Text in English / The role that locally relevant services and content can play in the development of societies cannot be underestimated. The proliferation of mobile phones in Africa’s developing countries is a significant enabler, which provides access to such locally relevant services and content. Mobile applications have the potential to support the development of the African continent through bolstering the main mechanisms of innovation, inclusion and efficiency. This has been demonstrated by instances of increased literacy, improved access to health care, banking, crowd sourcing and provision of farming and/or agricultural assistance. Successful cases of such mobile-based services include Kenya’s M-Pesa, which has allowed millions of rural people, who do not have access to traditional banking facilities, to send and receive money as well as pay utility bills and school fees. The development of similar innovative and locally relevant mobile-based solutions, which is currently considered to be in its infancy, is key to improving the lives of people in developing countries. This study identifies the essential components of an innovation ecosystem, for the development and presentation of a Mobile Applications Innovation Ecosystem Framework for Botswana. An innovation ecosystem enables effective interaction amongst entrepreneurs, companies, universities, research organisations, investors and government agencies towards maximising economic impact and potential. To gain a practical understanding of the context in which locally relevant mobile-based services can be developed, the study adopted a pragmatic research approach. Through combining the 4Cs Framework for ICT and the systems theory’s Triple Helix Model of Innovation, the study proceeded to develop the framework using a Design Science Research (DSR) methodology. DSR guided the identification of the components, which make up the mobile applications innovation ecosystem within government, industry and higher education sectors, as extracted from the literature review. This process facilitated initial framework designs, which were demonstrated to and evaluated by conveniently sampled stakeholders from relevant helices. Thereafter a synthesised framework was presented for evaluation by knowledgeable professionals from the mobile applications innovation ecosystem. The study contributes to the theoretical knowledgebase by presenting a theoretical framework for understanding ICT4D innovation frameworks and mobile applications / School of Computing / Ph. D. (Information Systems)

In recent years, apps aimed towards promoting health and fitness have become increasingly popular. It is evident by research that health and fitness apps can have positive effects such as increased physical activity among its users. However, as health and fitness app downloads continue to increase, physical activity does not follow the same trend. Physical inactivity is a widespread issue today as it affects public health and leads to substantial costs for healthcare and society. This indicates a need for a deeper understanding in how health and fitness apps can be part of the solution for the issue of physical inactivity. The aim of this paper is to investigate which digital app functions in health and fitness apps are most effective in promoting motivation for physical activity, which functions support users’ congenital psychological needs for motivation as well as which congenital needs users think are the most important to fulfill for the purpose of promoting motivation for physical activity. The study is based on a quantitative approach and presents user experiences collected with an online survey spread via social media platforms. The survey answers have been reviewed and examined in relation to two theoretical frameworks: Self-Determination Theory and the taxonomy of app features based on Self-Determination Theory. Results of the study show users find competence to be the most prioritized inherent need for a health and fitness app to fulfill, closely followed by autonomy. Competence's high ranking among users aligns well with the three highest rated app functions which fall under the competence category. The highest rated function for motivation for physical activity was activity logging. Regarding which functions support which congenital needs, users found autonomy to be best supported by function 1: goal setting and function 6: summaries which contradicts earlier research that categorizes summaries as a function that supports the competence need. However, the results of this study also place summaries as the function which best supports the competence need. For the relatedness need the results of our web survey shows many respondents find that none of the included functions of this study support the need for relatedness.

Context: The amount of Mobile Health (mHealth) applications to cultivate a healthy lifestyle or rehabilitate patients with physical or mental disabilities are increasingly available on app stores[1]. However, without a validation process, satisfactory results may not be obtained, especially for behaviour change apps.  Objectives: Discover validation tools with high adaptability and design a validation process of mHealth apps for behaviour change involving theoretical frameworks.  Methods: The author conducted a literature review of previous behaviour change theories, validation tools, and research methods to design a validation process for behaviour change apps. A mixed research method of preliminary questionnaire followed by semi-structured interview for limited amount of participants was proposed to empathy with users and evaluate features in the app. Lastly, a case study of a smoking cessation app (Myli) was practiced to examine the feasibility of the designed validation process. Results: A four-step validation process was designed as an instruction to validate mHealth apps step by step, especially behaviour change apps. From the case study, we obtained the knowledge and opinions through the survey and interview such as smoking behaviours, expectations and requirements on user experience, recommendations on features,etc, with five elder smokers and five younger medical students.  Conclusions: This paper contributes a validation study of mHealth apps that applying behaviour change theories and validation tools. Furthermore, the proposed validation process allows app developers or medical professions to adapt their own requirements in validation to meet the app users’ needs. / Sammanhang: Mobile Health (mHealth) applikationer för att bilda hälsosam livsstil eller att rehabilitera patienter med fysiska eller psykiska funktionsnedsättningar är alltmer tillgängliga i appbutiker [1]. Men utan en valideringsprocess kan tillfredsställande resultat inte erhållas, särskilt i appar för beteendeförändringar. Mål: Upptäcka valideringsverktyg med hög anpassningsförmåga och designa en valideringsprocess för mHealth-appar för beteendeförändringar som involverar teoretiska ramverk. Metoder: Författaren genomförde en litteraturgenomgång av tidigare beteendeförändringsteorier, valideringsverktyg och forskningsmetoder för att utforma en valideringsprocess för appar avsedda till beteendeförändringar. En blandad forskningsmetod av ett preliminärt frågeformulär som följs upp med en semistrukturerad intervju med ett begränsat antal deltagare föreslogs för att bättre förstå användare och utvärdera funktioner i appen. Slutligen praktiserades en fallstudie av en rökavvänjningsapp (Myli) för att undersöka genomförbarheten av den designade valideringsprocessen. Resultat: En valideringsprocess i fyra steg utformades som en instruktion för att validera mHealth-appar steg för steg, särskilt appar avsedda för beteendeförändringar. Genom fallstudien fick vi kunskaper och åsikter såsom rökbeteenden, förväntningar och krav på användarupplevelse, rekommendationer om funktioner etc genom enkäten och intervjun med fem äldre rökare och fem yngre läkarstudenter. Slutsatser: Denna artikel bidrar med en valideringsstudie av mHealth-appar som tillämpar teorier för beteendeförändringar och valideringsverktyg. Dessutom möjliggör den föreslagna valideringsprocessen apputvecklare eller de medicinska yrkesverksamma att anpassa sina krav i validering för att möta appanvändarnas behov.

The act of people collecting their health data through health apps on their smartphones is becoming increasingly popular. Still, it is difficult for healthcare providers to use this patient-generated health data since health apps cannot easily share its data with the health care providers’ Electronic Health Records (EHR). Simultaneously, it is becoming increasingly popular to use low-code platforms for software development. This thesis explored using low-code platforms to create applications intended to collect patient-generated health data and send it to EHRs by creating a web application prototype with the low-code platforms Mendix and Better EHR Studio. During the web application prototype development, the developer conducted a diary to capture their impressions of Mendix to show how a developer experiences developing in a low-code platform compared to traditional programming. The result shows that it is impractical to create applications intended to collect patient-generated health data with the two low-code platforms chosen. The analysis of the conducted diary showed that using a low-code platform is straightforward but also challenging for an experienced software developer.

In recent years, the number of digital services and tools available has increased rapidly. When companies want to digitalize their business, they have the opportunity to browse a large number of existing platforms and applications available on the market to find a good match for their specific needs. However, when a company wishes to digitalize a work task that already has a well-established workflow, problems may arise. Due to this, a tailored digital solution may in some cases be the better suited option, rather than the ones available on the market.  The intention of this work was to investigate the challenges that companies face in relation to digitalization of the workplace in general, and the challenges of a company’s expense management process in particular. As an example of how a workplace digitalization can take place, a collaboration with a forest industry company was conducted. An evaluation of their analog and internal expense management process was done, where the found challenges were assessed with respect to chosen quality factors. The evaluation and the found challenges regarding digitalization constituted the basis for a process mapping and a digital solution aiming to improve the company’s expense management process. The resulting work emphasizes how a digital solution can be tailored with simple means within a limited time frame, taking specific needs and existing challenges into account in order to digitalize the workplace. In addition, the work presents what challenges that exists within the concept of digitalizing the workplace and regarding expense management, and how quality factors can be used in combination with a process improvement in order to relieve and eliminate them.

Progressive Web Apps (PWA) is a concept of enhanced web apps which aim to erase the difference between web and native apps. The concept of PWA introduces several benefits, including simpler distribution and development, which makes web apps a viable option for many businesses. The installation process of a PWA is different from native apps and this study aims to understand whether or not it has an impact on the users will to install the PWA. PWA:s are installed directly from the browser, rather than an app marketplace. Said installation process is suspected to be unknown to many which might influence the impact. In this study, several papers on the topic are studied. A PWA is developed from scratch which is used as a platform for a user test, hosting a brief introduction of the topic as well as guiding participants through the installation process. In conjunction with the user test a survey is conducted to collect the impressions from their experience in the user test. The result of the survey shows indications that the suspected lack of knowledge and experience was correct, and that the installation process is not to complicated.Additionally, results show that many probably will not bother to install a PWA, even if it is available. Therefore, I argue that the installation process does have an impact in its current form. Alternatives to the installation process used in this study do exist and are discussed in this paper.

The purpose of this project work is to make research on vital sign’s data collection and datapresentation on handheld devices. With the development of smart phones and tablets, more andmore people prefer accomplishing their daily tasks on mobile devices. Additionally, theawareness of personal health care increases at the same time. This report consists of three mainparts: analysis, design and implementation and system evaluation. By studying literature andsearching related works on the internet, general design guidelines are documented. The result isthat a prototype is implemented with the functionalities of data collection and data presentation.The system test and evaluation are also completed.

El presente estudio de investigación tiene como finalidad evaluar la relación entre las variables de facilidad de uso percibida, confianza, utilidad percibida en relación a la intención de uso conductual de aplicaciones móviles de taxis en Lima Metropolitana. Asimismo, está investigación se basa en explicar la relación entre las variables mencionadas y cómo influye en el consumidor peruano al momento de hacer uso de aplicativos de taxis. Por este motivo, se realizará un estudio cuantitativo con alcance correlacional y estudio transversal. Este, se realizará mediante encuestas y se medirá con la escala de Likert del 1-7. Por último, para está investigación se tomará en consideración una muestra de 400 personas entre hombres y mujeres que soliciten al menos 3 veces a la semana servicios de taxis por aplicación. / The present research study aims to evaluate the relationship between the variables of perceived ease of use, trust, and perceived utility in relation to the intention of behavioral use of mobile taxi applications in Metropolitan Lima. Likewise, this research is based on explaining the relationship between the indicated variables and how it influences the Peruvian consumer when using taxi applications. For this reason, a quantitative study with a correlational scope and a cross-sectional study will be carried out. This will be done through surveys and will be measured with the 1-7 Likert scale. Finally, for this research, a sample of 400 people between men and women who request at least 3 times a week taxi services per application will be taken into consideration. / Trabajo de investigación

Philosophiae Doctor - PhD / The use of technology in mathematics education has many potentially positive outcomes. There is, however, little evidence to show where the use of technology has made a significant impact on mathematics education in South Africa. This study aims to address the issue of how computer tablets are currently used in the mathematics classroom. The researcher drew a comparison between learners who were taught with computer tablets and learners who were taught in the traditional way by evaluating the learners' progress after being taught on the topic of 3D images. This assessment was done in the form of a pre-test and a post-test that were administered to both classes on a topic of 3D images that was taught during this allocated time. The research is located in the third-generation activity theory. It is based on the socio-cultural theory of Lev Vygotsky, but it is blended with modern western theories as described by Engeström. The researcher made use of a mixed methods approach starting with a qualitative survey, followed by a pre-test, observations and concluding with a post-test. The pre-test and post-test determined whether cognitive knowledge was gained. The participants in the study were a group of 15-year-old learners at a private school where the one class was taught using computer tablets in the mathematics classroom, and the other class was taught the same content without computer tablets. A qualitative survey was sent to 27 schools within a particular school group where teachers indicated the popular Apps that were used in the mathematics classroom in this school group. Teachers also gave reasons why these were the Apps of choice and elaborated on how they were using these Apps. The quantitative part of this research was guided by the results of the survey and the 5 most popular Applications (Apps) were used in the teaching experiment. The quantitative part focused on two classrooms within the same school where the one class were taught with computer tablets and the other class were taught without the use of computer tablets. The t-test for this research showed that the group of learners who were taught with computer tablets achieved significantly better results than the class of learners who were taught using hard copy textbooks with traditional methods of teaching. This study showed that having computer tablets in schools can be effective in the mathematics classroom. The recommendations emanating from this study indicates that school who are planning to use computer tablets in the mathematics classroom should first plan their wi-fi capabilities with enough access points and internet access. These schools also need to decide on a type of computer tablet and what operating system to use. This decision has implications to the accessibility of quality Apps, battery life and storage space of the computer tablet. Schools are recommended to have a plan for training teachers in the use of this computer tablets especially regarding the pedagogical practice when interacting with learners. A last recommendation is to nurture a culture of computer tablet use amongst the learners to discipline themselves to charge and maintain their computer tablets and apply it to educational use. This study includes a pedagogical framework in respect of the effective use of computer tablets in the mathematics classroom.

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