Designing MMLA systems is a complex task requiring a wide range of considerations. In this paper, we identify key considerations that are essential for designing MMLA systems. These considerations include data management, human factors, sensors and modalities, learning scenarios, privacy and ethics, interpretation and feedback, and data collection. The implications of these considerations are twofold: 1) The need for flexibility in MMLA systems to adapt to different learning contexts and scales, and 2) The need for a researcher-centered approach to designing MMLA systems. Unfortunately, the sheer number of considerations can lead to a state of "analysis paralysis," where deciding where to begin and how to proceed becomes overwhelming. This synthesis paper asks researchers to rethink the design of MMLA systems and aims to provide guidance for developers and practitioners in the field of MMLA.

The use of artificial intelligence and machine learning techniques across all disciplines has exploded in the past few years, with the ever-growing size of data and the changing needs of higher education, such as digital education. Similarly, online educational information systems have a huge amount of data related to students in digital education. This educational data can be used with artificial intelligence and machine learning techniques to improve digital education. This study makes two main contributions. First, the study follows a repeatable and objective process of exploring the literature. Second, the study outlines and explains the literature's themes related to the use of AI-based algorithms in digital education. The study findings present six themes related to the use of machines in digital education. The synthesized evidence in this study suggests that machine learning and deep learning algorithms are used in several themes of digital learning. These themes include using intelligent tutors, dropout predictions, performance predictions, adaptive and predictive learning and learning styles, analytics and group-based learning, and automation. artificial neural network and support vector machine algorithms appear to be utilized among all the identified themes, followed by random forest, decision tree, naive Bayes, and logistic regression algorithms.

Smart Learning Environments and Learning Analytics hold promise of providing personalized support to learners according to their individual needs and context. This support can be achieved by collecting and analyzing data from the different learning tools and systems that are involved in the learning experience. This paper presents a first exploration of requirements and considerations for the integration of two systems: MBOX, a Multimodal Learning Analytics system for the physical space (human behavior and learning context), and SCARLETT, an SLE for the support during across-spaces learning situations combining different learning systems. This integration will enable the SLE to have access to a new and wide range of information, notably students’ behavior and social interactions in the physical learning context (e.g. classroom). The integration of multimodal data with the data coming from the digital learning environments will result in a more holistic system, therefore producing learning analytics that trigger personalized feedback and learning resources. Such integration and support is illustrated with a learning scenario that helps to discuss how these analytics can be derived and used for the intervention by the SLE.

Drones have been discussed frequently in both governmental and commercial sectors for their normalization in the airspace. Nonetheless, drones bring diverse privacy concerns to users. In this paper, we explore the ramifications to data privacy from the perspective of drone owners. To investigate privacy in this context, four experiments targeting a commercial drone were conducted using open-source software. The experiments identified personal data (e.g., audio, video, and location) that are at risk of being compromised particularly through the execution of a basic deauthentication attack launched at a commercial drone. Our findings indicate the severity of risks affecting commercial drones. This makes the case for more effective privacy regulations and better guidelines suitable for securing drones.

Multimodal Learning Analytics (MMLA) provides opportunities for understanding and supporting collaborative problem-solving. However, the implementation of MMLA systems is challenging due to the lack of scalable technologies and limited solutions for collecting data from group work. This paper proposes the Multimodal Box (MBOX), an IoT-based system for MMLA, allowing the collection and processing of multimodal data from collaborative learning tasks. MBOX investigates the development and design for an IoT focusing on small group work in real-world settings. Moreover, MBOX promotes adaptation to different learning environments and enables a better scaling of computational resources used within the learning context.

Web accessibility is becoming a relevant topic with an increased number of people with disabilities and the elderly using the web. Numerous legislations are being passed that require the web to be universally accessible to all people, regardless of their abilities and age. Despite this trend, university curricula still teach traditional web development without addressing accessibility as a topic. To investigate this matter closely, we studied the syllabi of web development courses at one university to evaluate whether the topic of accessibility was taught there. Additionally, we conducted a survey with nineteen students who were enrolled in a web development course, and we interviewed three lecturers from the same university. Our findings suggest that the topic of accessibility is not covered in web development courses, although both students and lecturers think that it should. This generates lack of competence in accessibility. The findings also confirm the finding of previous studies that, among web developers, there is a low familiarity with accessibility guidelines and policies. An interesting finding we uncovered was that gender affects the motivation to learn about accessibility. Females were driven by personal reasons, which we attribute to females having an increased sense of empathy. Finally, our participants were divided in their opinions whether accessibility contributes to usability.

While security is often recognized as a top priority for organizations and a push for competitive advantage, repeatedly, Internet of Things (IoT) products have become a target of diverse security attacks. Thus, orchestrating smart services and devices in a more open, standardized and secure way in IoT environments is yet a desire as much as it is a challenge. In this paper, we propose a model for IoT practitioners and researchers, who can adopt a sound security thinking in parallel with open IoT technological developments. We present the state-of-the-art and an empirical study with IoT practitioners. These efforts have resulted in identifying a set of openness and security thinking criteria that are important to consider from an IoT ecosystem point of view. Openness in terms of open standards, data, APIs, processes, open source and open architectures (flexibility, customizability and extensibility aspects), by presenting security thinking tackled from a three-dimensional point of view (awareness, assessment and challenges) that highlight the need to develop an IoT security mindset. A novel model is conceptualized with those characteristics followed by several key aspects important to design and secure future IoT systems.

Today, the Internet of Things (IoT) is mainly associated with vertically integrated systems that often are closed and fragmented in their applicability. To build a better IoT ecosystem, the open IoT platform has become a popular term in the recent years. However, this term is usually used in an intuitive way without clarifying the openness aspects of the platforms. The goal of this paper is to characterize the openness types of IoT platforms and investigate what makes them open. We conducted a systematic mapping study by retrieving data from 718 papers. As a result of applying the inclusion and exclusion criteria, 221 papers were selected for review. We discovered 46 IoT platforms that have been characterized as open, whereas 25 platforms are referred as open by some studies rather than the platforms themselves. We found that the most widely accepted and used open IoT platforms are NodeMCU and ThingSpeak that together hold a share of more than 70% of the declared open IoT platforms in the selected papers. The openness of an IoT platform is interpreted into different openness types. Our study results show that the most common openness type encountered in open IoT platforms is open-source, but also open standards, open APIs, open data and open layers are used in the literature. Finally, we propose a new perspective on how to define openness in the context of IoT platforms by providing several insights from the different stakeholder viewpoints.

The Internet of Things (IoT) market is growing rapidly, allowing continuous evolution of new technologies. Alongside this development, most IoT devices are easy to compromise, as security is often not a prioritized characteristic. This paper proposes a novel IoT Security Model (IoTSM) that can be used by organizations to formulate and implement a strategy for developing end-to-end IoT security. IoTSM is grounded by the Software Assurance Maturity Model (SAMM) framework, however it expands it with new security practices and empirical data gathered from IoT practitioners. Moreover, we generalize the model into a conceptual framework. This approach allows the formal analysis for security in general and evaluates an organization’s security practices. Overall, our proposed approach can help researchers, practitioners, and IoT organizations, to discourse about IoT security from an end-to-end perspective.

The traditional way of teaching may no longer be sufficient to cope with current requirements specifically in the Internet of Things (IoT) domain. The case for this paper is related to an introductory programming course on JavaScript for the period of 2016-2018. In this study a multi-method approach for data collection is utilized. Project-Based Learning (PBL), Scrum and rapid prototyping are utilized to support student projects over the three years. Students developed a number of prototypes for various IoT domains related to ongoing research projects within our research center. The results show that students could easily use their JavaScript knowledge for any type of IoT development. PBL, Scrum and rapid prototyping help addressing uncertainties during the projects and balancing the team efforts for learning, development, problem solving and creativity. One of the outcomes of this paper confirms that smaller team sizes of students perform better during the project lifetime. In conclusion, focusing on knowledge increase, teamwork, collaboration, interaction, constant feedback, and adaptability should be considered a priority while exploiting teaching approaches such as PBL, Scrum and rapid prototyping for IoT development.