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Universities have experienced increases in technology ownership and usage amongst students entering undergraduate programs. Almost all students report owning a mobile phone and many students view laptops and tablets as educational tools, though they also report using them for non-academic activities during lectures. We explored the relationship between student course engagement and the use of smartphones, laptops, cell phones, and tablets during lecture. Undergraduate students responded to an online survey asking about both course engagement and mobile device habits. Results show that smartphone use was most strongly related to lowered course engagement and while laptop use was related to lowered engagement, it was to a lesser extent. In contrast, overall engagement of students using tablets or cell phones was not significantly different than those who did not.

Nonpublic participation within an online community, often called lurking, occurs when an individual joins a community, but does not post. This study examines the nature of lurking, why people lurk and the differences in attitudes between lurkers and posters. The results indicate significant differences between people who lurk and those who post in an online community. We conclude that when people lurk they are observing, which in no way is a negative behavior. This introverted or passive behavior affects lurkers' attitudes about the benefits of the community, their expectations, and opinions of themselves and others who lurk. In general lurkers are less optimistic and less positive than those who post. [PUBLICATION ABSTRACT]

Privacy policies play an important part in informing users about their privacy concerns by operating as memorandums of understanding (MOUs) between them and online services providers. Research suggests that these policies are infrequently read because they are often lengthy, written in jargon, and incomplete, making them difficult for most users to understand. Users are more likely to read short excerpts of privacy policies if they pertain directly to their concern. In this paper, a novel approach and a proof-of-concept tool are proposed that reduces the amount of privacy policy text a user has to read. It does so using a domain ontology and natural language processing (NLP) to identify key areas of the policies that users should read to address their concerns and take appropriate action. Using the ontology to locate key parts of privacy policies, average reading times were substantially reduced from 29–32 min to 45 s.

In-Vehicle Information Systems (IVIS) provide vehicle travelers with a range of useful information, including road condition, weather broadcasting, GPS maps, and city navigation. It is widely acknowledged that a single IVIS design does not fit everyone as users can have different interface and content preferences. These preferences are often related to age, gender, experience, and other demographic, social, and psychological characteristics. IVIS need to be capable of adapting to the context. This paper reviews adaptation techniques found in user-adaptive systems and develops a mapping between adaptation techniques and the characteristics of the system being adapted. This mapping is then used to show that adaptation techniques for user-adaptive systems can be applied to the design of IVIS . As IVIS become popular and their functionalities become more diverse, driver distraction will increase due to increased cognitive load. Since inappropriate adaptation can lead to user confusion and distraction, the usability of adaptive IVIS need to be carefully evaluated.

Electronic navigational systems allow drivers to receive travel directions while driving, rather than preplanning a route. This additional attentional load on drivers might prove to be hazardous -- particularly for older adults who have greater difficulties multitasking and switching their attention between different parts of the visual field. A driving simulator was used to evaluate the perception time to critical events in the presence and absence of a navigation system with young (n=18, age=18.8years SD= 0.7years) and older drivers (n=15, age=73.1 years, SD=6.1 years). The results of this study indicated that though older drivers were slower to react to critical events, and both groups were faster to react to pedestrian incursions than sudden light changes, messages from the travel system did not interfere significantly with perception reaction time in either group.

Moose collisions injure and kill a multitude of animals and humans each year. While in-vehicle warning systems are under development, the evaluation of these systems is a challenging process. In comparison with traditional on-road instrumented vehicles, driving simulators offer safer testing environments, but pose validity concerns. To understand the validity issues, this study replicates and expands upon Robins's [1] on-road findings in \"Moose Visibility Distance in Nighttime Highway Driving Conditions: A Preliminary Investigation\". The significant effect of moose location on perception time is supported while our data suggests that typical speed limits are even more problematic than Robins demonstrated. The results are discussed with a focus on understanding the validity of simulated driving and establishing future validation research directions.