Final Report

Contents

• Introduction
• Deliverables
• Design and Implementation
• Evaluation and Testing
• Dissemination
• Beyond MCFE

Introduction

The original specification for Mobile Computing in a Fieldwork Environment (MCFE) introduced the project as follows:

This project investigates a number of benefits to HE which would arise from the extension of desktop computer learning and research aids into the field. It is based on the idea that the combination of an inexpensive hand-held computer, or Personal Digital Assistant (PDA), with a Global Positioning System (GPS) receiver provides a suitable platform for data collection, the authoring and delivery of field exercises, and student field experiments. Fieldwork is increasingly seen as an expensive activity. This project aims to make it more cost-effective.

Most of these aims have been achieved. We have developed a range of prototype tools that have been evaluated by collaborators in our target disciplines of archaeology, the environmental sciences and anthropology. Collaborative work initiated under the auspices of this project is ongoing. Our colleagues continue to use our tools and to invite our participation in their future fieldwork plans.

We can, therefore, regard the project as successful, but with one caveat. Throughout the original specification it was implicit that the tools would be used in both research and undergraduate fieldwork training. In practice this has not been possible. Instead, we have concentrated solely on graduate research projects. In retrospect, the reasons for this shift of emphasis are obvious. Firstly, undergraduate fieldwork is often structured as a form of research training and it would be inappropriate to employ tools that had not previously been proven in a research context. Secondly, effective deployment on undergraduate field exercises would have required a quantity of equipment that was beyond the reach of our budget and that of our collaborators.

Despite this, we and our collaborators are agreed that the same tools would form a suitable basis for developing undergraduate training material at some future date when the equipment is less expensive and its research use has become more widely established. From a purely practical viewpoint, such use would also make it desirable to produce more closely integrated hardware components. Our current prototypes consist of separate handheld computers, GPS receivers, antennae and batteries, all linked by various cables. A more compact and less vulnerable unit would be required if they were to be used by large numbers of students with widely varying abilities and levels of motivation.

Deliverables

The intended deliverables of the project were specified as follows:

1. Documentation on hardware and software requirements for mobile fieldwork systems.
2. Fieldwork task authoring software.
3. Fieldwork task delivery software.
4. Associated training materials, including example exercises.
5. Papers and reports on the design and development of the system aimed at a computing audience, and on the evaluation and potential of the system aimed at members of the disciplines in which the system has been tested.

Requirements specifications were produced as internal working documents. Together with much of our published output, these are are available from our publications web page (see also Dissemination, below). Authoring and delivery software are available from our software pages (see also Software Design and Implementation, below).

Software Design and Implementation

The fundamental requirements for the fieldwork tools can be summarised as follows:

• Compact and easily portable (or wearable) hardware using pen or finger input methods. Keyboard input devices are fundamentally unsuitable for many fieldwork situations where the user is unable to sit down or rest the device on a convenient support.
• Simple and minimally intrusive software that minimises distraction from the task at hand.
• Use of context awareness to provide automatic recording of contextual data such as user identity, location and time.
• Use of context awareness to provide automatic retrieval of stored notes according to the user's specified interests.
• Desktop or laptop software for management of fieldnotes including database storage, simple methods of exchanging notes with handheld devices, and data visualisation software such as a GIS. For higher precision location data, GPS post-processing software should also be included.

For the handheld systems, we have followed two parallel lines of development, each intended to explore different issues in context aware field computing. The first, based on the PalmPilot, has concentrated on user-interface issues, techniques for rapid data entry and on triggering methods. Although initially designed for applications in animal behaviour studies, this system is equally suited to archaeological activities such as surface sampling and recording of photographs.

These programs, called the Stick-e suite, include Jason Pascoe's innovative work on Minimal Attention User Interfaces (MAUI) which will be described in a future paper. This approach is designed to reduce the intrusion of the recording device and so allow the fieldworker to concentrate on the primary task of observation. This work is in its early stages and we expect to further develop these ideas in the future.

The second prototype, called the FieldNote system, was based on the Apple Newton and has exploited the higher resolution display of the MessagePad 2000/2100 models to provide more detailed mapping facilities. The greater processor speed and expandable memory capacity have also enabled us to explore issues of more precise positioning by storing and manipulating raw measurement data from the GPS receivers.

Internet connectivity and the availability of several different web browsers have enabled us to explore ways in which the existing technologies of HTML encoding and the HTTP protocol can be exploited to support the production and exchange of FieldNotes. These notes can be generated in HTML format and <META> tags are used to store contextual information. Amongst the benefits of this approach were a widespread user familiarity with HTML and the ability to use existing tools such as web browsers and editors.

This system uses HTML forms as a means of recording structured data. In normal use, both the forms and the data collected by them are stored locally on the hand-held computer. However, if the hand-held has an Internet connection, either wired or wireless, the forms can be served by a remote machine and data can be transferred to the server using conventional CGI methods. FieldNote data can also be transferred from the server to the hand-held by a similar method.

The prototype desktop system is a tool for managing collections of FieldNotes. It provides facilities for editing notes, exchanging notes with handheld machines, visualisation in a GIS module, and GPS post-processing. Whilst this served as a useful proof-of-concept, it was never sufficiently stable or complete for release. However, subsequent work has concentrated on a Java based desktop system that can also be used as part of a "field server" running on a laptop machine. This system will also be designed to work with a further development of the handheld systems, and together these will use a revised FieldNote format based on XML rather than HTML. We anticipate that these will be released during 1999.

The software and associated documentation can be obtained from the software pages of our web site at http://www.cs.ukc.ac.uk/research/infosys/mobicomp/Fieldwork/Software/ . These pages will be updated to include material developed after the conclusion of the project.

Evaluation and Testing

The first generation of prototype systems was evaluated in several field projects during 1997, including archaeological surveys of an Iberian/Roman town in Andalucia, anthropological studies in an upland pastoral settlements in Corsica, and animal census and behavioural studies in Kenya. Results from these trials were fed into further developments which were evaluated during 1998 in archaeological surveys of Roman towns in Italy and Spain, and further ecological studies of giraffe and rhino behaviour in Kenya.

More detailed accounts of these and other field trials can be found on the fieldwork pages of our web site:

• 1996-7: http://www.cs.ukc.ac.uk/research/infosys/mobicomp/Fieldwork/Reports/fw97.html .
• 1998: http://www.cs.ukc.ac.uk/research/infosys/mobicomp/Fieldwork/Reports/fw98.html .

Dissemination

A number of journal articles, published and unpublished conference papers, working papers and progress reports have been produced throughout the project. These have been aimed at both our own disipline of Computer Science and those of our collaborators in Archaeology and the Environmental Sciences. Members of the project team have spoken at conferences in the UK, USA and Spain. We view dissemination as an ongoing process and will continue to present and publish material arising from this project in the future.

Following the success of our Mobile Computing in the Field conference held at UKC in September 1997, we have been invited to organise a one day workshop on Handheld Computing in the Field to be held as part of the International Symposium on Handheld and Ubiquitous Computing (HUC 99) at the University of Karlsruhe, Germany, September 28th-30th 1999. The Symposium is organised by the University of Karlsruhe, Telecooperation Office, in cooperation with ACM SIGMOBILE, SIGAPP, SIGCHI and SIGGROUP. As a result of this contact we are now seeking funding to investigate areas of common interest and the potential for future research collaboration with members of TeCo, the Telecooperation Office of the University of Karlsruhe.

A list of publications, reports and working documents can be found on the publications pages of our web site at http://www.cs.ukc.ac.uk/research/infosys/mobicomp/Fieldwork/Papers/ . These pages will be updated to include material delivered after the conclusion of the project.

Beyond MCFE

The MCFE project has provided us with an ideal opportunity to develop and evaluate a variety of ideas founded in context-aware computing and to prove their applicability to a range of fieldworking activities. As with many worthwhile projects, it has raised as many questions as it answers. Several of these questions relate to how best to exploit the possibilities for improved real-time communication and collaboration in teams of fieldworkers. We hope to address these in future projects for which we are currently preparing bids for funding.

In the latter stages of the project we have received a number of invitations to collaborate in other projects, both in our own discipline of Computer Science and in our target disciplines of Archaeology and the Environmental Sciences. We hope to develop these further through the forthcoming Karlsruhe workshop mentioned earlier.

Throught the project we have enjoyed very productive relationships with our collaborators who continue to invite us to participate in their fieldwork activities. Our thanks are especially due to:

• Simon Keay, David Wheatley, Sarah Poppy and Graeme Earl of the Department of Archaeology, Southampton University.
• Alan Birkett and Kathy Pinkney, Dept of Biological Sciences, Manchester Metropolitan University.
• Janet Bagg, Department of Anthropology, University of Kent at Canterbury.

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