The purpose of this study is to present guidelines that can be followed when introducing Service-oriented architecture through the use of Web services. This guideline will be especially useful for organizations migrating from their existing legacy systems where the need also arises to consider the financial implications of such an investment whether it is worthwhile or not. The proposed implementation guide aims at increasing the chances of IT departments in organizations to ensure a successful integration of SOA into their system and secure strong financial commitment from the executive management. Service oriented architecture technology is a new concept, a new way of looking at a system which has emerged in the IT world and can be implemented by several methods of which Web services is one platform. Since it is a developing technology, organizations need to be cautious on how to implement this technology to obtain maximum benefits. Though a well-designed, service-oriented environment can simplify and streamline many aspects of information technology and business, achieving this state is not an easy task. Traditionally, management finds it very difficult to justify the considerable cost of modernization, let alone shouldering the risk without achieving some benefits in terms of business value. The study identifies some common best practices of implementing SOA and the use of Web services, steps to successfully migrate from legacy systems to componentized or service enabled systems. The study also identified how to present financial return on investment and business benefits to the management in order to secure the necessary funds. This master thesis is based on academic literature study, professional research journals and publications, interview with business organizations currently working on service oriented architecture. I present guidelines that can be of assistance to migrate from legacy systems to service-oriented architecture based on the analysis from comparing information sources mentioned above.

The role of information systems has become very important in today’s world. It is not only the business organizations who use information systems but the governments also posses’ very critical information systems. The need is to make information systems available at all times under any situation. Information systems must have the capabilities to resist against the dangers to its services,performance & existence, and recover to its normal working state with the available resources in catastrophic situations. The information systems with such a capability can be called resilient information systems. This thesis is written to define resilient information systems, suggest its meta-model and to explain how existing technologies can be utilized for the development of resilient information system.

In this thesis, the concept of virtual reality has been elaborated in the context of games, industrial design and manufacturing. The main purpose of this master’s thesis is to create a virtual environment for games that are near to the reality and according to the human nature through aspects like better interface, simulation, lights, shadow effects and their types. The importance of these aspects regarding realistic virtual environment is complemented through the comparison between two environments i.e. desktop and CAVE on a flight simulation program.

The TAC Supply Chain Management game was designed to capture many of the challenges involved in dynamic supply chain practices. To evaluate the game I created four different agents, which operate according to simple but very different strategies. In addition, an advanced agent was created to see if the game was advanced enough not to be dominated by simple strategies. While the game is advanced enough to resist simple strategies, it is so simplified that it will never help solve any real world problems unless it is expanded to include more factors/problems of supply chain management.

In modern societies the activity of driving has become almost an essential routine. Vehicles are considered by many as indispensable tools for accomplishing their daily tasks and they are the main form of transportation for millions of people. The average driver spends, voluntarily, considerable amounts of time on the road, using their vehicle to transport himself even for small distances and knowing that its use presents him with some form of comfort and convenience; yet, drivers frequently regard their road experience as tiring and fastidious, but their persistence in using their vehicle at every opportunity serves as proof of a pleasurable experience. So far car manufacturers, traffic authorities and designers of technology have been mainly concerned with aspects of the road that ensure drivers safety, increase power engine, provide more comfort, and maintain better streets, etc; however, the actual feelings of the driver as he travels through the streets has not yet been taken into a great account by the developers of the road environment. For this reason this thesis tries to create awareness on the existence and constant presence of people’s emotions as they drive, which have the mutual power to influence their action on the road and their driving patterns. In order to capture a drivers’ emotional experience this study uses three main methods. One of them is Cultural Probes, consisting of common objects specifically Postcards, Pictures, and Web-logs, to measure unknown factors about the users. The second is the use of Ethnographic studies on the driving activities through the use of observations, the popular talk-aloud-protocol and the shadow method. Finally, the Experience Sampling Method is used, which tries to captures the experience of an individual as it unfolds in its natural context. With the combined used of these three methods some of the main factors of the road’s environment that are commonly able to influence the driver’s emotions in negative or positive ways were discovered, which include the intensity and type of light, the different types and sources of sound, the perceivable landscapes and surrounding architectures and the different kinds of continuously occurring interactions. These are just some of the many factors that can influence emotions on the road, and hopefully this study will open the curiosity for a deeper study of these and other aspects of the emotional driving experience.

Communication between people has become more and more important in society today and so has the way to communicate. Our work, which this master thesis is based upon, has been to evaluate and redesign an existing web application that works like a communication tool. To carry out this work we have compiled two questions; how to facilitate the interaction for an application that is used as a tool, focusing on interface design, usability and flow; how can the usability be improved in a system, with help of flow theory. To deal with these two questions we have used a number of methods that have had different kinds of influence of our work. The one that has had the greatest impact of the work with the evaluation has been cognitive walkthrough. For the design we have used literature studies along with the result of the evaluation. A problem during our work has been that the user has not been specified the design should work at a generic group of users. The problem has not been to define the target group rather to suit the interface to everybody. This has been the challenge of this semester and we found designing an interface infusing usability with help from flow as interesting.

The use of mobile telephony has over the past years increased and consequently has the development of services over the mobile phone also increased. This semester we have taken part in a large system development project, our contributions have been designing the graphical user interfaces. In doing that we found the problem with how to mediate trust to a user through a graphical user interface interesting. In this thesis we are focusing on how to develop graphical user interfaces for a mobile phone service that radiate and infuse confidence, security and trustworthiness. In order to attain the purpose, we have used the combination of literature studies and to some extent user involvement with Mock-ups and a Think-aloud technique. We are also describing the importance of taking as well usability and usability goals as the needs for the end users into consideration. We have found that more research on how to radiate and infuse trust through a graphical user interface is needed. This thesis is concluded with some aspects on that subject that we think is important to have in mind. It is of great importance to never leave the user in a state of uncertainty and therefore is clear, sincere and informative feedback necessary throughout the service. Also central in designing graphical user interfaces is to make sure that there is no mismatch in the security of the system and the radiated security.

This report covers one of the most demanding issues of network users i.e. network testing. Network testing in this study is about performance evaluation of networks, by putting traffic load gradually to determine the queuing delay for different traffics. Testing of such operations is becoming complex and necessary due to use of real time applications such as voice and video traffic, parallel to elastic data of ordinary applications over WAN links. Huge size elastic data occupies almost 80% resources and causes delay for time sensitive traffic. Performance parameters like service outage, delay, packet loss and jitter are tested to assure the reliability factor of provided Quality of Service (QoS) in the Service Level Agreements (SLAs). Normally these network services are tested after deployment of physical networks. In this case most of the time customers have to experience unavailability (outage) of network services due to increased levels of load and stress. According to user-centric point of view these outages are violation and must be avoided by the net-centric end. In order to meet these challenges network SLAs are tested on simulators in lab environment. This study provides a solution for this problem in a form of testbed simulator named Combinatorial TestBed Simulator (CTBS). Prototype of this simulator is developed for conducting experiment. It provides a systematic approach of combinatorial structures for finding such traffic patterns that exceeds the limit of queuing delay, committed in SLAs. Combinatorics is a branch of mathematics that deals with discrete and normally finite elements. In the design of CTBS, technique of combinatorics is used to generate a variety of test data that cannot be generated manually for testing the given network scenario. To validate the design of CTBS, results obtained by pilot runs are compared with the results calculated using timeline. After validation of CTBS design, actual experiment is conducted to determine the set of traffic patterns that exceeds the threshold value of queuing delay for Voice over Internet Protocol (VOIP) traffic.

Arbetet är en praktisk och teoretisk test av IP-telefoni med Skype som ligger till grund för en jämförelse mot telefoni med PSTN (Public Switched Telephone Network) som är den vanliga telefonstandard de flesta av oss använder idag. Syftet med arbetet är att underlätta valet mellan PSTN och IP-telefoni för privatanvändare i Sverige. Arbetet är tänkt att svara på följande frågeställningar. - Hur enkelt är det att komma igång med IP-telefoni via Skype? - Hur är kvalitén på IP-telefonisamtal jämfört med PSTN? - Fungerar alla de tjänster man har med PSTN även med IP-telefoni? - Hur är användbarheten och tillgängligheten till hjälp och support med IP-telefonin? - Är det billigare att ringa med IP-telefoni och i så fall under vilka förutsättningar? I arbetet har en samling praktiska och teoretiska undersökningar genomförts för att kunna bedöma IP-telefonin med Skype inom följande bedömningsområden. Installation, funktion, kvalitet, användbarhet, kostnader, tillgänglighet och säkerhet. Till undersökningen av användbarhet har en testgrupp på 10 personer använts för att utvärdera systemets användbarhet. En praktisk test av Skypeklientens funktion och kvalitet har utförts genom ett antal provringningar. Skypelösningens tillgänglighet, kostnader och säkerhet har studerats i relevant litteratur och genom fakta på Internet. Resultaten av undersökningen visar att Skypelösningen fungerar lika bra som PSTN med avseende på funktion och kvalitet men det krävs en viss datorvana för att installera och använda lösningen vilket har en viss negativ inverkan på användbarheten. Prismässigt lönar det sig bara för de som ringer mycket utomlands, för övriga användare blir det oftast betydligt dyrare än telefoni med PSTN. Skype själva informerar tydligt om att det inte garanterar funktionen för nödsamtal vilket är en stor nackdel om man vill ersätta sin PSTN-telefon med Skypelösningen. På grund av ovanstående argument så är IP-telefoni med Skype för de flesta användare inte ett bra alternativ till PSTN.

Patient’s mobility throughout his lifetime leaves a trial of information scattered in laboratories, clinical institutes, primary care units, and other hospitals. Hence, the medical history of a patient is valuable when subjected to special healthcare units or undergoes home-care/personal-care in elderly stage cases. Despite the rhetoric about patient-centred care, few attempts were made to measure and improve in this arena. In this thesis, we will describe and implement a high-level view of a Patient Centric information management, deploying at a preliminary stage, the use of Agent Technologies and Grid Computing. Thus, developing and proposing an infrastructure that allows us to monitor and survey the patient, from the doctor’s point of view, and investigate a Persona, from the patients’ side, that functions and collaborates among different medical information structures. The Persona will attempt to interconnect all the major agents (human and software), and realize a distributed grid info-structure that directly affect the patient, therefore, revealing an adequate and cost-effective solution for most critical information needs. The results comprehended in the literature survey, consolidating Healthcare Information Management with emerged intelligent Multi-Agent System Technologies (MAS) and Grid Computing; intends to provide a solid basis for further advancements and assessments in this field, by bridging and proposing a framework between the home-care sector and the flexible agent architecture throughout the healthcare domain.

E-home related home-services (including homecare and home healthcare) in China is urgently needed. The population of aged people over 80 is increasing 5% every year in China, and to year 2050, one fourth of whole population or 0.4 billions people in China are aged staying at home. Meanwhile the government cannot afford with a national elderly care system like most western countries as Sweden. This is because China has had one-child/one-family policy since 1970’s, and this radical policy has made China step in aged society very quickly within only 20 years, while the same process took 40-80 years in western countries. Even worse, China becomes aged society when the country is still poor and under developing with GDP per capita less than 1000$, comparing to western countries with 5000 – 10000 $ when they became aged society. E-home provides China with a unique, and maybe the most effective solution to the problem. By applying effective IT&C at home, elder people are facilitated to manage their own daily life. If needed, they can always call help from their collective service centre that is located in their resident area and the collective service centre can provide with both homecare (cleaning, shopping, reparation, baby care etc.) and home healthcare (legitimate medical care). Elder people can be also monitored (if wished by all partners) both at home and out door by bearing sensors that can send singles directly to related care providers (including their children and relatives if wished). E-home will greatly increase the security of elder people, release great worry from both their children and elder people themselves, and can be afford by most people. However, e-home is more than just a technical problem, and it needs a systemic way and social-psychological study how to design e-home system. In the end, e-home system must provide with needed services to residents. I will introduce IMIS project ´Integrated Mobile Information System for Home Healthcare’ financed by Swedish Agency for Innovative Systems (VINNOVA). This project will continue to 2006, and one of the outputs will be a sustainable software platform which is based on a systemic study of social psychological factors involved in the home healthcare. I will provide with some Swedish experiences and the so called ‘Scandinavia Approach’ in conducting such complex system to my colleagues in China, and I hope the IMIS project will be also developed in China based up on some feasibility and desirability studies with some Chinese colleagues.

The presentation is a IMIS project report to VINNOVA's programkonferens IT i Hemsjukvård.

IT för sjukvård i hemmet är ett program inom VINNOVAs enhet Tjänster och IT användning.

This report shows the result of the work of IANIS+ eHealth work group (WG). The WG has collected regional eHealth experiences from around Europe through a number of activities: • Regional eHealth case studies of which 17 (from 15 regions) are shown in this report • Four joint meetings of the group of which one was a policy seminar with invited guests from the EU Commission, relevant organisations in the field of eHealth and regional authorities • A meeting with the European Commission DG Information Society & Media, Unit H1 eHealth • Collaboration with the eHealth network within the organisation Assembly of European Regions (AER) • Attendance in recent major eHealth conferences: · Personal Health Systems arranged by the European Commission when launching the eHealth part of the 7th Framework Programme, 11-12 February 2007 · The EU-US eHealth Policy Workshop, 10 May 2007 · The final conference of the INTERREG IIIB project Baltic eHealth, 21-22 May 2007 • eHealth seminars at IANIS+ annual conferences in Blekinge 2006 and Bilbao 2007 The innovation perspective of eHealth in the regions has been the focus for the IANIS+ eHealth WG. Regional diversity regarding strategies, policies, and action plans for eHealth can act as a driving factor for successful eHealth projects, but leads also to challenges for interoperability, standardisation, integrity and security. It is important to learn from others. It may be about how to choose the right technology or what methods to use for implementation. Depending on what area of eHealth, there are numerous projects and up-and-running services from which we can learn. Not to forget there are also many experiences from unsuccessful trials. Even if an eHealth solution has failed in one setting, it can be a success under different circumstances. The aim of the IANIS+ eHealth Working Group was to share experience between regions belonging to the network, and bring up some issues of good practice for regional eHealth implementation. Projects brought up in the IANIS+ working group are projects in there own rights, with pros and cons. The projects cover different perspectives and types of eHealth. Some were difficult to evaluate while others are valuable comparable experiences from different settings and circumstances. In any case, we can learn something from all the cases as examples from reality and as a complement to formal evaluations and scientific studies of eHealth. We would rather use the term good practice than best practice. There is always something good to learn from others while there is hardly any best practice that works under every circumstance.

This paper deals with the design problems in healthcare information systems on how to adapt to dynamic factors and diversities so as to reach the interoperability between healthcare actors. Those dynamic factors and diversities are caused by, for example, constant suggestions from users, changes in the applied technologies, and after-learning related stepwise progresses. We suggest applying Web services technology, especially the idea of Semantic Web to tackle the problem of diversity in healthcare branch. In order to tackle the problem of dynamic changes during the design process, we suggest an evolutionary design methodology based upon an organic development metaphor – embryonic prototyping approach (EmA). We demonstrate our idea by the project IMIS that is to design a semantic Web service for the diabetic healthcare.

The design of eHealth systems calls for a clear needs analysis and functions based on the users’ perspective. However, this is often the most difficult part of designing eHealth service systems, because of the diversity of users and diversified needs. This paper provides a general mapping and overview of the basic functions of eHealth systems identified through two studies: (1) a comprehensive study of the resource book of eHealth projects under the European Sixth Framework programme (FP6), and (2) a theoretical study based on the framework of Activity Theory. The first study provides the eHealth system designers with an overview of a number of important and particular functions that the users/citizens need in order to get good services; while the second study presents a fundamental ‘skeleton’ and architecture for providing those particular functions in an orderly and coherent system.

Software effort estimation still remains a challenging and debatable research area. Most of the software effort estimation models take software size as the base input. Among the others, Constructive Cost Model (COCOMO II) is a widely known effort estimation model. It uses Source Lines of Code (SLOC) as the software size to estimate effort. However, many problems arise while using SLOC as a size measure due to its late availability in the software life cycle. Therefore, a lot of research has been going on to identify the nature of relationship between software functional size and effort since functional size can be measured very early when the functional user requirements are available. There are many other project related factors that were found to be affecting the effort estimation based on software size. Application Type, Programming Language, Development Type are some of them. This thesis aims to investigate the nature of relationship between software size and development effort. It explains known effort estimation models and gives an understanding about the Function Point and Functional Size Measurement (FSM) method. Factors, affecting relationship between software size and development effort, are also identified. In the end, an effort estimation model is developed after statistical analyses. We present the results of an empirical study which we conducted to investigate the significance of different project related factors on the relationship between functional size and effort. We used the projects data in the International Software Benchmarking Standards Group (ISBSG) dataset. We selected the projects which were measured by utilizing the Common Software Measurement International Consortium (COSMIC) Function Points. For statistical analyses, we performed step wise Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) and Analysis of Co-Variance (ANCOVA) techniques to build the multi variable models. We also performed Multiple Regression Analysis to formalize the relation.

The thesis work intends to provide an architecture for discovery and monitoring of nodes in a network with improved performance and security. The proposed work addresses limitations identified within the scope of this thesis. The limitations are identified by analyzing some of the better existing monitoring tools in the market with the use of different protocols. The proposed work use different protocols depending on the situation of the problem that exists in a network. Analyze the existing network monitoring tools, by performing metrics and overcoming the limitations. We proposed a new architecture motivated from traditional network monitoring tools with subtle changes. Proposed architecture is also conceptually evaluated for its viability.

ERP software and applications have become basic requirement of almost every organization in order to compete with each other and in time constraint. In order to develop an efficient application, project planning and analysis play very important role in better understanding of the problem domain and to provide a risk free solution. There are many different approaches which software developers used to develop the systems. These traditional approaches have some drawbacks and constraints. Either these are ad-hoc basis or have some fixed patterns and rules. We discussed all these techniques and suggest that planning and analysis of ERP application during its development can be done by applying more appropriate knowledge engineering commonKADS model. CommonKADS is a structured approach, It comprises of different model suites. Thesis presents that by using commonKADS model for project planning and analysis, real problem domain and efficient solution can be identified. Also domain process is identified. Tasks related to each process in the domain are identified. Knowledge assets related to each task are identified. These features help in defining real knowledge specification. In this way, ERP applications can be made knowledge based. ERP systems were introduced to solve different organizational problems and provide integrated structure. Although ERP packages offer advantages to enterprises, they have not achieved many of their anticipated benefits. Autonomous and heterogeneous applications co-exist in companies with ERP systems and integration problem having not been addressed. This thesis seeks to make some suggestions to this area by studying and analyzing ERP problems, through mapping commonKADS methodology in a case study. Thesis in start, presents an overview about ERP applications, Knowledge Engineering and commonKADS methodology. In the end, thesis presents our contribution a case study ―online courses Registration Portal for BTH which shows that planning and analysis of ERP applications by using commonKADS methodology helps in reaching knowledge based and more accurate solutions.

In this thesis work, two major problems confronting elections system in Africa; multiple registrations and diversion/shortages of election materials, taking the Nigerian content into consideration is addressed. These problems have been described as being so corrosive in nature such that ICTs in the form of eVoting if fully implemented will only compound or exacerbate the current situation due to poor ICTs awareness in the continent. However, in order to contain these problems with some form of ICTs tools along side the traditional election system, we proposed an RFID-based framework where voter’s identification and election materials are RFID-based. We believe this will enhance effective and efficient identification and tracking. Operations similar to the chain supply and inventory management are utilized. Also benefits resulting from the adoption of this framework; national ID card, national register, etc. are addressed.

In recent years, technological developments have led to digital files being more easily distributed, for example through Napster (a file sharing service on the Internet). In order to manage and control the distribution of digital files, a new concept has been developed, called DRM (Digital Rights Management). The purpose is to set every single file with individual rights that are extremely hard to break, and consequently make people pay and use the files legally. The file will then be fully protected from intrusion and alteration until the set rights expire. The goal of this thesis is to look into and summarise DRM of today. We have concentrated on the mobile DRM market, and especially mobile phones. Especially the solutions/applications that already exist and their functionality and properties, but also requirements regarding security levels, compatibility etc. We have also added predictions of the near future, ours as well as others. Existing applications for DRM are well made but few are constructed for mobile phones. Mobile phones will however be a good and secure platform for DRM. At present there is no DRM application inserted in mobile phones in Europe. The third generation (3G) network will push the progress with the capability of broader bandwidth, with capacity of downloading more content to the phone. Since the mobile phone software is embedded and the mobile phones are within a trusted network, the security level of a DRM application in a mobile phone can be discussed. A lower level of security would make it easier for managing content but also open up the market for hackers that wish to trespass. With a lower level of security you always have to consider the consequences and often it creates more problems than it solves. We believe the DRM market and its value will increase exponentially over the next few years. The number of players on the mobile Internet DRM market will be less than on the Internet DRM market, due to the complexity of getting applications into the phone. The latter will consist of many more players, and remain fragmented, since it is an open market.

This thesis is a reflection over a software engineering project, WAIS, and the work methodology that has been used within the project. Extreme Programming (XP) was the work methodology used during the process of development. We question if the choice of work methodology is suitable for this kind of project. The project was running by student during spring 2004 at Blekinge Institute of technology (BTH). The project WAIS was a part of a larger project named AIS 42 that runs with funds from VINNOVA. The main projects background and purpose are described in thesis so that the reader can understand the students’ part in the projects as a whole. The students’ main task was to develop a prototype for a system that disseminates information about logistics and transports. The system has many different end users and they come from various organizations that are spread out both physical and organizational. XP is treated as a methodology with in Agile manifesto, which principles are being explained in the thesis. Parallels are being drawn between the work process and the result from the work done. We reflect over the process and the work methodology from a perspective that has been brought forth from our years of education at BTH. The approach is built up upon theories from participatory design and human computer interaction where the user has an essential part of the process of development. The conclusion shows that the project has missed some of the advantages that XP brings. The reasons that we identified were; timeaspects, access to users and the lack of a joint objectiv.

Mobile Ad Hoc Network (MANET) is a collection of communication devices or nodes that wish to communicate without any fixed infrastructure and pre-determined organization of available links. The nodes in MANET themselves are responsible for dynamically discovering other nodes to communicate. Although the ongoing trend is to adopt ad hoc networks for commercial uses due to their certain unique properties, the main challenge is the vulnerability to security attacks. A number of challenges like open peer-to-peer network architecture, stringent resource constraints, shared wireless medium, dynamic network topology etc. are posed in MANET. As MANET is quickly spreading for the property of its capability in forming temporary network without the aid of any established infrastructure or centralized administration, security challenges has become a primary concern to provide secure communication. In this thesis, we identify the existent security threats an ad hoc network faces, the security services required to be achieved and the countermeasures for attacks in each layer. To accomplish our goal, we have done literature survey in gathering information related to various types of attacks and solutions, as well as we have made comparative study to address the threats in different layers. Finally, we have identified the challenges and proposed solutions to overcome them. In our study, we have found that necessity of secure routing protocol is still a burning question. There is no general algorithm that suits well against the most commonly known attacks such as wormhole, rushing attack etc. In conclusion, we focus on the findings and future works which may be interesting for the researchers like robust key management, trust based systems, data security in different layer etc. However, in short, we can say that the complete security solution requires the prevention, detection and reaction mechanisms applied in MANET.

The thesis discusses lessons learned and issues raised when exploring how self-produced rich media can facilitate sharing of meaning between healthcare professionals at an intensive care unit and between healthcare professionals and patients within a hand surgery clinic. Design experiments conducted at the intensive care unit focused on how healthcare professionals could collaboratively produce ‘best practice’ videos displayed on handheld devices and accessed through barcodes placed out in the unit. The making of the videos it is argued can be seen as a temporary convergence of different views when reifying ‘best practice.’ Design experiments conducted at the hand surgery clinic focused on how healthcare professional and patients collaboratively could produce, during consultations, rich media documents that are tailored to the patients’ specific needs. The rich media documents made can be seen as a temporary convergence of two distinct practices; namely that of hand surgery treatment and the practice of everyday life. Making of rich media documents in both projects resulted in developing relational spaces of informal learning, which engendered the making of rich reifications that function well in close relation to participation. To engender the making of the rich media documents demanded the establishment and hardening of a socio-technical infrastructure which can be seen as a temporary convergence between tools and practices where both the tools and practices are changed. In both cases using these videos in turn demanded that the videos, a form of local collaborative hardenings, needed to be translated anew and so to speak “defrosted.” The design consequences are that designers need to acknowledge materiality as an ongoing process which is given meaning through participation over time within and across communities of practice. Materiality and human agency in this instance are not seen as discrete elements, but rather highly intertwined. The second design consequence is that we need to acknowledge the complexity, partiality, and multiplicity of such relational spaces. Methodologically, the consequences are that it is important to consider where the designers position themselves and the artifacts in the network of relations, since different positioning will have different implications for the subsequent spaces of action.

Virtual environments where users can interact with each other as well as with the environment are today used in many application areas ranging from military simulations to massive multiplayer online games. But no matter the application area, as soon as the number of users reaches a certain threshold, hosting a virtual environment on a single machine can become problematic. Speed and quality of the network connection will limit the number of concurrently connected users in terms of acceptable visual quality and hardware requirements of the server will be strict. With a single point of failure, system reliability could easily be compromised by means of network or host failure. Distribution of the virtual environment therefore seems a reasonable approach in order to address this problem. Hardware and network requirements would not be so critical and it would increase reliability by having no single point of failure. Unfortunately distribution introduces new problems dealing with synchronization of the world state within the distribution network. A possible solution to these problems with the focus on reliability will be presented in this thesis. The solution uses a peer to peer platform that is able to adapt to changes in the network infrastructure as a base for all communication. To improve synchronization efficiency the network will be dynamically divided into multicast groups based on synchronization needs. The solution will be tested for performance with the network fully functioning and in a number of more of less broken states to determine the reliability. The results from the tests conclude that the system is able to perform with what must be seen as acceptable performance levels even in very problematic network environments. The scalability of the system did also meet the expectations but the results would have benefited from more experimentation with larger user populations.

This thesis is founded on the global growth of the service sector and its significance for society as a whole and for the individual human being. In the last decade, technology has changed the way services are created, developed and delivered in remarkable ways. The focus of the thesis is technology in interplay with humans and organisations and the socio-economic-technical systems in which digital services play a central role. Challenges addressed by the thesis include requirement analysis, trustworthy systems, in- and outsourcing aspects, the proper understanding of information and its use in real world applications. With this in mind, the thesis presents a configurable methodology with the purpose to quality assure service oriented workflows found in socio-economictechnical systems. Important building blocks for this are information types and service supported workflows. Our case study is of a call centre-based business called AKC (Apotekets kundcentrum). AKC constitutes a part of the Cooperation of Swedish Pharmacies (Apoteket AB). One of their main services offered to Swedish citizens is the handling of incoming questions concerning pharmaceutical issues. We analysed the interactive voice response system at AKC as a starting point for our investigations and we suggest a more flexible solution. We regard a socio-economic-technical system as an information ecology, which puts the focus on human activities supported by technology. Within these information ecologies, we have found that a Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) can provide the flexible support needed in an environment with a focal point on services. Input from information ecologies and SOA also enables a structured way of managing in- and outsourcing issues. We have also found that if we apply SOA together with our way of modelling a Service Level Agreement (SLA), we can coordinate high-level requirements and support system requirements. In the dissertation, we propose three attributes closely linked to information quality: • Trustworthiness of the source • Protection against falsification of information • The receiver’s competence to use obtained information in the appropriate and intended way. The first attribute concerns the assessment of a source’s trustworthiness. The second regards the ascertainment that the information has not been falsified on its way from the source to the receiver. These two attributes can be related to the classic CIA-model for information security. The last attribute can be related to the use of information, and this thesis also focuses on this issue. As a result, we propose a set of guidelines which represent our approach towards developing quality assured systems. We also present two main types of validation for service oriented workflows: validation of requirement engineering and validation of business processes.

Uppsatsen behandlar hur två organisationer samarbetar och koordinerar deras kooperativa arbete med hjälp av en artefakt. De två organisationerna är Marinmuseum och Turistbyrån där deras kooperativa arbete handlar om att skapa guidade turer tillsammans. Vi har jobbat mot målgruppernas målsättningar, behov och krav för att hitta det ultimata stödet för deras verksamhet. Syftet är att förmedla förståelse för hur organisationerna idag använder artefakten i deras gemensamma arbete, baserat på intervjuer och observationer. Huvudfrågorna i vår studie har varit: Hur kan vi som utvecklare kan stödja de två olika organisationernas samarbetsmöjligheter och förbättra koordinationen i det fall då de använder denna artefakt, deras pappersbaserade bokningslista som primär informationsplats? Hur kan denna artefakt ersättas utan att tappa dess koordinations och interaktions förmågor samt flexibilitet? Studien har visat att den pappersbaserade artefakten, deras bokningslista, innefattar många positiva egenskaper som vid digitalisering måste tas hänsyn till. Denna artefakt har vi valt att kalla för koordinationsartefakt för att belysa dess koordinationsegenskaper. Med vår studie vill vi framhäva den markanta skillnaden med ett system som är anpassat efter verksamheten istället för att verksamheten är anpassad efter systemet.

Det har blivit mer och mer vanligt med ny, datoriserad teknik i hemmen. Fler människor har ett allt stressigare liv och inte längre samma tid att ta hand om det egna hemmet. Behovet av en hjälpande hand med hushållsarbete har blivit allt större. Tänk själv att komma hem från jobbet eller skolan och så har golvet blivit skinande rent utan att Ni knappt har behövt göra någonting! Det finns idag flera olika robotar på marknaden för detta ändamål. En av dessa är den autonoma dammsugaren, som är det vi inriktat vår uppsats på. I huvudsak är uppsatsen inriktad på mjukvaran, som kan användas i en autonom dammsugare. Vi har valt att titta närmare på två stycken sökalgoritmer, som kan användas av autonoma mobila robotar, exempelvis en autonom dammsugare, som har i uppdrag att täcka en hel obekant yta. Dessa algoritmer är Spanning Tree Covering (STC) och ”A Topological Coverage Algorithm”, också kallad ”Landmark-based World Model” (fritt översatt till Topologisk Täckande Algoritm, TTA). Vi har också undersökt hur ett av Sveriges största märken på marknaden för autonoma dammsugare, nämligen Electrolux Trilobite ZA1, klarar sig i test. Vi har även analyserat testet med Trilobiten och jämfört detta med antaget beteende hos Trilobiten ifall den hade varit implementerad med sökalgoritmerna STC eller TTA. Hur fungerar sökalgoritmerna? Hur kan en autonom dammsugare hitta på en hel obekant yta? Hur beter sig Electrolux Trilobite ZA1? Täcker de alla en obekant yta? Är de effektiva?

This thesis may be interesting for developers within video game industry, people who design the behaviour of agent systems, or those interested in complex robotic control systems. What potential fields give to the world of AI is a new way to implement the behaviour of the agents, giving weights to all the elements in the world, so the agent can decide if making some action deserves the cost, the combination of several potential fields is what makes this technique so efficient. An agent was created applying this technique. Implemented as a client application, the agent used the Quake protocol to connect and communicate with the server. Some tests were run on the model concerning the different functionalities a gamer agent should implement. The model turned out to be a success in a virtual environment like quake 2. Taking care of all the entities in the map and environmental factors, the agent is able to keep his state in balance, move to the most interesting positions and be able to face combat situations. The implementation is clean and mathematical oriented. Using algorithms as the heart of the model, we make the code lightweight in comparison with old bot models.

Today, it is often reported about piracy copying in the mass media. Anyone can, with little knowledge and cost, copy films, music, games and software, which often also are easily accessible on the Internet. No one can quite understand or answer how big this problem is, and for whom. Organisations and companies within the line of business are trying with different means to deal with the trend that copied, digital information is getting a larger spread and demand amongst consumers. This by trying to develop improved copy protection, and by working for more stringent legislation amongst copyright for digitally based products. The questions we asked ourselves were, if new laws and copy protection have any impact on the consumers and if it’s possible for the organisations to make use of the Internet instead of seeing it as a threat. To get an answer to this, we have among other things tried to find out the meaning of copy protection, which various types of copy protection that exists and how well they are functioning. We have also illustrated the fact that the legality of copy protecttion is questioned, this because according to the copyright laws in different countries, you have the right to make a copy for your own personal use. We have examined the attitudes of copying amongst producers and consumers of digital information and how they can be brought closer together in the struggle that is being carried out between them. We have also investigated the economic losses and effects due to piracy copying, and if there are any suggested measures for dealing with piracy copying, besides copy protection and laws. Through an inquiry along with interviews, we have investigated how much a person downloads and/or copies, and if copy protection and legal actions have a deterrent effect on the sole individual. This we have put in relation to the organisations’ attempt to prevent piracy copying, to see if there are any alternative ways to overcome the problem. The answer is that copy protection and laws are not the right methods in the battle against piracy copying. This is proven by the consumers’ attitude towards copy protection, i.e. there is always a way around them, and products that have been copy protected cannot be used satisfyingly. It is also proven by the fact that neither the consumers, nor the actors of the law, think that the copyright law has an affect towards the sole individual. Instead, the organisations within the line of business should use the Internet for distribution of their products, and make use of its advantages. In that way, the organisations can supply their products in a way that is comfortable and easily available for the consumers, and at a lower cost compared to today.

Alternative educational tools have been investigated, in form of a meta-game structure, a computer-based educational software (Quest Atlantis) which was used in an after-school environment within the frame of Fifth Dimension site in Ronneby. The study is based on field material from five sessions, each of two hours. A first focus in this thesis is on the extent to which such a virtual environment can be used for educational purposes, to which extent it can supplement the traditional educational system. A second focus is on how appropriate the software is to its educational purpose and how it can be improved by means of participatory design. The analysis of the data shows that computer games are a rich setting for human learning, in a more dynamic, active and involving manner than traditional education. In this particular case, we came to the conclusion how the software has to be improved in order to suite children’s computer skills and we came up with an original method for involving users in participatory design.

In our thesis we use a preventive approach to stop privacy-invasive software (PIS) from entering the system. We aim at increasing the user awareness about the background activities of the software. These activities are implicitly written in End User License Agreement (EULA). We are using a multi-layer user notification approach to increase the user awareness and help him make a good decision, which is in accordance with the European legal framework. A proof of concept tool is developed that will use the user preferences to present the EULA in a compact and understandable form thereby helping the user in deciding with the installation of a software.

Innovation systems, ‘triple helix’, and similar expressions, are used to conceptualise the growing need for more integrated forms of co-operation between academia and other societal actors, such as governmental agencies and industry, in order to produce knowledge relevant for society. However, there is as yet little reported experience from such recent and on-going co-operative projects of how research changes when it becomes involved in practices it is meant to contribute to. In this paper, the authors report about three different research projects where researchers co-operated with governmental agencies and industry around the development of ICT. Evidence from three domains, namely e-government, telecommunications and welfare services, indicates the need for problematising current mainstream understandings of innovation. Innovation, as we see it, is occurring through configurations of designers, developers and domain experts that form constituencies and where scientific knowledge is confronted by requirements, constraints and possibilities of the specific situation. In this context innovation of, or involving, ICT requires a significant amount of imagination, represents a relatively sharp break with established ways of doing things, and requires artful integration of different professional practices, communities, and technologies. We define these creative processes of co-development of work practices, organisations and technology as ‘situated innovation’.

The development of methods tools and process improvements is best to be based on the understanding of the development practice to be supported. Qualitative research has been proposed as a method for understanding the social and cooperative aspects of software development. However, qualitative research is not easily combined with the improvement orientation of an engineering discipline. During the last 6 years, we have applied an approach we call ‘cooperative method development’, which combines qualitative social science fieldwork, with problem-oriented method, technique and process improvement. The action research based approach focusing on shop floor software development practices allows an understanding of how contextual contingencies influence the deployment and applicability of methods, processes and techniques. This article summarizes the experiences and discusses the further development of this approach based on several research projects in cooperation with industrial partners.

During the last five years, we applied a research approach we call 'Co-operative Method Development' formulated on first experience with empirical research focusing especially on the social side of software engineering. This position paper summarizes the experiences and discusses the improvement and further development of this research approach based on our experiences in different research projects in co-operation with industrial partners.

Rapporten ger en överblick över senaste årens utveckling av e-demokrati. Rapporten lyfter fram satsningar inom området, initierade av skilda aktörer från olika utgångspunkter i samhället. Rapporten behandlar följande fågor: Vad avses med e-demokrati? I vilka former och i vilken omfattning tillämpas e-demokrati? Vilka länder har kommit långt inom området och i vilken form? Vilket är nuläget när det gäller e-demokrati i Sverige på kommunal- landsting- och statlig/myndighetsnivå? Vilket är nuläget när det gäller e-demokrati ur ett internationellt perspektiv? Vilken är nuvarande regerings syn på e-demokrati och vilka planer finns på departementsnivå?

eParticipation is gaining more and more attention in public discourse.The purpose of this chapter is to describe and discuss how reproduction of certain user-values and power relations becomes technologically embedded during a process of customisation of a consultation tool, intended for online participation.The analysis and the discussion in this chapter is based on ethnographic participatory observations and interviews within a R&D project. The aim of the project was to broaden the scope of participation concerning spatial planning in a Swedish municipality. A prototype of the tool was also tested by a group of citizens. The findings of the study are discussed and analysed with the help of concepts derived from situated and relational theories. The overall objective is thus to develop methods for how to handle local processes of setting the stage for eParticipation.

eParticipation is a new research domain focusing the development of ICT-supported participation in processes of government and governance. These processes may concern involvement of practitioners, citizens and politicians in electronic public administration, service delivery, policy-making and decision-making. The overall objective of this thesis is to discuss how eParticipation is enacted and shaped, in and by practice, and thus contribute to development of practice-based conceptualisation as well as development within the differing practices of eParticipation. The study is based on interpretive case studies as well as theoretical perspectives assisting the analysis of the research field as multiple and co-related processes and relations of change and learning. The empirical data has been gathered during participation in several research and development projects, conducted within a local municipality in Southeast Sweden. Several of the projects were also part of national and international collaboration. The methodological approach comprises ethnographic studies, including interviews, participatory observations and document analysis. The approach of ethnomethodology was also inspirational for the close examining of how various actors organised their participation or non-participation in the various settings of preparing for or conducting eParticipation. The theoretical basis is multi-disciplinary, drawing on perspectives from technological and social theories, such as political science, ANT and feminist theories along with IS (information systems) research. The concept of symbolic eParticipation is coined in order to explore how the preconceived ideas of managing participation seem to be constricting and limiting local and situated development. At the same time, symbolic eParticipation is inspiring development of local interpretations and participatory work. The mutual shaping of these activities leads to the formulation of the notion malleability of organisations and citizenship. The findings indicate that activities of for instance customisation of software or evaluation of consultation tools contribute in creating socio-technical mechanisms, of which they are themselves a part. Those mechanisms embed power relations, and thus become a delegated function of opening up or closing for participation. An example of such socio-technical mechanisms is the notion of “active citizenship”, which is given higher legitimate status if it is conducted mainly as an electronically mediated activity. The term “symbolic active citizenship” is suggested as a concept which describes the legitimate active citizenship. The process of becoming active is thoroughly addressed in this thesis, including variations such as pro-activity and active passivity. These are also mediated by processes of learning in communities of practice. Active participants alternate between being active and actively passive in the processes which are supposed to constitute, form and sustain activities of eParticipation. This fluidity of citizenship has implications for future design of technology and for how to perceive participation in these activities. The interplay of symbolic eParticipation and organisational and civic malle¬ability described in this thesis, underscores the significance of providing space for negotiations of situating eParticipation.

This chapter discusses the interplay of participation and non-participation within institutional and public practices of electronically mediated policy-making in the local public sector. The aim is to contribute to practice-based development of situated theoretical conceptualisation in the research domain. Applying a dialectical analysis, including also examples and processes of dissociation detected in ethnographic studies of actual use and design of these technologies, suggests a re-specification of the conceptual basis of eParticipation.

At the same time as eParticipation is culturally pictured as a rich area for exploration, reviving great expectations of possibilities to broaden and deepen the scope and results of democratic decision-making, it must also be acknowledged as having a double function. It is also a way to initiate sociotechnical mechanisms applicable when controlling and steering mediated participation towards uniformity and normalisation, contributing to the formation of a symbolic eParticipation. This means that activities of eParticipation can function in both ways, either open up for participation or prevent participation to take place. This paper describes a local practice of tailoring of a tool for eParticipation and describes how the work practices in the municipality contribute to adjusting the development to what is considered legitimate. These choices are based on established work practices rather than innovative thinking.

Dialogue about re-configuration of roles”. Invited speaker at the council of Europe’s symposium entitled ‘E-democracy: new opportunities for enhancing civic participation’, theme III ‘The return of the citizen : new forms of social networking’, 23-24th of April, Strasbourg

This thesis takes in to account mainly the cooperative design and human factors from ubiquitous computing design perspective. Areas such as role of cooperative design in ubiquitous computing perspective, the changing attributes of society and the associated issues, the changing shape of public service delivery and need for a change in methodology in ubiquitous computing projects have been discussed. The overall approach is taking advantage of Suchman’s idea of ‘design as an artful integration of different social as well as technical aspects'. The advantage of the technique has been taken by bringing together social and societal aspects, agenda of governments from IT perspective, human factors and purely designs methodology to frame up in which we need to re-assess ubiquitous computing design methodology. The thesis work comprises literature review, and a case study to pick up on the role of cooperative and participatory design. The probe was specifically in the context of ubiquitous computing design requirements and ubiquitous computing vision

This thesis describes two proposed schemes that could be used to secure mobile messaging (SMS/MMS) as well as one scheme that could be used to secure mobile content. The security services we considered in securing the mobile messages are confidentiality, authentication, non-repudiation and integrity. We used Identity Based Cryptography in order to secure the mobile messaging and Blowfish algorithm to secure the mobile content. Due to some of the disadvantages imposed by the Identity Based Cryptography, we recommended using it along with the RSA algorithm. The proposed schemes were implemented in java and tested on an actual device, Nokia N70. In addition, we measured the time required by each of the algorithms we used to encrypt/decrypt a certain number of bytes. We found that the time taken by RSA and Blowfish algorithms will not be noticeable by the user. However, since the implementation of the Identity Based Cryptography we used was not meant to run on mobile devices, we encountered a noticeable delay whenever encrypting/decrypting the data using this algorithm. Securing the SMS messages will make it to be considered as one of the proposed means that could be used to conduct m-commerce. In addition, securing the MMS messages and the mobile content will increase the usability and the reliability of the mobile phones especially to the users on the move.

There is an abundance of pathfinding solutions, but are any of those solutions suitable for usage in a real time strategy (RTS) game designed for mobile systems with limited processing and storage capabilities (such as the Nintendo DS, PSP, cellular phones, etc.)? The RTS domain puts great requirements on the pathfinding mechanics used in the game; in the form of de- mands on responsiveness and path optimality. Furthermore, the Nintendo DS, and its portable, distant relatives, bring hard con- straints on the processing- and memory resources available to said mechanics. This master thesis aims to find a pathfinding solution well suited to function within the above mentioned, narrow domain. From a broad selection of candidate solutions, a few promising subjects are treated to an investigative empirical study; with the goal of finding the best “fitting” solution, considering the domain. The empirical study shows that the triangle-based TRA* solution and the hierarchical-abstraction influenced Minimal Memory so- lution are both very promising candidates. Depending on how one exactly defines the domain, either one of the solutions could be considered the ‘best’ choice. Since the overall performance of TRA* showed a slight advantage, this solution was further inves- tigated by running an implementation on one of the intended domain platforms; the Nintendo DS. This paper is structured to serve as a guide, of sorts, to some very interesting, and diverse, pathfinding solutions. In the spirit of this effort, all of the more important aspects of these solu- tions, and the pathfinding domain as a whole, are thoroughly explained.

The intention of tailorable systems is to make it possible for end users to evolve an application to better fit altered requirements and tasks, and to make the system more endurable. This thesis discusses tailorable systems in the context of a rapidly changing business environment. The objective was to determine what is necessary for a tailorable business system to continuously adapt to expanding requirements and thereby live up to the intention of the system. The thesis includes five different studies, of which one is a literature study. The other four studies were conducted in three projects; one technical project exploring the possibility to use Metaobject Protocol in tailorable systems, one project in an explorative environment concerned with physical interfaces and one project, that also embraced user participation and user evaluation, regarded the possibility for end users to manage system infrastructure. The projects began with field studies (including participant observations and interviews) and workshops with users and developers. In each project, based on the outcome, an end-user tailorable prototype was developed. The prototypes were used for evaluating possibilities and problems with tailorable systems. Taken together the evaluations revealed what was required to make a tailorable system work as intended in a rapidly changing business environment. It could be concluded that tailoring is a good way to evolve a system to meet altered needs, because people who already possess the required domain knowledge can make changes quickly. Tailoring is not however enough, because the tailoring capabilities are always limited, meaning that tailoring cannot support completely unanticipated changes. In such cases the tailoring capabilities must be extended. Since such changes are only concerned with the system itself, and not the business task, it is hard to motivate even skilled users to make these types of changes. Tailoring activities must therefore be coordinated with software evolution activities performed by professional developers. This allows the system to adapt continuously to a rapidly changing business environment and thereby live up to the intention of the system. The final conclusion is that there is a need for close collaboration between end users, tailors and developers to make tailorable information systems adaptable to rapid changes in the business environment as well as being endurable. The collaboration has to be supported in the structure of the system by providing support for the work of users, tailors and developers.

In most business areas today, competition is hard and it is a matter of company survival to interpret and follow up changes within the business market. The margin between success and failure is small. Possessing suitable, sustainable information systems is an advantage when attempting to stay in the front line of the business area. In order to be and remain competitive, these information systems must be up-to-date, and adapt to changes in the business environment. Keeping business systems up-to-date in a business environment such as this one, the telecom business, that changes rapidly and continuously, is a huge challenge. One way to approach this challenge is through flexibility in systems. The power of flexibility is that it keeps the system usable and relevant and allows it to evolve. This thesis is concerned with end-user tailorable software. Tailorable software makes it possible for end users to evolve an application better to fit altered business requirements and tasks. In the view of tailorable software taken in this thesis, the users should be seen as co-designers, as they take over the design of the software when it is in use. In this work, it is important that the users are aware of the possibilities and limitations of the software. However, tailoring is not enough, because the tailoring capabilities are always limited, meaning that tailoring cannot support completely unanticipated changes. The tailoring capabilities must therefore be extended, and tailoring activities must be coordinated with software evolution activities performed by professional developers. This allows the system to adapt continuously to a rapidly changing business environment and thereby live up to the intention of the system. Studies so far have tended to look at evolution from either a user perspective or a system perspective, resulting in a gap between development and use. This thesis takes an overall stand and states that it is possible to benefit from both the user and system perspectives, through collaboration between users, tailors and developers. It is necessary for users and developers to collaborate closely in order to make tailorable information systems both durable and adaptable to rapid changes in the business environment. In this way, the development of useful, sustainable software, which adapts easily to changes in an evolving environment, can be achieved. This thesis also presents a set of tools to support collaboration on equal terms between users and developers, in the technical design process of evolving the tailorable software and extending the tailoring capabilities. The toolkit aims at building a common understanding of tailoring, supporting democratic agreements and a common understanding of what kind of tailoring to implement. It makes it possible for the users to take part in technical design decisions and have a better understanding of trade-offs and system boundaries. These are key factors for the successful future evolution of a tailorable system, as it is the users who are the designers of the software during its future use. All of the research is based on field studies including participatory observations, interviews and workshops with users and developers. These studies led to the creation of prototypes and tools that act as mediating artefacts when exploring the research questions. The contribution of the thesis is twofold. Firstly, the thesis elucidates the need for a cooperative design process to ensure that end-user tailorable software remains useful and sustainable. Secondly, the thesis suggests a toolkit with four different tools to support such a cooperative design process.

Can buzzwords be methodically exploited to develop more self-reflective and participatory research methods and practices within the ICT area? Research policies as well as research funding agencies rely heavily on buzzwords, yet tend to grow uncomfortable when these are deliberately highlighted and concatenated in research applications. This paper presents a multi-disciplinary R&D project in which we are exploring emerging methods and practices of participatory design of public e-services in India and Sweden. Using buzzwords as boundary objects, comparing methods and practices, with specific e-government projects we are involved in as examples, we attempt to address blind angles inherent in different cultural and disciplinary perspectives.

In this paper, we present an on-going research project in which we are focusing on examining how users of map-based services on-line experience the quality of these services when the traffic load is high, and how the users' experiences of acceptable or not acceptable quality can be related to measurable parameters which can be used to manage network traffic and improve technical solutions. The project is a multi- and interdisciplinary project in cooperation between researchers within human work science and informatics, and researchers within telecommunication systems. Additionally, there are two external partners in the project: a provider of Internet-based map services, and a municipality which uses this provider's map services regularly. One of the main methodological issues addressed in the project is how laboratory based, quantitative research methods from research on Quality of Service in the telecommunication systems area can be related to qualitative research methods focusing on workplace- or other live-world based use situations and Quality of Expereince as defined by users of the services. How can experiments and studies be designed, and results shared, such that both network traffic measuring and evaluation of user experiences retain their own paradigmatic validity and relevance, while fruitfully informing service design?

SOA and especially Web services are a big evolving market these days. SOA typically uses Web services when interacting between different parts of applications. Methods to easily discover the Web services must exist. For this UDDI has been introduced. The current implementation of UDDI has a weak security model. We have developed an extension to this model, which interacts with the current solution to make it more secure. Our solution, S-UDDI, enable a way to find and publish Web services in a secure and trustworthy way.

The students mostly use web based services for achieving their goals in education. They need these services for different purposes. The usability aspect is a need to design these services to be more interactive in order to support the students at their work. Google Docs is the link to the concept Software as a service i.e. a type of cloud computing. A web based application that provides online resource to the users for creating, editing and storing their documents online. The author particularly discusses it from the Student’s perspective. Usability evaluation of the Google Docs is to find the students needs and requirements and also to investigate the usability issues in Google Docs. In this thesis the author is trying to uncover the usability and privacy related problems faced by the students. This is helpful in analyzing the Google Docs (Software as a service) and its importance, by considering the students perspective. Different usability methods and techniques are available for usability evaluation. The author adopted Think Aloud (TA), questionnaires and interview to evaluate the usability of Google Docs.