CoolCampus Summer Project 2004-2005 (Information Technology)

The Coolcampus Summer Projects 2004-05 Seminar:

11 February 2005, 10:00am-12:00pm
Venue: Building B, Level 5, Room 50a (B5.50a), Monash Caulfield
Seminar program (pdf, 88KB)

Seminar Abstracts

CoolOffice Demonstrator: Husnain Malik

Supervisors: Phillip Steele, Arkady Zaslavsky and Paul Hii

In the CoolCampus of the future it will be very easy for students, academics and administrative staff to communicate, collaborate and share resources with other individuals and/or groups located anywhere in the CoolCampus. Many spaces such as staff offices, meeting rooms, lecture theatres, tutorial rooms and other learning spaces will have location transparent information services to support collaborative work with other individuals and/or groups. These services will allow individuals and/or groups to view and work on many types of passive and dynamic documents, support conversion of documents to and from paper, and undertake hands free teleconferencing and/or video-conferencing with other individuals and/or groups. It will be easy to use handheld and/or desktop devices to support the information needs of individuals and white board or larger sized devices to support the information needs of groups. It will be very easy for any individual and/or group to actively participate in any seminar, discussion, meeting, lecture or tutorial held on anywhere on the CoolCampus.

This project aims to establish a demonstration CoolCampus office. The office will support computer controlled voice telephony software allowing telephone calls to be made from the contact list held within the computer. External microphone and speakers will support hands free telephone calls from anywhere in the office – at desk or at the meeting table. The office will contain one or more cameras allowing video-conferencing from the desk or the meeting table. The office will contain a Mimio white board allowing white board graphics to be easily converted to web documents and an inbuilt data projector that will project onto the office white board allowing it to act as a touch screen for computer input. The keyboard and mouse will be wireless allowing documents projected onto the white board to be edited from the desk or the meeting table. The office will also contain a multi-function device that will allow paper documents to be scanned for computer input, copied or printed. The office will support the receipt and transmission of faxes from either hard copy or computer stored documents.

Project duration: 10 weeks

[Full report] [Powerpoint (pdf, 133KB)]
A Visual Tool for Context-Aware Messaging: Murali Muniyandi
Supervisors: Seng Wai Loke, Amir Padovitz and Arkady Zaslavsky

Context-aware pervasive computing aims to develop programs which understand the (physical or virtual) context or situation of entities (e.g., humans) and automatically act in response to that understanding. One application of context-awareness is context-aware messages, that are messages sent whenever entities (e.g., the senders) are in particular situations and received whenever other entities (e.g., the receivers) are in particular situations. The project will first investigate visual metaphors for context and operators on context, to allow non-technical human users to define and compose contexts and situations in an intuitive manner. We will base this part of the project on our previous work on the notion of context spaces (the results of an ongoing PhD project). Then, the project will develop a tool which uses such metaphors for context-aware messaging. An additional stage, if time permits, of the project is to apply the visual metaphors to another domain - to specify the "source" and "destination" of mobile agents instead of messages.

Pre-requisites/Preferred Knowledge: Hardware used are PC and sensors for demonstration purposes. The programming language is Java or .NET in the Microsoft Windows environment.

Expected Outcomes:
- a visual tool for context-aware messaging (as intended demonstrator)
- techniques and concepts for visual manipulation of contexts and situations
Project duration: 10 weeks

[Full report] [Powerpoint (pdf, 171KB)]
Library SMS Service: Prem Prakash Jayaraman

Supervisor: Simon Huggard

The project will build an SMS delivery mechanism for the library to notify patrons of book dues and outstanding fines. Similar to the existing email notification of book dues and fines, the SMS system will ensure notification reaches patrons immediately without requiring patrons to have internet access. Using existing mobile pervasive technology, the library can improve its services by being able to reach out to patrons anytime and anywhere.

Pre-requisites/Preferred Knowledge: Web development expertise, including HTML and CGI scripting. Knowledge of back-end Voyager database software and catalog data structure Access to Monash’s sms server or sms subscription service Test handsets (GSM and/or CDMA)

Expected Outcomes: A functional SMS delivery service for library notification services.

Project duration: 5 weeks

[Full report] [Powerpoint (pdf, 226KB)]
UMS Capabilities Demonstrator: Wanita Sherchan

Supervisors: Arkady Zaslavsky and Paul Hii

UMS (Unified messaging system) is a Coolcampus project. The Unified Messaging System will initially support messages from e-mails, SMS and Instant Messengers. Support for fax and voice-mail messages will be extensions to support wider messages spectrum. The system will give the user the ability to be notified of instant messages through SMS and to reply to messages through the receiving device. The project will design and develop unified messaging applications that run on three platforms, that is, a laptop, a Personal Digital Assistant and a mobile phone all connected via Bluetooth.

The project will focus on demonstrating the system in four main scenarios: At home, In the office, In a meeting and On the move such as while driving a car

Voice-control will be an added feature to enhance the useability of the unified messaging application. The proposed demonstrator will use Shockwave and/or Powerpoint tools to develop a dynamic animated presentation that should demonstrate UMS capabilities and animate the scenarios.

Pre-requisites/Preferred Knowledge: Macromedia Shockwave, Director, Powerpoint, Networking

Expected Outcomes: A Shockwave/Powerpoint presentation, 15-20 min duration

Project duration: 5 weeks

[Full report] [Powerpoint (pdf, 91KB)]
Location-Aware Maps based on Service Domains: Wei Yang Ng

Supervisors: Seng Wai Loke and Shonali Krishnaswamy

We have developed a conceptual model of spatial/geographical service-domains for ambient services [1]. This model facilitates the mapping of web services to spatial contexts and delivers services that are applicable and available based on user location, preferences and priviledges. This project aims to apply the model for guiding users around a university campus in an intelligent and context-aware manner. Thus, we aim to use the conceptual notion of service domains to associate video clips and visualisation of space as the basis for guiding users. A demonstration prototype of such a system will be build for Level 5, C Block that is within range of the Ekahau positioning server.

Project duration: 10 weeks

[1] Loke, S, W., Krishnaswamy, S., and Naing, T, T., (2004), Service Domains for Ambient Services: Concept and Experimentation, ACM/Kluwer Mobile Networks and Applications (MONET) - Special Issue on Mobile Services, (eds.) Qusay Mahmoud and Upkar Varshney, To Appear.

[Full report] [Powerpoint (pdf, 352KB)]