Demosthenes Akoumianakis

• BA (Hons.), MSc, PhD
• Professor (Full) at Hellenic Mediterrenean University

This paper presents current developments taking place in the context of the MusiCoLab project. MusiCoLab aims at delivering a comprehensive and efficient web platform for music learning and teaching, by building on prior research experience of project partners, as well as by investigating the integration of state-of-the-art tools in intelligent mus...

It is increasingly acknowledged that digital artifacts of any kind may be crafted from a variety of materials that include programming languages, notations, scripts, code generators, etc. As these materials are digital natives, they are distinctly different from conventional instruments. In an attempt to grasp their full potential and to gain insig...

Purpose Online calendar services (OCS) are primarily used for temporal orientation and reminding. Nonetheless, calendar work may also entail generic activities such as scheduling, tracking, archive and recall and retrieval which are not adequately supported by available systems. The purpose of the paper is to explore how online calendaring may be r...

The paper explores the explanatory value of digital traces, especially for gaining insight to ‘cultural’ settings in the absence of cultural participants. We consider digital traces as the ‘matter’ of online social phenomena which can be revealed through transformation, re-alignment or re-configuration of data. In this vein, the notion of ‘imbricat...

The present research reports on the extension of model-based UI engineering to support (design and run-time) multi-device synchronous collaborative interactions. We detail the new models devised and the tactics devoted to handling semantic, syntactic and lexical variation during synchronous collaborative team work. We showcase our current developme...

For several decades scholars from different disciplines explore knowledge management using different theoretical and engineering lenses. This paper focuses on a relatively recent approach to knowledge management and collabora-tive learning, namely Conversational Knowledge (CK) management. Using empirical data from two different case studies, we ide...

This paper is inspired by the concept of digital metamaterials and advances a proposal for a genre of digital artifacts that exhibit the transformative capacity to transcend technical boundaries in digital ecosystems. In terms of theoretical footing, our approach is ground on the conception of " software as material " with intrinsic properties such...

This volume contains papers presented at the 19th Pan-Hellenic Conference on Informatics (PCI 2015), which was held form October 1st until October 3rd 2015 in Technological Educational Institute (TEI) of Athens, Greece. PCI is an event established by the Greek Computer Society since 1984. It is organized in co-operation with Greek academic institut...

The present work explores theoretical threads which may be used to inform the design of interactive systems that exhibit digital materiality. The research is motivated by current thinking on sociomateriality and distributed organizing as populated in different scholarships. From the range of conceptual foundations, the paper picks on the concept of...

This paper presents the progress in the MusiNet research project, which aims to provide a comprehensive architecture and a prototype implementation of a Networked Music Performance (NMP) system. We describe the Musinet client and server components, and the different approaches followed in our research effort in order to culminate in the most approp...

Spanning boundaries has emerged as a key topic in the scholarship on distributed organizing. Nonetheless, most of the works are motivated by boundaries designated by static demarcations of time and/or place, while only recently there is some evidence emphasizing the dynamic aspects of boundaries and boundary spanning. Following the latter tradition...

The paper examines the impact of novel linguistic vocabularies on the remediation of practices. As linguistic vocabularies we consider inscriptions into social technologies such as tagging mechanisms, word clouds, scented widgets, etc., that invoke recurrent co-engagement of users in designated communication acts, as well as the material agency of...

This paper rests on recent debates on digital materiality to advance and engineering proposal for building Web 2.0 systems as Imbrications of Services (IoS). The key concept points to designing digital assemblages of non-human actors (i.e. technologies) that function interdependently so as to facilitate collective human intentionality in the contex...

The paper describes an engineering approach for building user interfaces for synchronous peer co-engagement in virtual work by operating with, on, through and within different digital representations. The proposed approach introduces several extensions to the UsiXML family of models as well as design and runtime support for multi-platform, synchron...

This paper describes the design and implementation of a toolkit for collaborative music making. The rationale for the toolkit stems from the commitment to considering music making as a representational practice that entails virtual work amongst distributed peers. Using a pictorial illustration of the toolkit, we discuss several application scenario...

The present work concentrates on collaborative virtual work and the tactics for spanning organizational boundaries. To this effect, it proposes an architectural pattern for Collective Collaborative Tagging (CCT) that integrates cloud-based resource sharing and enterprise portals. The current implementation exploits Dropbox for file sharing and the...

For several decades scholars from different disciplines explore knowledge management using different theoretical and engineering lenses. This paper focuses on a relatively recent approach to knowledge management and collaborative learning, namely Conversational Knowledge (CK) management. Using empirical data from two different case studies, we iden...

The MusiNet research project aims to provide a comprehensive architecture and a prototype implementation of a complete Networked Music Performance (NMP) system. In this paper we describe the current status of the project, focusing on critical decisions regarding the system's architecture and specifications, the low delay audio and video coding tech...

This paper presents a virtual excavation of Twitter, an asymmetric micro-blogging service, aimed at anchoring what is revealed through digital trace data analysis. The specific objective is to assess the potentialities for ambient community formation and cultivation in business-oriented virtual partnerships and web alliances using Twitter. As case...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to investigate boundary spanning tactics in a cross-organizational virtual alliance and discuss the analytical value of “digging” into technology for excavating boundaries and understanding their dynamic and emergent features. Design/methodology/approach – Although boundaries, their role and implications have...

Purpose – Data from social media (SM) has grown exponentially and created new opportunities for businesses to supplement their business intelligence (BI). However, there are many different platforms all of which are in a constant state of evolution. The purpose of this paper is to describe a generic methodology for the gathering of data from SM and...

The paper presents intrinsic properties of cross-organizational collaboration in shared information spaces and motivates the concept of ambient communities with particular reference to the tourism sector.Our approach is informed by an ethnographic analysis of assembling innovative information-based products for tourists.Qualitative data collection...

names used in this set are for identification purposes only. Inclusion of the names of the products or companies does not indicate a claim of ownership by IGI Global of the trademark or registered trademark. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data British Cataloguing in Publication Data A Cataloguing in Publication record for this book i...

The paper explores excavation as a metaphor or conceptual lens for gaining insights into social formations and cyber-structures enacted in video sharing virtual settlements. The emphasis is on conditions for virtual excavations, techniques which could be used to support them as well as their analytical value to making sense for academic, business-r...

This paper serves as a tutorial introduction to the themes and concepts of the special issue on 'Social Networking and Mining'. It is aimed to provide an overview of the type of connectivity that emerges in social media and a reflection on the papers reviewed and selected for publication in this special issue. In this vein, connectivity is approach...

The paper builds on practice-based theories and cyber-archaeology to establish an analytical lens for understanding socio-material aspects of online music ensembles. The domain of investigation is music notation lessons (MNLs) as conducted using the DIAMOUSES system. The proposed practice-based framework rests on two notions – cultural artifacts of...

This paper examines the mechanics and the implications of remediated practices in the context of virtual cross-organizational collaboration. Our treatment of the issue is informed by a case study aiming to assess how imbrications of representations hosted by different social media enable or constrain peer co-engagement of members in a virtual partn...

This paper elaborates on and advances a proposition for framing collaborative music making as an assemblage of remediated practices. To this effect, we draw upon theories of agency and artifacts to anchor the concept of remediated practices. Then, by blending concepts from the Computer-Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW), Human Computer Interaction (...

This paper elaborates on and advances a proposition for framing collaborative music making as an assemblage of remediated practices. To this effect, we draw upon theories of agency and artifacts to anchor the concept of remediated practices. Then, by blending concepts from the Computer-Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW), Human Computer Interaction (...

The present work rests and elaborates on the assumption that social technologies are increasingly turned into computer-mediated virtual settlements, thereby allowing the excavation of a variety of enacted cyber-phenomena such as ad hoc online ensembles, informal social networks and virtual communities, on the grounds of "digital" traces or remains....

The paper describes an engineering method for building user interfaces for ubiquitous environments. The method comprises of several extensions in the UsiXML family of modes as well as design and runtime support so as to enable multi-platform, synchronous and collaborative interactions. We demonstrate key concepts of the method and their application...

This research explores the design of practice toolkits as components, distinct from community management systems, allowing members of a virtual community to engage in the practice the community is about. Our analysis is informed by two case studies in different application domains each presenting alternative but complementary insights to the design...

The paper explores excavation as a metaphor or conceptual lens for gaining insights to cyber-structures enacted in virtual settlements. More importantly, we vision such excavations in the context of enlarged Internet of Things, an inter-connected world of online remains capable of providing a different lens on how to make sense of cyberstructures l...

The paper presents a method and a collection of techniques for conducting virtual excavations in online social networking services. YouTube and its Data API are used as a case study of a virtual settlement. The objective is to assess not only what is retained by YouTube but also what sense can be made of a designated set of YouTube online remains....

The present work is concerned with a particular type of online collaborative engagements, namely the management of e-Health campaigns and online intervention studies. In order to establish the baseline, the paper critically reviews prominent tactics facilitated by Social Networking Services (SNS) and social web sites and contrasts them against the...

In this paper we present a natural user interface system. The device utilized for achieving natural interaction is the MS-Kinect which provides RGB, depth & audio signal. Our system is based on the theory of multimodal interaction and provides the ability to the user to interact simultaneously with different applications using vocal commands and ge...

This paper presents a 3DTV application that enables displaying and exploration of thematic information in a 3D environment using the book and carousel metaphor. To achieve its goal the system initially deposits all necessary information to be displayed in an XML data repository. The stored data is then displayed through dynamically created 3D artif...

The Internet has become a widely used resource for information on cancer and for support. As part of the EuroCancerComs project (www.eurocancercoms.eu), an intervention study has been designed. The study aims to help patients with cancer providing an Internet "space" where to find information about nutritional care. The study consists of a randomiz...

The paper elaborates on the assumption that in modern organisations collaborative learning is an enacted capability that is more about 'acting' and co-engaging in shared practices. In such settings, virtual learning can be conceived as an emergent knowledge process with no pre-determined outcomes that occupies multiple online and offline constituen...

The paper motivates and presents an approach for assembling innovative information-based products and services by virtual cross-organization communities of practice. Using a case study on assembling vacation packages, we describe the cross-organizational virtual partnership, the mechanics allowing it to operate as a virtual community of practice an...

The paper elaborates on the design and use of cross-organization virtual community spaces facilitating knowledge-based collaborative engagement in the practice of a boundary spanning alliance. Our approach builds upon the concept of transformable boundary artifacts and advances a perspective upon their design as first class objects in common inform...

In the emerging Information Society, computer-mediated human activities are no longer bound to a particular execution context. Increasingly, they involve a multitude of personal, business, and residential encounters in a variety of domains, realized via networked terminals and appliances. Such a growth in information processing capability has creat...

The chapter builds on recent efforts aiming to develop a conceptual frame of reference for gaining insight to and analyzing 'practice' in virtual communities. Following a thorough analysis of related works in new media, community-oriented thinking and practice-based approaches as well as reflections upon recent case studies, the chapter discusses w...

This paper extends model based UI engineering so as to address polymorphic UI development in the light of distributed synchronous collaborative ubiquitous environments. Our current effort concentrates on extensions to a popular model-based user interface description language, namely: “UsiXML” and proposes a suitable development methodology and a de...

The paper elaborates on the concept of transformable boundary artifacts and their role in fostering knowledge-based work in cross-organization virtual communities of practice. The domain of investigation is clinical practice guidelines development for cancer. By reviewing the social worlds involved, we claim that guideline development is a boundary...

This paper considers knowledge management functions as carried out by distributed virtual teams involved in the compilation of information-based products using dedicated and domain-specific computer- mediated practices and tools. We are concerned with two primary tasks, namely depositing shared assets and assembling information-based artefacts by a...

The results of a research and development project on network music performance (NMP), DIAMOUSES, are presented. DIAMOUSES presents the possibility of adopting a hybrid architectural model that allows different network nodes to exchange live streams either directly or through a streaming server in which audio mixing may be activated or deactivated o...

Recent scholarship has demonstrated that virtual communities can be traced in the online ‘tells’ retained by popular virtual settlements like Facebook and Twitter. In this article, the authors push this line of research toward an analysis of pre-requisites and constrains of virtual settlements that determine the understanding of community life acro...

The chapter builds on recent efforts aiming to develop a conceptual frame of reference for gaining insight to and analyzing ‘practice’ in virtual communities. Following a thorough analysis of related works in new media, community-oriented thinking and practice-based approaches as well as reflections upon recent case studies, the chapter discusses w...

This chapter examines a community of professionals, created by a government agency and charged with conducting country-wide, cross-disciplinary, and cross-sectoral research and innovation in the area of water. The analysis describes the structure of the community and places it in the context of existing project practices and institutional arrangeme...

This chapter concentrates on the development of practice-specific toolkits for managing on-line practices in the context of virtual communities of practice. The authors describe two case studies in different application domains each presenting alternative but complementary insights to the design of computer-mediated practice vocabularies. The first...

This chapter attempts to consolidate concepts, ideas and results reported in this volume in an effort to synthesize an agenda and sketch a roadmap for future research and development on virtual community practices facilitated by synergistic combination of social interactive media. In this endeavor, the author revisits the notions of new media, comm...

This chapter aims to provide an introductory tutorial to the key topics and themes suggested in the chapter's title and further developed by authors in the four main parts of this volume. It was considered important to provide this introductory account for two main reasons. First, it serves the purpose of sketching the boundaries of the volume by e...

This chapter proposes and discusses the "social" experience factory (SEF). The SEF provides a general model and architecture supporting information-based product assembly by cross-organization communities of practice using interactive toolkits and practice-specific technologies. In terms of engineering ground, the SEF builds on two prevalent resear...

Participation and system usage is crucial for virtual communities to develop and sustain. However, many communities report very low participation rates of members. Finding and studying strategies for fostering participation in virtual communities is therefore a growing field of research and different approaches for strengthening participation in vi...

This chapter proposes and discusses the “social” experience factory (SEF). The SEF provides a general model and architecture supporting information- based product assembly by cross-organization communities of practice using interactive toolkits and practice-specific technologies. In terms of engineering ground, the SEF builds on two prevalent resea...

This chapter proposes and discusses the “social” experience factory (SEF). The SEF provides a general model and architecture supporting information-based product assembly by cross-organization communities of practice using interactive toolkits and practice-specific technologies. In terms of engineering ground, the SEF builds on two prevalent resear...

This chapter aims to provide an introductory tutorial to the key topics and themes suggested in the chapter’s title and further developed by authors in the four main parts of this volume. It was considered important to provide this introductory account for two main reasons. First, it serves the purpose of sketching the boundaries of the volume by e...

This chapter attempts to consolidate concepts, ideas and results reported in this volume in an effort to synthesize an agenda and sketch a roadmap for future research and development on virtual community practices facilitated by synergistic combination of social interactive media. In this endeavor, the author revisits the notions of new media, comm...

This chapter provides an overview and discussion of virtual communities in health and social care. The available literature indicates that a virtual community in health or social care can be defined as a group of people using telecommunications with the purposes of delivering health care and education, and/or providing support. Such communities cov...

This paper introduces the 'Magic Wand', a system that works next to existing physical books and adds an extra dimension (i.e. sound) to shared storybook reading for adults and children by providing a simple and intuitive interaction. The 'Magic Wand': ...

Abstract This paper presents the notion of (user interface development) platform administration and argues for its increasing importance in the context of modern,interactive applications. Platform administration entails strategies for manipulating diverse interaction components. Four such strategies are elaborated – namely augmentation, expansion,...

This Chapter presents a consolidated overview of methods and techniques that can be used to advance Universal Access thinking in the design and development of interactive applications and services in Health Telematics. The results presented provide an overview of the IS4ALL “Code of Practice for Universal Access in Health Telematics”, which is deta...

This chapter presents a consolidated overview of methods and techniques used to promote universal access thinking in the design of interactive software (e.g., applications and services). The first part of the chapter introduces and analyzes the concept of universal access, addresses its implications in the context of an Information Society and moti...

This paper advances a proposition for the engineering of interactive computer-based environments capable of exhibiting alternative interactive embodiments to cope with diversity in users, interaction platforms and usage contexts. Such systems are referred to as Multiple Metaphor Environments (MME). The theoretical underpinnings of an MME rely on a...

IS4ALL (IST-1999-14101) ‘Information Society for All’ is an EC-funded Thematic Network seeking to establish a wide, interdisciplinary and closely collaborating network of experts (Working Group) to provide the European Health Telematics industry with a code of practice detailing how to appropriate the benefits of Universal Design.

This article presents the outcomes of a technical symposium on the topic of the use of intranets as a tool for organizational learning, which was conducted at the 9th International Conference on Human–Computer Interaction, held in New Orleans, Louisiana, August 5 through 10, 2001. The objective of the symposium was to derive, based on the collectiv...

Tutorial in the 1st Universal Access in Human-Computer Interaction Conference (UAHCI 2001), jointly with the 9th International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction

IS4ALL — Information Society for All — is a European project that provides a methodological frame of reference which introduces universal access principles into the design of Health Telematics applications and services. The characteristics of Health Telematics, such as the variety of end users involved, the changing Healthcare contexts of use and t...

Tutorial

This paper describes a guideline management system (Sherlock) designed to assist the user interface usability inspection process. The paper presents the tool’s main advantages along with the way it overcomes existing problems in other, relevant tools. Finally, the paper offers an insight on how such a tool can actively support a user-centred design...

This article reviews the prominent design strands in Human- Computer Interaction, such as Human Factors evaluation, Cognitive Science and User-Centred Design, and examines how elements of these have been embedded in existing user interface design tools. It then discusses some of the emerging requirements brought about by the shift towards an Inform...

In the past, accessibility in Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) was primarily concerned with the selection of suitable equipment to enable alternative computer access for people with disabilities. As a result, it was mainly considered as an afterthought and reflected a reactive approach, whereby Assistive Technology solutions addressed problems intr...

Intelligence at the level of the user interface is currently being supported through a number of prevalent strands, including adaptive user interfaces, model-based user interface development and interface agents. Moreover, the term intelligent user interface typically implies the notion of dynamically enhancing the interaction with a single impleme...

User interface adaptations can be used to address several user interaction challenges in the development of digital library systems. This paper: (a) examines some of the intrinsic characteristics of digital library systems; (b) identifies some of the key Human–Computer Interaction (HCI) challenges in relation to design and architectural abstraction...

Tutorial no 11

In the short history of Human Computer Interaction (HCI), several paradigms have emerged to facilitate the continuous search for ergonomic input to HCI design (Carroll, 1991). Each paradigm comes with its own methods and tools, which are underlined by paradigm-specific assumptions. Thus, in the early period, the computer is used by experts and high...

This position paper presents the notion of multiple metaphor environment and discusses principles and techniques for constructing user interfaces as multiple metaphor environments. Though, multiple metaphor environments represent a generic concept, they are particularly relevant to novel application domains and technologies, such as Digital Librari...

This paper presents a preliminary collection of design-oriented guidelines and development requirements for accessibility and universal design in HCI. The processoriented guidelines aim to shed light into how a user-centred design process can be conducted, so as to account for the needs and requirements of the broadest possible end user population,...

This paper discusses the employment of self-adaptation techniques in WWW-based interactive systems, as a tool for ensuring their universal accessibility. The paper first elaborates on the underpinnings of universal accessibility and their relevance to Web applications and services. Then it provides a contextual definition of self-adapting systems a...