Journal of Applied Computing and Information Technology
ISSN 2230-4398, Volume 22, Issue 1, 2018
Incorporating the NACCQ publications:
Bulletin of Applied Computing and Information Technology,
ISSN 1176-4120
Journal of Applied Computing and Information Technology, ISSN 1174-0175
Welcome
- Executive Editor: Dr. Emre Erturk (eerturk@eit.ac.nz), or
- Senior Associate Editor: Dr. Donald Joyce (dcjoyce@xtra.co.nz).
Welcome to this issue of Computing and Information Technology Research and Education, New Zealand (CITRENZ) Journal of Applied Computing and Information Technology (JACIT), an amalgamation of two publications from the National Advisory Committee of Computing Qualifications (NACCQ): JACIT and the Bulletin (BACIT).
Are you interested in contributing a paper to JACIT? Please refer to the guidelines and templates available on the Authors tab, and then contact the editors:
Refereed Articles
Laptops for Information Technology Students: User Impressions and the Impact on Learners
Michael J. Watts, Dios Cabiling, Kar Wen Choe
The Information Technology Programme at Auckland Institute of Studies transitioned to a laptop-based teaching mode 2014-15. While the roll-out was a success from an administrative perspective, the effect of these laptops to students’ learning had not been thoroughly evaluated. To address this gap and to improve the students’ learning experience, the majority of students in the IT Programme were surveyed at semi-annual intervals, on the students' experiences and satisfaction with using laptops. We found that most students were satisfied with the laptops, laptops improved the students’ learning experience, and that students found laptops helpful in doing course assessments. We also found that a large proportion of students did not backup their data. A statistical analysis of course outcomes comparing results before and after the transition showed that there was a significant difference between course outcomes, with the median course outcomes after the transition being one sub-grade higher. This shows that laptops are an effective tool for teaching IT. It also shows that further technical work must be done to improve the security of students’ data.
Predicting and Improving the Recognition of Emotions
Ayesha Hakim
The technological world is moving towards more effective and friendly human computer interaction. A key factor of these emerging requirements is the ability of future systems to recognise human emotions, since emotional information is an important part of human-human communication and is therefore expected to be essential in natural and intelligent human-computer interaction. Extensive research has been done on emotion recognition using facial expressions, but all of these methods rely mainly on the results of some classifier based on the apparent expressions. However, the results of classifier may be badly affected by the noise including occlusions, inappropriate lighting conditions, sudden movement of head and body, talking, and other possible problems. In this paper, we propose a system using exponential moving averages and Markov chain to improve the classifier results and somewhat predict the future emotions by taking into account the current as well as previous emotions.
CacophonyViz : Visualisation of Birdsong Derived Ecological Health Indicators
Mark T.H. Nikora, Tim D. Hunt, Grant Ryan
The purpose of this work was to create an easy to interpret visualisation of a simple index that represents the quantity and quality of bird life in New Zealand. The index was calculated from an algorithm that assigned various weights to each species of bird. This work is important as it forms a part of the ongoing work by the Cacophony Project which aims to eradicate pests that currently destroy New Zealand native birds and their habitat. The map will be used to promote the Cacophony project to a wide public audience and encourage their participation by giving relevant feedback on the effects of intervention such as planting and trapping in their communities. The Design Science methodology guided this work through the creation of a series of prototypes that through their evaluation built on lessons learnt at each stage resulting in a final artifact that successfully displayed the index at various locations across a map of New Zealand. It is concluded that the artifact is ready and suitable for deployment once the availability of real data from the automatic analysis of audio recordings from multiple locations becomes available.
Perspective Article
Understanding Gamification and Its Benefits
Simone Dunkerley, Emre Erturk
This paper focuses on gamification and its application in modern education and information technology. The main question is how effective gamification is, as a strategy for engagement and motivation. A multitude of formal studies and publications are available to help answer this question. The findings conclude that no gamification solution fits all and each solution must be tailored to meet the goals of both the ‘player’ and the ‘game-maker’. This conclusion is significant and crucial to understanding why gamification often fails and involves more work than simply implementing badges. The future of gamification will be more intuitive and personal with the rise of technologies like the Internet of Things (IoT) and Augmented Reality (AR).