizing systems of endogenous ties and, as a result, exogenous factors are excluded from them. In this paper, we propose a new method of multiple membership multilevel models that reveal the complexity of the network at the meso-level, i.e., multiple ties between one individual-level node and multiple group-level nodes. To accomplish this we offer an examination of the Canadian research organization, GRAND NCE (Graphics, Animation, New Media and Design Network of Centers of Excellence).
Open Access
A Search Engine for Structured Health Data
(2014-06-27) Chignell, Mark ; Rouzbahman, Mahsa
This paper presents the architecture of a health data search engine, along with preliminary findings that demonstrate the feasibility of the approach taken. The work is motivated by the need to incorporate information about similar patients into clinical decision making, and by the need to develop a tool that can search for similar patients in health data repositories. Central to the design of the search engine is the use of clustering analysis within health data repositories to ensure that responses to queries consist of data summaries that do not violate the confidentiality of patient records. Recent results concerning the feasibility of this search engine approach are reviewed. These results speak to the relative ease of creating clinically meaningful summaries of patient types, and to the accuracy of predictions made using the summarized data. The paper concludes with a brief discussion of further work required to implement a health data search engine and to demonstrate its effectiveness.
Open Access
Predicting ICU Death with Summarized Data: The Emerging Health Data Search Engine
(2014-06-27) Rouzbahman, Masha ; Chignell, Mark
Chignell et al. [1] previously described a methodology for converting a large set of confidential data records into a set of summaries of similar patients. They claimed that the resulting patient types could “capture important trends and patterns in the data set without disclosing the information in any of the individual data records.” In this paper we examine the predictive validity of an initial set of patient types developed by [1]. We ask the following question: To what extent can the summarized data derived from each cluster (patient type) be as informative as the original case level data (individuals) from which the clusters were inferred? We address this question by assessing how well predictions made with summarized data matched predictions made with original data. After reviewing relevant literature, and explaining how data is summarized in each cluster of similar patients, we compare the results of predicting death in the ICU1 using both summarized (regression analysis) and original case data (discriminant analysis and logistic regression analysis). When multiple clusters were used, prediction based on regression analysis of the summarized data was found to be better than prediction using either logistic regression or discriminant analysis on the raw data. We hypothesize that this result is due to segmentation of a heterogenous multivariate space into more homogeneous subregions. We see the present results as an important step towards the development of generalized health data search engines that can utilize non-confidential summarized data passed through health data repository firewalls.
Open Access
A Search Engine for Structured Health Data
(2014-06-27) Chignell, Mark; Rouzbahman, Masha
This paper presents the architecture of a health data search engine, along with preliminary findings that demonstrate the feasibility of the approach taken. The work is motivated by the need to incorporate information about similar patients into clinical decision making, and by the need to develop a tool that can search for similar patients in health data repositories. Central to the design of the search engine is the use of clustering analysis within health data repositories to ensure that responses to queries consist of data summaries that do not violate the confidentiality of patient records. Recent results concerning the feasibility of this search engine approach are reviewed. These results speak to the relative ease of creating clinically meaningful summaries of patient types, and to the accuracy of predictions made using the summarized data. The paper concludes with a brief discussion
Open Access
2-Thumbs Gesture: The Design and Evaluation of a Non-Sequential Bi-manual Gesture Based Text Input for Touch Tablets
(2013-04-05) Truong, Khai ; Hirano, Sen ; Hayes, Gillian R. ; Moffatt, Karyn
We present 2-Thumb Gesture (2TG), a non-sequential bi-manual gesture-based text input technique for touch tablets, which enables the user to enter text with both hands by using each thumb to draw small strokes over the keys on their respective sides of the keyboard without waiting for their turn in the letter sequence of a word. The results of a study comparing 2TG to Swype (a 1-finger word drawing method), suggest that the learning and use of the 2TG technique to perform text input is comparable with the commercial Swype technique by those who had no prior experience with either. Furthermore, participants were able to hold and use the tablet with both hands without experiencing the substantial fatigue that results from a one-handed approach. Only 60 minutes after being introduced to the technique, participants were able to use the 2-Thumb Gesture keyboard to enter text at 24.43 wpm, with an uncorrected error rate of 0.65%.
Open Access
Texting from the Toilet: Mobile Computing and Acceptance in Private and Public Restrooms
(2013-04-05) Truong, Khai ; Julie, Kientz ; Eun, Kyoung Choe
The proliferation of mobile computing devices, wireless and cellular Internet connections, and an always-on culture have led to an upsurge in usage of mobile devices in unexpected and possibly unusual settings for many different tasks. As technology becomes adopted, it is important to examine how it is used and people’s reactions toward these unusual uses. This will help in understanding and describing the expected etiquette surrounding the technology’s usage. People now often use their mobile computing devices in both public and private restrooms. Through a survey of 204 respondents, we explored the acceptability of those practices and the types of tasks people complete using their mobile devices while in a restroom. We discovered 77% of respondents report using some type of mobile computing in restrooms, both public and private, for activities such as text messaging, web browsing, and email. We also determined that younger, male, and heavy technology users were more likely to use technology within restrooms. We discuss the various uses, social acceptance, and implications for technology design.
Open Access
A tale of two cities : a study of conference room videoconferencing
(Ontario Telepresence Project, 1994-12) Moore, Gale
ln late 1992 ResCorp purchased a CLI videoconferencing unit. The primary objectives were to enhance communication and increase productivity as opposed to cutting travel costs. In September 1993 several members of the Ontario Telepresence Project (OTP) visited ResCorp as guests of the Manager of Research Operations to discuss some of the challenges they were facing as an early adopter of videoconferencing technology. After several discussions it was agreed that OTP would carry out a field study at ResCorp and a Core Group was established to monitor the process and facilitate the research. The primary focus of the study was to gain early insights into the ways in which commercial videoconferencing is used in a real world situation. We wished to consider its impact on the work and work practices of members of the group, the opportunities created by this new class of technology, and the problems and unanticipated consequences of using this new communication medium. There was general consensus that a technical working group which holds biweekly videoconferences with staff at DevCorp would be the group studied. DevCorp and ResCorp have a history of interaction: there is co-publication of patents between the sites, and DevCorp has a videoconferencing facility that is compatible with ResCorp technically. The group has already had some experience with videoconferencing and the scientific leader at ResCorp was both willing to participate and as an early adopter glad to have support to explore ways in which this medium could be used effectively. The social scientist attended the biweekly meetings to observe the working group meetings in progress and following the observation period carried out a series of interviews with selected participants from both ResCorp and DevCorp. The use of videoconferencing was appreciated by all the participants in terms of the time saved and the travel deferred, but there were a number of issues - social, technical and organisationai - that had a major impact on the successful use of videoconferencing. A number of recommendations are presented on pp. 51-58. Overall, the technical problems were easy to see and relatively easy to diagnose. The social and organisational issues and problems, on the other hand, were less visible. While less attention is generally paid to this aspect of videoconferencing, it is the resolution of this class of problem that will,in the long run, determine whether the organisation not only recovers the cost of its investment, but maximises the long term benefit to both the organisation and the employees.
Open Access
Social science models and strategies for telepresence user studies
(Ontario Telepresence Project, 1993-02) Moore, Gale
A basic premise of the Ontario Telepresence Project is that information and communication technologies are inherently social in nature. Consequently, it is essential in the design of these technologies to take advantage of the social skills and the knowledge of social protocols that the future users alreidy possess, building on existing skills rather than demanding or forcing entirely new beiraviours. similirly, we need to incorporate an understanding of work and workplace variables in the design. The specification and elaboration of the relationships among work variables is a primary goal of our research. One size is unlikely to fit all and the successful development, adoption and diffusion of the Telepresence system must take into account existing work practices and organizational culture. The first year of ontario Telepresence Project ended on Dec. 31, 1,992. It is important, however, to note that the social sciences component only became institutionalized in the project in July 1992 when a full-time social scientist was appointed.
Open Access
Telepresence user interface design issues and solutions
(Ontario Telepresence Project, 1993-02) Mantei, Marilyn
The user interface team has been given the role of developing the user interfaces for the Telepresence project. To do this they are working with the social science team and developing interfaces for each of the field trials. They are updating these interfaces based on data gathered in the field trials. The knowledge acquired from their design activities will be used to design a final general flexible interface for Telepresence and to generate recommendations to the coporate members of the Telepresence project on the types of technology that need to be developed underneath to make the interfaces work effectively. A seiondary focus of the user interface team is that of determining effective design and implementation strategies for encouraging the adoption of the telepresence technology. They are also investigating how to apply the information gathered in the social science field studies to the evaluation of the interface designs and the generation of new designs. Human communication is not an area covered by the traditional cognitive psychology approaches to interface design so that the exploration of sociological data as a predictor of design is being examined. This report details the current user interface designs and user studies that have been conducted and lays out the proposed requirements for future designs and user studies that are being planned. It closes with a set of deliverables and a time line for when these deliverables can be expected from the work of this team.
Open Access
The telepresence integrated interactive intermedia facility
(Ontario Telepresence Project, 1992-05) Milligan,
The iiif system is a base to support the use of interactive media. It is intended to serve as the utility on which a number of interactive media services are based. Examples of the types of services that the facility is intended to support include a media space, a video document handling system and, of course, traditional video conferencing. The iiif system has the dual purpose of providing a base utility to support re-searchers, and is the subject of research in and of itself. The general research objec-tive is to investigate how multimedia technology can be applied to support HCI research objectives, including the support of cooperative work. The hub of the utility consists of computer controllable A/V equipment, computer controlled A/V switches (much like telephone switches) and a server computer to provide control. The server computer is accessible to people at workstations through the same networks used for other electronic communications. The iiif system originated at Rank Xerox's EuroPARC laboratory in 1988. It was given to the Cavecat project at the University of Toronto in early 1990. The server was adopted by the CAVECAT project as the basis for its media space. The iiif server along with other CAVECAT resources were transfered to the Ontario Telepresence Project at the University of Toronto. This note documents the current state of iiif evolution at the University of Toronto. The design includes server software, device support, network communications and client stub implementations for common workstations. It does not inciude a user interface for the administrator or the users of the facility. The iiif server provides the infrastructure necessary for other servers to function. The Smart Server uses the information within iiif in order to update a user's interface with a correct representation of the state of the media space. The Video and Voice servers will use iiif to retrieve and present different tvpes of media clips such as snapshots of a person's office or speech through iiif's audio visual network. The iiif server is written in C. There are approximately 38,000 lines of code divided into operation specific modules. Berkley System Unix is the operating system for which the iiif server has been developed.
Open Access
Technology / methodology inventory
(Ontario Telepresence Project, 1993-06) A, N
One of the outputs of the Ontario Telepresence Project is a stream of innovations which may be relevant of the products and services of the Project's Industrial Partners. These innovations manifest themselves as hardware, software, system prototypes and methodologies. This document gives a brief description of some of the technologres and methodologies that have been developed internally or adopted from outside sources. For more information on any of these, contact the Managing Director of the Ontario Telepresence Proiect.
Open Access
Social impacts of electronic mail in organizations: a review of the research literature
(Ontario Telepresence Project, 1993-11) Garton, Laura E. ; Wellman, Barry
E-mail is a communication network operating on a computer network that supports social networks. It combines iocatiornl flexibility, rapid transmission to muitiple others across time and spa.ce, and the ability to store and process information. We review research into how e-mail shapes - and is shaped by - organizational structures and processes. Although social phenomeru strongly affect the use of e-mail, many discussions of media use have treated it as a voluntary, individual act of matching task to media. They have paid less attention to the influence of organizational power, group perceptions, and social network relations. E-mail provides fewer cues than FTF communication about interactions, physical context or social roles. As this fosters status equalization, there is less awareness of group members' organizational niche and power, or ascribed characteristics. People are more uninhibited, non-conformist and conflictual when using email; groups are more polarized and take longer to reach consensus. However, groups using e-mail tend to produce more diverse opinions and better decisions. E-mail increases access to new people; weakens spatial, temporal and status barrien; and provides access to information that would otherwise be unavailable. Whm people conmunicate electronically, work groups become more fluid. People can participate actively in more groups, and those on the periphery get more involved.
Open Access
Videoconferencing 1990s style: sharing faces, places and spaces
(Ontario Telepresence Project, 1994-07-12) Moore, Gale ; Schuyler, Ken
ln the fall of 1992 Provitel, Inc., a telecommunications organisation,established a working relationship with the Ontario Telepresence Project (OTP). One of the outcomes of this collaboration was the installation of a Telepresence Media Space (TMS) system in May 1993 between the offices of two members of CSG, a client supPort group in the organisation. At the same time VISIT2 systems were being deployed to a number of members of CSG including the participants with the media space. This provided a unique opportunity to evaluate these two systems - one a commercial product, i.e.,VISIT, the other, a futuristic prototype system, i.e., TMS. Part I of the report provides an overview of videoconferencing in the 1990s and a discusslon of the factors that distinguish the 1990s from the 1960s and 1970s when the first wave of videoconferencing technologies failed to have the predicted impact. The concept of a media space is introduced in Part II and the Ontario Telepresence Project model of research and development is described. Part III reports on the experiences of the early adopters of videoconferencing in CSG and provides a comparison of the two systems used. The focus is not technical, but rather on gaining early insights into the impact of and opportunities created by this new class of technology. The results demonstrate the need for: - an ecological approach to understanding videoconferencing technologies. Successful deployment, adoption, continued use and growth of the technology require a 'goodness of fit' between the organisation's culture(s) and the work practices of employees' - a better understanding of the role of video.Image quality and size and image location are all important factors affecting use' In addition, the ability to make a distinction betvveen background awareness and foreground interaction is highly valued. The primary point to be made is that bandwidth on demand - the ability to scale video images dynamically - coupled with a price structure that is affordable - (and unlikely to be a linear relationship between bandwidth and cost) - Presents both a major chailenge and a major market opportunity for the network provider positioned to understand the potential of video.

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