Nazlena Mohamad Ali | Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (original) (raw)

Papers by Nazlena Mohamad Ali

A wide range of smartphone applications aimed at encouraging healthy diets and active lifestyles ... more A wide range of smartphone applications aimed at encouraging healthy diets and active lifestyles have been developed in recent years. However, the use of these smartphone applications among the elderly population that should benefit the most from them remains low. This paper reports on the barriers to smartphone usage among the elderly. In-depth interviews were conducted with the elderly to gather information about their demographics, experiences and the perceived barriers to using smartphones. Twenty-one participants were interviewed using a semi-structured interview method. Results show that the elderly have difficulties in using smartphones due to multiple reasons such as financial limitations, vision impairments, and lack of interest and knowledge in using technological devices and their advanced functionalities.

This paper investigated the effect of moving and static presentation modes on children's digital ... more This paper investigated the effect of moving and static presentation modes on children's digital flashcard learning context. A comparison between carousel mode and keyhole mode in Rapid Serial Visual Presentation (RSVP) techniques has been carried out to examine which presentation mode is more effective for the children. Two groups of children from the normal and LINUS class ages six to eight years old have been chosen in our experiment tasks: remembering and identifying a set of letters and pictures in their flashcard learning. The results shows that remembering and identifying of letters and pictures in static presentation mode are better than when using moving presentation mode for both in normal and LINUS class. We also found that some children in the normal class who preferred moving object are performing better in moving presentation mode task. RSVP techniques could provide a potential in digital learning environment for the children as learning flashcard traditionally done manually.

In this paper we present an overview of a Personal Information Management (PIM) System and some e... more In this paper we present an overview of a Personal Information Management (PIM) System and some examples of the interface applications. PIM involves methods and procedures to store, manage, retrieve and show information. PIM systems are becoming more ubiquitous and present a need for their functions toward improving and enhancing information search results. Therefore, studying the current PIM systems becomes unavoidable in order to develop newer systems. The purpose of this review is to discover and describe the criteria of user interfaces in PIM systems. We first describe the state of the art in PIM systems and present reviews on the elements of PIM user interfaces. Then we discuss the interface components between applications and illustrate the features provided in each.

The growth of digital cameras has resulted in the creation of huge collections of personal photog... more The growth of digital cameras has resulted in the creation of huge collections of personal photographs and video. Thus, in the last few years personal information management (PIM) has become an important topic in the information retrieval area, in which it is playing an interest role in managing and retrieving personal collections. Therefore, many previous studies have tried to visualize these collections in different ways. This paper aims to discuss the importance of visualization techniques that have been proposed in the PIM field in general, and it shows the main factors that have influence on visualizing an interactive PIM system interface for large collections of photographs and video in particular. The factors were identified through reviews of related work. The collated factors form a conceptual framework of interactive PIM system interfaces for photograph and video collections. The aim of the framework is to ensure full understanding about the personal information lifecycle and thus leads to the production of a PIM system that satisfies its intended users.

Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences, 2011

Course Learning Outcomes (CLO) shall be used to state the expected knowledge that the student sup... more Course Learning Outcomes (CLO) shall be used to state the expected knowledge that the student supposed to acquire at the end of the semester and shall be outlined according to the Bloom Taxonomy. Students can estimate the level of their knowledge and skills that were obtained at the end of each course using the CLOs. Unfortunately, there was no formal method for measuring performance of CLO for each course. The usual procedure is to distribute questionnaires to the students manually or via online. Students provide their performances for the CLO using a likert scale. The questionnaire's outcomes are the students’ estimation of the level of their knowledge and skill obtained from a particular course. Unfortunately, this method cannot accurately portray the students’ performances through actual evaluation. Therefore, this paper aims to measure the effectiveness of the teaching and learning method by measuring the performance of the CLO using Rasch model. The methodology for this study consists of three phases, which are planning, classification and result analysis. The output of this study is the actual students’ performances for the CLO for all courses. The results from this study can guide the lecturer to monitor the performance for each CLO and consequently leading towards improvements in the taught courses.

There is a growing awareness of the importance of system evaluation directly with end-users in re... more There is a growing awareness of the importance of system evaluation directly with end-users in realistic environments, and as a result some novel applications have been deployed to the real world and evaluated in trial contexts. While this is certainly a desirable trend to relate a technical system to a real user-oriented perspective, most of these efforts do not involve end-user participation right from the start of the development, but only after deploying it. In this paper we describe our research in designing, deploying and assessing the impact of a web-based tool that incorporates multimedia techniques to support movie analysis and browsing for students of film studies. From the very start and throughout the development we utilize methodologies from usability engineering in order to feed in end-user needs and thus tailoring the underlying technical system to those needs. Starting by capturing real users' current practices and matching them to the available technical elements of the system, we deployed an initial version of our system to University classes for a semester during which we obtained an extensive amount of rich usage data. We describe the process and some of the findings from this trial.

The world do not need reminders that its population are living in a knowledge driven era. One is ... more The world do not need reminders that its population are living in a knowledge driven era. One is constantly aware of the amount of information/knowledge that is put at one’s fingertips by the new communications and computing technologies. One of the central and most compelling applications for the 21st century is highly information based societies. E-learning is still being debated and researched and there is still much uncertainty about it in terms of what it means for culture, learning democracy, jobs, roles and society in general. Nevertheless, the growth of online or e-learning educational institutions has been phenomenal and it will continue to improve. Perhaps one of the most dramatic changes due to this phenomenon is the rapid convergence of computing, communications and indigenous content development initiatives. There is therefore a need to look at indigenous digital multimedia educational content development approaches that would meet the needs of indigenous community. This paper hopes to highlight the design of multimedia digital content based on the instructional and cognitive models thought suitable to create future knowledge workers (k-insan) in Malaysia. The paper shall also draw out in detail the characteristics of the k-insan and entities of the proposed indigenous content development initiatives based on the instructional and cognitive model approach with reference made to indigenous multimedia packages such as the ME, ME2 and MEL.

To support the realisation of semantic web – as well as digital library, the semantic information... more To support the realisation of semantic web – as well as digital library, the semantic information content of web documents need to be specified in order to make the tangled information more accessible to search engines and other applications. A number of efforts to support the semantic representation of web documents have been proposed. One such effort is the semantic document modelling of which existing web documents are classified and organised to form a semantic document model representing the contents of respective web documents. In this paper we propose a tool meant to assist in constructing semantic document models using natural language analysis technique and a domain specific ontology. Together with users involvement and participation the tool gradually construct the semantic document model which is represented as XML.

In image retrieval systems, user information needs is expressed using multiple types of query. Un... more In image retrieval systems, user information needs is expressed using multiple types of query. Unfortunately, due to user subjectivity perception to visual features and semantic depths of images, the conventional query submitted to the system encounter difficulties to identify user information need. The blooming of interest in semantic image retrieval requires current research direction to be more concerned into semantics. This paper describes our on-going research work in formulating a new query approach for image databases. Using the MRML as the communication protocol, SVG as the visual content description (sketch based) and XML for binding the semantic meanings of images, this research provides an initial framework towards semantic based query formulation framework

This paper describes our overview on crime news retrieval system for Malaysian context. We discus... more This paper describes our overview on crime news retrieval system for Malaysian context. We discuss a framework of an Interactive Malaysia Crime News Retrieval System (i-JEN) from the perspective of technical possibilities. Our main objectives are to construct crime based event; investigate the use of crime based event in improving the classification and clustering; develop an interactive crime news retrieval

This paper describes the work in measuring flow while interacting with multi-platform games inter... more This paper describes the work in measuring flow while interacting with multi-platform games interfaces. We identified different gaming platforms which are mobile and non-mobile platform. The objective of the study is to identify and measure the variation of flow in different platforms. The early pilot data are collected through a survey form that are designed based on GameFlow criteria. The

In image retrieval systems, user information needs is expressed using multiple types of query. Un... more In image retrieval systems, user information needs is expressed using multiple types of query. Unfortunately, due to user subjectivity perception to visual features and semantic depths of images, the conventional query submitted to the system encounter difficulties to identify user information need. The blooming of interest in semantic image retrieval requires current research direction to be more concerned into semantics. This paper describes our on-going research work in formulating a new query approach for image databases. The enabling technologies of the semantic web formed the building blocks of our query specification. Using the MRML as the communication protocol, XML in the form of SVG as the visual content description (sketch based) and RDF for binding the semantic meanings of images, this research provides an initial framework towards semantic based query formulation framework.

This paper describes the work in measuring flow experience while interacting with multi-platform ... more This paper describes the work in measuring flow experience while interacting with multi-platform gaming devices. The objective of the study is to identify and measure the variation of flow experience in different platforms. The early pilot data are collected through a survey form that are designed based on gameFlow criteria. The gameFlow criteria consist of eight elements which are: concentration, challenge, skills, control, clear goals, feedback, immersion and social interaction. In this exploratory study, the questionnaires of the survey are slightly altered from the gameFlow criteria identified in the previous work. From the early survey data collected, it shows the variation of player's expression and thought towards different kind of gaming platforms. Finding also shows that PC and console are more preferred by the respondent as their main platform to play games.

This paper explains the development of an intelligent tutoring tool for digital logic design. The... more This paper explains the development of an intelligent tutoring tool for digital logic design. The authors' objective is to design and implement a multimedia based computerized teaching aid that are based on self-directed learning (SDL) approach. SDL allows the students to practice on their design and explore in a new way of learning tutorial with various options in learning digital logic course. Years of experience in teaching this subject together with references book have been used as a guideline for designing this model to ensure the effective transfer of knowledge from teacher to student. As a pilot test, they try to guide the students on how to build Karnaugh map (K-map) from a truth table. Students are free to input any combination of output functions into their truth table. They can also obtained the simplified equation by doing K-map SOP minimization or K-map POS minimization. The groups obtained are shown during the process of K-map minimization

The emergence of global information society has increased the importance of translating articles ... more The emergence of global information society has increased the importance of translating articles from Malay to English, and vice-versa, to assist in the dissemination of information into and from South East Asia, mainly Malaysia, Indonesia and Brunei where Malay language is widely used. This has created the need to have computer-aided translation tools to facilitate the translation process. In this article, the authors describe the design implementation, and evaluation of a Malay-English and English-Malay scientific terms retrieving software. The system was designed and implemented using object-oriented techniques with user friendly interfaces and some basic facilities. For example, the database maintainer can add, change or delete terms from the database, and reindex files. The general user can retrieved terms through the Internet using any browser with JAVA plug-in. The indexing and retrieving strategies are based on stemming and n-gram methods. The system was developed using JAVA language and thus Web enabled and can be accessed at http://www.ftsm.ukm.my/istilah/.

This paper describes our work in performing an exploratory factor analysis (EFA) to measure the e... more This paper describes our work in performing an exploratory factor analysis (EFA) to measure the engagement attributes in social network application (i.e. Facebook). We adapted the measuring user engagement scales from the previous work that have been done in an online shopping environment. By using factor analysis, we found that there are four attributes of engagement while interacting with social network application namely; Focus Attention, Novelty Endurabilty, Perceived Usability and Aesthetics. A number of 103 Facebook users responded to the administered questionnaires in two weeks duration. The findings show that respondents preferred using non-mobile devices as compared to both mobile and non-mobile devices in accessing and interacting with social network application.

This paper describes our work in examining the question of whether providing a visual informatics... more This paper describes our work in examining the question of whether providing a visual informatics application in an educational scenario, in particular, providing video content analysis, does actually yield real benefit in practice. We provide a new software tool in the domain of movie content analysis technologies for use by students of film studies students at Dublin City University, and we try to address the research question of measuring the 'benefit' from the use of these technologies to students. We examine their real practices in studying for the module using our advanced application as compared to using conventional DVD browsing of movie content. In carrying out this experiment, we found that students have better essay outcomes, higher satisfactions levels and the mean time spent on movie analyzing is longer with the new technologies.

This paper describes our work in developing a movie browser application for students of Film Stud... more This paper describes our work in developing a movie browser application for students of Film Studies at our University. The aim of our work is to address the issues that arise when applying conventional user-centered design techniques from the usability engineering field to build a usable application when the system incorporates novel multimedia tools that could be potentially useful to the end-users but have not yet been practiced or deployed. We developed a web-based system that incorporates features as identified from the students and those features from our novel video analysis tools, including scene detection and classification. We deployed the system, monitored usage and gathered quantitative and qualitative data. Our findings show those expected patterns and highlighted issues that need to be further investigated in a novel application development. A mismatch between the users’ wishes at the interviews and their actual usage was noted. In general, students found most of the provided features were beneficial for their studies.

Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences, 2011

In image retrieval systems, user information needs is expressed using multiple types of query. Un... more In image retrieval systems, user information needs is expressed using multiple types of query. Unfortunately, due to user subjectivity perception to visual features and semantic depths of images, the conventional query submitted to the system encounter difficulties to identify user information need. The blooming of interest in semantic image retrieval requires current research direction to be more concerned into semantics. This paper describes our on-going research work in formulating a new query approach for image databases. The enabling technologies of the semantic web formed the building blocks of our query specification. Using the MRML as the communication protocol, XML in the form of SVG as the visual content description (sketch based) and RDF for binding the semantic meanings of images, this research provides an initial framework towards semantic based query formulation framework.