Browsing by Author "Tang, Anthony Hoi Tin"

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    Applying geocaching principles to site-based citizen science and eliciting reactions via a technology probe
    (Springer, 2015) Dunlap, Matthew A.; Tang, Anthony Hoi Tin; Greenberg, Saul
    Site-based citizen science occurs when volunteers work with scientists to collect data at particular field locations. The benefit is greater data collection at lesser cost. Yet difficulties exist. We developed ScienceCaching, a prototype citizen science aid designed to mitigate four specific problems by applying aspects from another thriving location-based activity: geocaching as enabled by mobile devices. Specifically, to ease problems in data collection, ScienceCaching treats sites as geocaches: Volunteers find sites opportunistically via geocaching methods and use equipment and other materials pre-stored in cache containers. To ease problems in data validation, ScienceCaching flags outlier data as it is entered so that on-site volunteers can be immediately check and correct data. Additionally, other volunteers are directed to that site at a later time for further readings that provide data redundancy. To ease volunteer training, ScienceCaching directs volunteers to training sites on an as-needed basis, where they are taught and tested against known measures. To ease volunteer coordination, ScienceCaching automatically directs volunteers to particular sites of interest, and real-time communication between volunteers and scientist is enabled as needed. We developed ScienceCaching primarily as a technology probe—a working but quite limited system—to embody these ideas and to evaluate their worthiness by eliciting reactions from scientists involved in citizen science. Scientists saw many opportunities in using fixed location caches and geocaching techniques to aid citizen science. Yet they expanded the discussion. Amongst these, they emphasized practical concerns that must be addressed, and they argued that future systems should carefully consider the role of the social experience—both the “online” experience and the shared physical experience of visiting sites.
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    Embodiments in mixed presence groupware
    (2005) Tang, Anthony Hoi Tin; Greenberg, Saul
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    Entrepreneurial Thinking In The Design of Ubiquitous Computing
    (2019-09-16) Seyed, Alemayehu; Maurer, Frank; Tang, Anthony Hoi Tin; Yang, Xing Dong; Saunders, Chad W.
    From the smart assistant in a home providing the daily news, to the smart-glasses that notify you about your next meeting, Ubiquitous computing has arrived and is here to stay. However, despite our inherent dependence on ubiquitous technologies, a number of challenges still remain, such as how do we seamlessly interact with these environments using our everyday devices, to how do we provide them with context for interactions with ourselves and our data. My dissertation work is concerned with (1) overcoming challenges in how Ubiquitous environments are designed and how we interact with them using our everyday devices, (2) if and how we can redesign these devices to better fit their context of use in these environments, and (3) how can we enable designers and novices to contribute to the field of Ubiquitous computing environments. Moving beyond the research work for this dissertation, I also provide entrepreneurial reflections in each of the aforementioned areas, where I describe my journey and key lessons learned from working in a startup to co-founding multiple startups.
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    Flail: A Domain Specific Language for Drone Path Generation
    (2019-09-16) Cavalcanti, Flavia Roma; Aycock, John Daniel; Tang, Anthony Hoi Tin; Sharlin, Ehud; Boyd, Jeffrey Edwin
    The main objective of this thesis was to design a domain specific language that would allow users to easily describe flight trajectories for drones. Conventional drone control schemes rely on handheld controllers and, sometimes, on model specific applications that allow users to pre-plan paths (e.g., FreeFlight Pro). The issue with these is that handheld controllers display a large learning curve for new users and flight plan applications rely on waypoint systems, which limits the complexity of the flight plan. Flail is an alternate control scheme for drones that is capable of programmatically pre-specifying complex flight patterns. Additionally, an HTC Vive was used to simplify Flail code generation by allowing users to use the Vive wand to draw out flight trajectories in 3D space. The viability of Flail was examined through RC drone flight tests and simulations.
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    A Team Composition Approach For Social Crowdsourcing Communities
    (2020-09-22) Zaamout, Khobaib; Barker, Ken E.; Ruhe, Guenther; Tang, Anthony Hoi Tin
    This research takes place in an emerging paradigm of social computation that we name social crowdsourcing communities (SCCs). These are moderated online communities where members participate in collaborative activities (i.e. queries) designed to elicit their opinions concerning some topics, products, or services. This paradigm is distinct in that it combines the powers of crowdsourcing and social networking (SN) to allow for systematic querying of crowds and synthesizing response data (i.e. contributions) into coherent reports for decision-makers. SCCs consist of a beneficiary (i.e. the operators, the moderators, the analysts, and the organization that benefits from the reports), queries, a working crowd, and a platform where all activities occur. We show that it is possible to apply methods and techniques from existing fields to alleviate many of their challenges. One of these challenges is improving teamwork outcomes (i.e. contribution quality). Currently, SCC members, who are interested in a specific task, self-assemble into teams without considering any factors that may cause them to exhibit lower levels of productivity, participation, and contribution quality. The growth and query frequency restrictions imposed on these platforms by their operators to control operation costs further exacerbate this challenge. This thesis demonstrates how member behaviour can guide team formations and identifies specific behavioural characteristics related to improved team performance through an exploratory case study. It accomplishes this goal by capturing member behaviour in a model and using it to explore the compositions of existing teams. In doing so, this thesis identifies the specific compositions associated with increased team performance. The outcomes indicate the validity of this approach and provide a strong foundation for further investigation.