Evolutionary knowledge is important to understand and address contemporary challenges such as loss of biodiversity, climate change and antibiotic resistance. An important aspect that is considered to be a threshold concept in teaching and learning about evolution is the time it involves. The history of evolution comprises several scales of magnitude, some of which are far from direct human experience and therefore difficult to understand. One way of addressing this issue is to use dynamic visualizations that represent time, for example, to facilitate teaching and learning about evolution. This thesis investigates how students’ comprehension of evolution and evolutionary time can be facilitated by visualizations in educational settings. Two different dynamic visualizations were investigated. In paper I different temporal versions of a spatio-temporal animation depicting hominin evolution were explored. The temporal information was expressed as one or several timelines along which an animated cursor moved, indicating the rate of time. Two variables, the number of timelines with different scales, and the mode of the default animated time rate (either constant throughout the animation or decreasing as the animation progressed), were combined to give four different time representations. The temporal aspects investigated were undergraduate students' ability to find events at specific times, comprehend order, comprehend concurrent events, comprehend the length of time intervals, and their ability to compare the lengths of time intervals. In paper II, perceptions and comprehension of temporal aspects in an interactive, multi-touch tabletop application, DeepTree, were investigated. This application depicts the tree of life. The focus was on the interactive aspects, especially how the zooming feature was perceived, but also on any misinterpretations associated with the interaction. The same temporal aspects listed for paper I were also implicitly investigated. The findings indicate that handling the problem of large differences in scale by altering the rate of time in the visualization can facilitate perception of certain temporal aspects while, at the same time, can hinder a correct comprehension of other temporal aspects. Findings concerning DeepTree indicate that the level of interactions varies among users, and that the zooming feature is perceived in two ways, either as a movement in time or as a movement in the metaphorical tree. Several misinterpretations were observed, for example the assumption that the zooming time in the tree corresponds to real time, that there is an implicit coherent timeline along the y-axis of the tree, and that more nodes along a branch corresponds to a longer time. The research reported in this thesis supports the claim that careful choice, and informed use of visualizations matters, and that different visualizations are best suited for different educational purposes / För att kunna förstå och ta ställning till utmaningar i form av exempelvis klimatförändringar, förlust av biodiversitet och antibiotikaresistens krävs kunskap om evolution. För att förstå evolution är det i sin tur viktigt att inse betydelsen av de tidsskalor som evolutionära processer omfattar. Detta utgör inte sällan ett problem vid undervisning om evolution eftersom det rör sig om tidsskalor som sträcker sig långt bortom vad vi själva kan erfara. Tidsskalor ingår i en grupp av begrepp som kallas tröskelbegrepp. Tröskelbegrepp utmärks av att de är svåra att ta till sig, men när väl förståelse uppnås så innebär det en radikal och permanent förändring av hur ett ämnesinnehåll, exempelvis evolution, betraktas. Av den anledningen är de också ”enkelriktade” i meningen att den nya förståelsen är bestående Ett sätt att bemöta problemen med att förstå tidsskalor av varierande storlekar är att använda dynamiska visualiseringar. Denna avhandling handlar just om hur elevers förståelse av evolution med avseende på tiden kan underlättas genom visualiseringar i undervisning. Avhandlingen baseras på två studier som var och en belyser evolutionär tid på olika sätt beträffande såväl innehåll som form. I den första studien undersöktes hur olika varianter av en tidsrepresentation i form av animerade tidslinjer påverkade 144 studenters förståelse av olika tidsaspekter. Representationen av tid hade två variabler, nämligen antal tidslinjer (en tidslinje respektive 3 tidslinjer med olika skalor) och hastighet för animationen av tidsförloppet (konstant hastighet respektive avtagande hastighet när animationen närmade sig nutid). De två variablerna kombinerades för att ge fyra olika varianter av tidsrepresentation. I studien jämfördes varianterna genom att undersöka studenters förmåga kring olika tidsaspekter; hitta händelser vid specifika tider, uppfatta ordning på händelser, uppfatta samtidiga händelser, uppfatta längden på ett tidsintervall och jämföra längden av två tidsintervall. I den andra studien undersöktes uppfattningar och förståelse av tidsmässiga aspekter hos 10 gymnasieelever med utgångspunkt från det interaktiva multi-touch-bordet ”DeepTree”. Det är en interaktiv visualisering av livets träd, det vill säga de fylogenetiska sambanden mellan organismer på jorden. I denna studie fokuserades de interaktiva aspekterna av visualiseringen, särskilt kring hur zoomfunktionen uppfattades av elever men också vilka missuppfattningar som var kopplade till interaktioner. Även tidsaspekterna från den första studien undersöktes. Resultaten från den första studien visar att det under vissa omständigheter kan vara en fördel att variera det animerade tidsflödet, till exempel genom att hastigheten på tidsflödet i animationen avtar under en speciellt händelserik period som behöver granskas noggrannare. Under andra omständigheter kan det däremot vara olämpligt att variera hastigheten för den animerade tiden eftersom det försvårar bedömningen av storleken på, och jämförelsen av, tidsintervall. Det är alltså viktigt att lärare är medvetna om vilken, eller vilka, tidsaspekter som är centrala i den specifika lärandesituationen. Resultaten från den andra studien visar två olika sätt att uppfatta zoomfunktionen när den används i applikationen DeepTree; antingen som en rörelse i tid eller som en rörelse i det metaforiska trädet. Flera missuppfattningar av interaktionen observerades hos eleverna. Till exempel tolkade en del elever den tid det tog att zooma i trädet som att det motsvarade hur lång tid som förflöt mellan olika evolutionära händelser. Ett antal elever verkade anta att det finns en implicit linjär tidslinje längs y-axeln på trädet, och att ju fler grendelningar som fanns längs en gren desto längre tid motsvarade grenen. Generellt är de flesta tidsaspekter svåra att uppfatta för användare av DeepTree. Evolutionära träd av denna typ är dock främst gjorda för att illustrera släktskapsförhållanden, men de tidsmässiga aspekterna skulle kunna förbättras. Applikationer av den typ som DeepTree utgör har potential att erbjuda goda möjligheter till lärande även beträffande evolutionär tid men hänsyn behöver då tas just till hur tidsaspekter beskrivs.

Todays technology provides the ability for people to interact with devices at all time, but it also makes them gaze down and loose touch with their surrounding while doing so.  This project explored alternatives to the current way of providing guidance while walking by designing in the context, rather than design for the context. This led to several iterations of prototypes that were tested with people in the context. The findings are showcased in a form of a multi modal guidance system called UP, that provides reassurance in all steps of the way without having to look down at the screen.

Studien som har bedrivits är ett resultat av den pågående digitaliseringen som sker i både samhället och skolan. Revideringar från Skolverket har försett läroplanen med mer integrering av digitala verktyg och möjligheter för hur eleverna ska kunna använda samt navigera på dem. Denna förändring har även gjort att kraven för lärares digitala kompetens måste utökas. Detta leder in på syftet med denna studie då den har som avsikt att söka en djupare förståelse för hur lärare upplever digitala verktyg i svenskundervisningen samt hur planering och utförande påverkas. Forskningsfrågorna som studien grundar sig i är: Hur använder sig några lärare av digitala verktyg i svenskundervisningen? Vilka möjligheter och utmaningar anser några lärare digitala verktyg medför i svenskundervisningen? För att få en djupare förståelse och höra djupgående argument har studien bedrivits i form av en kvalitativ studie där sex verksamma lärare har intervjuats. All insamlade data har transkriberats och analyserats genom tematisk analys för att få fram ett resultat. Studiens resultat visar att det främst är kompetensen som styr användningen av digitala verktyg i undervisningen. Lärarna anser att de har bristande kunskaper om de digitala verktygen de använder vilket kan leda till att de känner viss rädsla för att använda digitala verktyg. De möjligheter som lärarna beskriver är ökad motivation hos eleven, effektivisering samt att det verkar som ett bra stöd för elever i behov. De utmaningar som lärarna uppger är störningsmomenten samt bristen på digitala verktyg. / The present study is a result of the ongoing digitalization that has been taking place in both society and the school. Revisions by the National Agency of Education have provided the curriculum with more integration of digital tools and how the students should use and navigate them. This change has also made the demand for teachers’ digital skills to be increased. This leads to the purpose of this study as it is intended to seek a deeper understanding of how teachers experience digital tools in Swedish teaching and how planning and execution are affected. The research questions on which the study is based were: How do some teachers use digital tools in Swedish teaching? What opportunities and challenges some teachers find digital tools entail in Swedish teaching? In order to gain a deeper understanding and hear in-depth arguments, the study has been conducted in the form of a qualitative study in which six active teachers have been interviewed. All collected data has been transcribed and analyzed in the basis of thematic analysis to produce a result. The study's results show that it is primarily competence that controls the use of digital tools in teaching. The teachers believe that they have a lack of knowledge about the digital tools they use, which can lead to them feeling some fear of using digital tools. The opportunities that the teachers describe are increased motivation among the pupil, efficiency improvements and that it seems to be a good support for students in need. The challenges listed by the teachers are the disturbances and the lack of digital tools.

Over the history of interaction design, concepts and methods of prototyping have been significantly developed to address new challenges faced by the field and the ever-going advancement of new technologies. Some of the important developments are related to the notions of mixed-fidelity prototyping, experience prototyping, and prototypes as filters. Building upon these developments, this study explores a multiple-fidelity prototyping approach, that is, using progressively higher fidelity prototypes in iteration. The study focused particularly on the design of user engagement. It documented, and contributed to, an actual design process of Xplore, an augmented reality game-based learning application. Three participatory design-style workshops employing low-, mixed-, and high-fidelity prototypes were conducted respectively. Thematic analyses of participants’ interactions revealed sets of themes in the workshops, which reflected the changing focus and scope of the design space. The implications of the results obtained in the study highlighted the role of prototypes of each fidelity level in engaging users in a design process, as well as the potential benefits of combining multiple fidelity prototypes when designing for user engagement.

The purpose of the thesis is to contribute with knowledge of preschool teachers' perceptions of working with digital imaging in image teaching. I collected the empirical material by qualitative semi-structured interviews, along with an interview-guide. The respondents were eight preschool-teachers, who works on five different preschools in the middle of Sweden. I analyzed the empirical material with research and by an analysis-model from phenomenography. The result shows that the perceptions were varied. They felt positivity to begin conduct teaching in digital imaging after the curriculum be valid July 1, 2019. / Syftet med examensarbetet är att bidra med kunskap om förskollärares uppfattningar av att arbeta med digitalt bildskapande i bildundervisningen. En kvalitativ forskningsstrategi användes, med fenomenografi som metodansats. Datainsamlingen genomfördes med hjälp av semistrukturerade intervjuer. Informanterna var åtta förskollärare, som arbetar på fem olika förskolor. Analysen av resultatet gjordes med utgångspunkt av multimodal teori och sociokulturellt perspektiv. Resultatet av frågeställningarna visar på en varierad uppfattning av arbete med digitalt bildskapande i undervisning. Resultatet visar också att användandets omfång var varierad på förskolorna. Flera förskollärare hade intresse av att öka undervisningen i digitalt bildskapande, efter den reviderade läroplanen för förskolan trätt i kraft 1 juli 2019.

Introduction: This compilation licentiate thesis focuses on open government data (OGD). The thesis is based on three papers. OGD is a system that is organized when publishers collect and share data with users, who can unrestrictedly reuse the data. In my research, I have explored why it can be challenging to cultivate OGD. Cultivation is human activities that change, encourage, or guide human organizations towards a higher purpose by changing, introducing, managing, or removing conditions. Here, the higher purpose is OGD to realize believed benefits. Thus, OGD cultivation is an attempt to stimulate actors into organizing as OGD. Problem and Purpose: OGD is believed to lead to several benefits. However, the worldwide OGD movement has slowed down, and researchers have noted a lack of use. Publishers and users are experiencing a set of different impediments that are challenging to solve. In previous research, there is a need for more knowledge about what can impede the OGD organization, cause non-valuable organizing, or even collapse the organization. At the same time, there is a lack of knowledge about how impediments shape the organization of OGD. This gap can make it hard to solve and overcome the impediments experienced by publishers and users. The sought-after knowledge can bring some understanding of the current situation of OGD. In this research, I have viewed the organization of OGD as an ecosystem. The purpose of this thesis is to draw lessons about why it can be challenging to cultivate OGD ecosystems by understanding OGD impediments from an ecosystem perspective. Research Design: I set out to explore OGD through qualitative research from 2016 to 2018. My research started with a pilot case study that led to three studies. The studies are each reported in a paper and the papers form the base of this thesis. The first paper aims to stimulate the conceptually oriented discussion about actors’ roles in OGD by developing a framework that was tested on a Swedish public agency. The second paper has the purpose of expanding the scope surrounding impediments and was based in a review and systematization of previous research about OGD impediments. The third paper presents an exploration of impediments experienced by publishers, users, and cultivators in the Swedish national OGD ecosystem to identify faults. From the three papers, lessons were drawn in turn and together, that are presented in this thesis. Findings: Cultivators when cultivating OGD ecosystems are facing towering challenges. The following three main challenges are identified in this thesis: (1) to cultivate a system that can manage stability by itself without constant involvement, (2) to cultivate a system that is capable of evolving towards a “greater good” by itself, and (3) to have an up-to-date precise vocabulary for a self-evolving system that enables inter-subjective understand for coordinating problem-solving. Contribution: The theoretical contribution of this thesis is that OGD ecosystems can be viewed as a public utility. Moreover, I recommend that researchers approach the organizing of OGD as the cultivation of evolution, rather than the construction of a structure; to consider the stability of the system in growth, value, and participation; and to be cautious with how they label and describe OGD actors. For actors that are cultivating OGD, I recommend that they guide the OGD actors to help them organize; view OGD cultivation as the management of evolution (growth) towards a purpose; and view cultivation as a collaborative effort where they can supply ideas, technologies, practices, and expertise. / <p>The series name in the thesis <em>Linköping University, Faculty of Arts and Sciences thesis</em> is incorrect. The correct series name is <em>FiF-avhandling</em>.</p>

Mobile phones have had a drastic influence on media production, by providing a ubiquitous connection. This revolution has come about when smartphone turned into a powerful tool to do almost all the production-related work that was done previously by specialized equipment and computers. This has encouraged ordinary individuals to involve in media work and emerging the phenomenon of mobile journalism, where citizens and individuals can engage in journalism work carry out a job that was supposed to be done only by journalists for a long time ago. We are talking about hundreds of thousands of prosumers and amateurs who are making and covering news by their smartphones and contributing to journalism work. This has become particularly apparent in relation to reporting from remote and risky areas, where journalists cannot reach easily or may not arrive on time while important events occur. This was obvious during the Arab-spring - The role of smartphones in feeding both social media and traditional media with instant photos and videos taken by protesters themselves. This thesis focuses on the role of the smartphone in facilitating the work of journalists. As a part of the literature review, the author has gone through many texts, watched videos and listened to radio shows with journalists and workers in media spheres, in which journalists talk about their own experience with practicing mobile journalism. Then from a phenomenological perspective and framework the experience of technology and user aspects of mobile journalism are investigated. As the aim of this thesis is not to validate a hypothesis or a theory, a qualitative research method is used to come to an evaluation and explanation of the phenomenon of using mobile in journalism. For that purpose, several qualitative methods have been used to collect data such as auto-ethnography, observation, interviews and focus groups. The data are collected mainly from Kurdistan region in northern Iraq where journalists were covering news of war in dangerous and risky battle fields.   The findings from the results showed that the main factors that make smartphones powerful tools for journalists are: the low budget required for acquiring a smartphone compared to expensive equipment used in traditional media, the freedom and independence that a mobile can give to a journalist, the design aspects which provide a pocket-size tool with unsuspiciousness feature that make it possible to be carried and used even in areas where journalistic work is not allowed. The ubiquity feature of mobile has helped to cover news in areas where traditional media cannot be existing or cannot reach easily. The ability of individuals to obtain a smartphone in one hand and the universal design of mobile in another hand have helped to be used in journalism work by many people with no necessary training courses. This situation has created a good opportunity for media institutions and TV stations to expand their correspondents’ network all over the countries.

Syftet med studien var att synliggöra hur små barn interagerar med ett mikroskop-ägg i utforskandet av naturvetenskapliga fenomen. I förskolans uppdrag ingår att arbeta med natur-vetenskap och teknik i barnens vardag. Förskollärarens kompetens och deras förhållningssätt gentemot barnen är betydelsefull för att möjliggöra för små barns digitala utforskande. Tidigare forskning visar att utforskande handlar om att få pröva, undersöka och på ett lekfullt sätt ta reda på mer om något.    Det teoretiska ramverk som legat till grund för studien är social construction of technology, SCOT, vilket gett möjlighet att beskriva hur mening skapas i barns interaktion med olika tekniska artefakter.    Studien genomfördes på en medelstor förskola i Luleå kommun med tre grupper barn i två-års ålder. Data samlades in med hjälp av filminspelning och ljudupptagning vid planerade aktiviteter. Bearbetningen har sketti en abduktiv analysprocess där en växelverkan mellan att härleda materialet till teoretiska utgångspunkter och en öppenhet för nya förklaringar och upp-täckter har varit vägledande.    I resultatet framträder olika interaktionsramar som visar på vilket sätt barnen interagerar med den digitala teknologin utifrån tidigare erfarenheter och upplevelser. Resultatet visar även hur mikroskop-ägget på olika sätt kan möjliggöra för små barns naturvetenskapliga utforskande.

There is a saying that we should not attempt to fix what is not broken, but we cannot afford to stick tothat mindset if we want to be able to design products and services that matter to the user. We shouldbroaden our views, explore new things and see what we can learn from them and use that knowledge toexpand on our existing methods. In recent years there have been a lot of work regarding how normsinfluence us to act and feel in certain ways, what if the knowledge behind norms could be utilized withindesign? To answer this question a study was conducted where two so called norm creative methodswere tested in a series of focus groups to see what potential the methods held in regard to improvingexisting methods or serve as basis for the creation new methods within user research.

The adoption of technology in our daily activities increased the time that we spend in front of the screen and changed the way we communicate and work. In recent years, many big companies started to develop and implement screen time management tools in their products to educate the user on how to improve their digital health. Those tools are an important step in the process, they bring awareness and help the users to change their habits. Several studies have focused on screen time tracking apps but not from the design perspective. Therefore, this thesis aims to explore the design of screen time management apps by developing two prototypes, which were used to evaluate different design elements and features. The results of this thesis present a guideline on how to improve the design of the existing screen time tracking tools and what additional features could be added to fulfil their aim and encourage users to change their behaviour.