My PhD Research Plan
Posted: November 12th, 2006 | 9 Comments »
My PhD research plan has been validated. The current title of my thesis is: “Designing location-aware systems that manage discrepancies between the sensed physical world and its virtual representation“, but it surely will evolve. I summarize my research as follow:
Advances in mobile technologies allowed the emergence of a quantity of applications taking advantage of location. The uses of Location-Aware Systems (LAS) range from car and pedestrian navigation, finding and tracking a person, a group or an artifact, targeted marketing, local search, to the virtual annotation of the physical space (e.g. geotagging and geoblogging). However, most mobile, distributed systems and sensor technologies that deliver location information to these applications have their faults and limitations. These shortcomings create challenges for the designers and users of LAS to successfully use the contextual information promised by such technologies.
This proposal emerges from early work that shows that the uncertainties inherent to location-sensing technologies affect the usability of ubiquitous systems. It stresses on the importance of integrating the limitations of positioning technologies in a real-world use of a large-scale location-aware system.
We aim at answering the challenges enhancing the usability of a location-aware system by handling uncertainty inherent to ubiquitous technologies. Consequently we will investigate how certain a location-aware system should be in terms of location quality, location timeliness and evaluate design strategies to manage sptail uncertainty. We formulate our research question as “How to build a location-aware system that enhances its usability by handling uncertainty inherent to ubiquitous computing technologies?”. To answer it, we will rely on a classical design-science research method with an innovation building approach. We expect the outcomes of this thesis to be in the form of methods (i.e. a set of guidelines to use to manage uncertainty in LAS in order to enhance their usability) and instantiations (i.e. the realization of a real-world LAS that uses guidelines to manage spatial uncertainty).
For that purpose, we plan to use an iterative process to design location-aware mobile platform. We will hence use participatory design and fast prototyping techniques in each iterative phase of the project. The platform will provide a context for series of field studies in which we will evaluate design strategies to integrate the discrepancies of the sensed physical world and its virtual representation
Relation to my thesis: end of first year 
Hi there,
Can’t DL your research plan – requires account name and password
Usually I can find the “create new account” option on WordPress sites, but perhaps you have disabled this?
I’m about to begin my own PhD adventure. I’ll be playing about with legal (and social) issues surrounding privacy and security and socially pervasive computing (I’m a lawyer and an information systems geek
Localisation technologies offer all manner of interesting legal and social issues and opportunities regarding both privacy and security.
As it is a still evolving document, I like to keep control over it. However, I am more that willing to share it via email (like I just did with you Steven)
Hi there! I’m also about to begin my Phd this year 2007. Hope that you can share the life of being a PHD student with me! And I’m interested to read your research plan. Thanks
Hi,
Im another PhD student that is interested in your research plan. Would you mind sharing it with me?
I need to get some ideas of how to design my plan.Thank you
Hi Fabien,
He estado siguiendo tu blog desde hace ya bastante tiempo, te hablo en español porque supongo que habiendo estudiado en Barcelona no tienes problemas para leerlo.
Por suerte, desde hace un par de meses puedo retomar mis investigaciones en estos temas (locative media, context-aware…). El año que viene presentaré también mi DEA. Me parece de gran valor que compartas tan tempranamente incluso tu plan de investigación, esto es muy poco frecuente. Ya que hay que seguir el buen ejemplo, prometo hacer lo mismo cuando lo tenga listo. Mientras tanto te agradezco el que tal vez también quieras compartirlo conmigo.
¿Sigues en España? Durante los próximos meses un grupo de jóvenes investigadores del Departamento de Sociología IV de la Facultad de Ciencias de la Información de la Universidad Complutense pondremos en marcha un espacio online de trabajo e intercambio para jóvenes investigadores hispanohablantes en temas de comunicación, nuevas tecnologías y participación, en el que espero que el locative media tenga cierto protagonismo. Si tienes interés en estar al tanto de esto te enviaré el enlace cuando esté listo. Lo mismo digo al resto de personas que por aquí comentan.
Saludos y gracias de antemano.
I need phd research proposal on network system, mobile system drawback on human & atmosphare, distributive database system.
Plz Help
Hi,
I have applied to pursue a PhD study based on the proposal titled “The Effectiveness of ICT in the Implentation of Knowledge management Activities in Higher Education in Uganda”, and is now required to submit a detailed research plan consisting of activities, time frame and methods/theories. I wonder whether you can share your research plan with me to assist in designing my plan. The area of methods/theories is of particular interest to me.
Hope to hear from you.
I need a pHd proposal in media studies specifically if someone has done in media economics or media management. The methodology used is of interest to me.
It is quite interesting that your research has taken on a new dimension. But all the same it is about ICTs.