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International Journal of Digital Culture and Electronic Tourism

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ISSN (Print) 1753-5212 - ISSN (Online) 1753-5220
Published by Inderscience Publishers

[367 journals]

An e-culture – e-museums environment for common citizens and disabled individuals
- Authors: Athanasios Drigas|Leyteris Koukianakis|John Glentzes
  Pages: 267 - 279
  Abstract: The integration of modern information and communication technologies (ICTs) within the cultural domain creates what is commonly known as e-culture. The need to create an e-culture environment arose from the undeniable fact that the cultural heritage of a nation defines it and, therefore, should be disseminated to all, regardless of their location and their disability. This article discusses an e-culture portal, which presents to any interested users, information regarding a significant number of Greek and Cypriot museums and galleries as well as their exhibits. The e-culture environment offers user-friendly navigation techniques and contemporary multimedia tools and services for the better presentation and visualisation of the e-material to the users-visitors, paying particular attention to both common citizens and to disabled individuals, in order to offer them equal access to cultural heritage information. This environment is an inter-disciplinary application, combining the ICTs, cultural and e-inclusion domains (electronic support for disabled people).
  Keywords: e-culture environment|cultural heritage|information technology|communications technology|ICT|digitisation|user-centred systems|knowledge society strategies|design for all|visually impaired users|digital inclusion|e-museums|information for
  Citation: International Journal of Digital Culture and Electronic Tourism, Vol. 1, No. 4 (2009) pp. 267 - 279
  PubDate: 2009-05-19T23:20:50-05:00
  DOI: 10.1504/IJDCET.2009.025353
  Issue No: Vol. 1, No. 4 (2009)
User-centred evaluation of airlines' websites
- Authors: Anastasios A. Economides|George Apostolou
  Pages: 280 - 301
  Abstract: A holistic airline site evaluation framework (ASEF) from the customer's point of view is presented. ASEF is specific-oriented towards the airlines' websites. Designers and developers of airlines' websites would use it as a guide in order to improve their websites considering multiple quality criteria. In addition, the websites of 30 major airlines are evaluated using ASEF. Most airlines' websites presented inefficiencies with respect to supporting persons with special abilities. Few websites supported e-communities enabling the user's participation. The websites would use Web 2.0 social networking tools to attract and retain customers. Furthermore, the websites should increase the flexibility of their services to match the personal needs of their customers. Also, each website should support a reliable internal search engine. Finally, governments should ensure that personal data could not be used by others without the person's authorisation.
  Keywords: accessibility|airlines|e-booking|e-ticketing|privacy|social networks|travel portals|trust|usability|Web 2.0|airline websites|online booking|online ticketing|electronic booking|electronic ticketing|website evaluation
  Citation: International Journal of Digital Culture and Electronic Tourism, Vol. 1, No. 4 (2009) pp. 280 - 301
  PubDate: 2009-05-19T23:20:50-05:00
  DOI: 10.1504/IJDCET.2009.025355
  Issue No: Vol. 1, No. 4 (2009)
Ontology-based video retrieval
- Authors: Antonella Carbonaro
  Pages: 302 - 311
  Abstract: The paper presents an ontological approach for enabling semantic-aware video retrieval framework facilitating the user access to desired contents. Through the ontologies, the system will express key entities and relationships describing videos in a formal machine-processable representation. An ontology-based knowledge representation could be used for content analysis and concept recognition, for reasoning processes and for enabling user-friendly and intelligent multimedia content retrieval.
  Keywords: semantic web applications|semantics|e-learning portals|video annotation|video retrieval|ontology|electronic learning|online learning|knowledge representation|multimedia
  Citation: International Journal of Digital Culture and Electronic Tourism, Vol. 1, No. 4 (2009) pp. 302 - 311
  PubDate: 2009-05-19T23:20:50-05:00
  DOI: 10.1504/IJDCET.2009.025357
  Issue No: Vol. 1, No. 4 (2009)
A co-evolutionary interaction design of digital TV applications based on verbal decision analysis of user experiences
- Authors: Marilia Mendes|Ana Lisse Carvalho|Elizabeth Furtado|Placido Pinheiro
  Pages: 312 - 324
  Abstract: Since mobile TV represents a new paradigm for interaction design, many different candidate solutions of interaction can be possible. Following this concept, a study was accomplished with the objective of finding a better interaction solution for an application of mobile digital TV. Three executable prototypes of an application of mobile TV were built. A multicriteria model of verbal decision analysis was applied to those three alternatives by aiming at investigating the favourite characteristics of each prototype based on user's experience and their intentions of use. This model resulted in a method that supports designers in the qualitative analysis of alternatives and collaborative conception of the best solution of interaction to innovative products.
  Keywords: digital TV|DTV|digital television|mobile interaction design|ZAPROS|multicriteria modelling|human-computer interaction|HCI|interaction projects|user experience|mobile TV|mobile communications
  Citation: International Journal of Digital Culture and Electronic Tourism, Vol. 1, No. 4 (2009) pp. 312 - 324
  PubDate: 2009-05-19T23:20:50-05:00
  DOI: 10.1504/IJDCET.2009.025358
  Issue No: Vol. 1, No. 4 (2009)
Semantically-supported information retrieval in inter-enterprise cluster for the tourist sector
- Authors: Christos E. Alexakos|Athanasios P. Kalogeras|Panagiotis Konstantinopoulos|Kostas Charatsis|Stavros Koubias|Vasiliki Tomara
  Pages: 325 - 345
  Abstract: Tourism presents quite an important industry that needs to evolve so that it conforms to changes occurring on a global scale. In order for this enhanced flexibility to be possible in the tourist sector, an approach providing an integrated tourist product combining all the different characteristics of a tourist destination should be provided. Clustering of both tourist enterprises and other local enterprises affecting the overall tourist product could play an important role towards this direction. This paper presents such an approach leading to inter-enterprise integration through appropriate semantics. Furthermore, the utilisation of semantics allows the implementation of a mediator portal enhanced with intelligent and adaptive mechanism for retrieval of cluster information.
  Keywords: electronic tourism|e-tourism|enterprise clusters|enterprise interoperability|intra-enterprise integration|ontologies|knowledge management|semantics|information retrieval|semantic web|tourist destinations
  Citation: International Journal of Digital Culture and Electronic Tourism, Vol. 1, No. 4 (2009) pp. 325 - 345
  PubDate: 2009-05-19T23:20:50-05:00
  DOI: 10.1504/IJDCET.2009.025359
  Issue No: Vol. 1, No. 4 (2009)
Personalised spatial knowledge management for pictures using ontologies and semantic maps
- Authors: Stavros Christodoulakis|Michalis Foukarakis|Lemonia Ragia
  Pages: 346 - 356
  Abstract: Cameras can provide integrated GPS and compass technology which makes them a powerful sensor for geographical context related images. They allow wireless connection to computers and the images can be automatically transferred to a PC or can be integrated into a GIS system. In this paper, we present an approach for personalised spatial information retrieval and visualisation for picture databases using ontologies and semantic maps. Ontologies are used in our case to describe domain knowledge in relation to spatial coordinates, to enhance image annotation, search capability and information visualisation. Individuals from the ontologies are represented by their footprint in semantic maps. Personalised semantic maps are constructed selecting ontologies, concept types or individuals that reflect the interests of the user. We describe a developed prototype system with a database design for ontologies and semantic maps. We demonstrate the automatic image annotation and the visualisation of the spatial queries. An application of the system targets the area of culture and tourism and provides a user friendly interface.
  Keywords: ontology|semantics|image retrieval|spatial search|database design|automatic image annotation|tourism applications|semantic maps|knowledge management|personalisation|cameras|visualisation|picture databases|culture
  Citation: International Journal of Digital Culture and Electronic Tourism, Vol. 1, No. 4 (2009) pp. 346 - 356
  PubDate: 2009-05-19T23:20:50-05:00
  DOI: 10.1504/IJDCET.2009.025360
  Issue No: Vol. 1, No. 4 (2009)