Smart information systems shall increase use, quality and experience (QoE) of systems with respect to costs. In this context, costs can be measured in time, money, resources, work, energy, bandwidth, storage capacity, etc. Improvements in the relation between quality and cost come from research and innovation within technology, architectures, processes and value chains. To evaluate use, quality and experiences metrics need to be defined for objective (measurable) and subjective (personally experienced) parameters. The rationale to perform such quality assessments is that systems or services that do not show sufficient (subjective) quality or user experience (UX) will be abandoned by the prosumer, who can select among many choices.

Smart systems need to employ adaptivity as a means to both achieve the tasks the IT-system is designed to support, and to increase the UX of the system users. The research group for smart information systems works within defining metrics and evaluation of QoE, as well as defining and applying best practices to design such systems that promise an optimal experience. Smart information systems will have the ability to adapt when measurements suggest that the current UX is decreasing; this is done to always have satisfied users. To be adaptive, smart information systems need to employ sensors that are minimally intrusive; at the same time requirements of privacy, security, etc. need to be fulfilled.

DART's researchers work for the benefit of society in the application areas of health and welfare, the IoT, mobility, processes in public services, digital libraries, social networks and the grand challenges of climate, energy, and the environment. They also work at the forefront of pushing open innovation, open standards, and emerging technologies within ICT beyond the traditional systems architectures. Our specialties include semantic technologies, multimedia standards in health care environments, smart home technologies, streaming technologies, and visualisation techniques. Combining smart information systems with the requirements from inclusive technologies and information security make DART a unique research group within ICT.

Focus areas:

• User Experience (UX) research: UX is defined as the way a person feels about using a product, system or service. Quality of Experience (QoE) a subjective measure of a user’s experience with a service or system. Without sufficient QoE, a system or service will not be used and eventually be abandoned. Aspects of functionality, usability, universal design, security, etc. are ingredients of such a measure. Research challenge for UX include how to apply the subjective and objective QoE methods to applications, how do these measures have an impact on the 3D-enhanced social networks, and how to collect subjective and objective data simultaneously. UX methods can be applied to a variety of applications, ranging from access to cultural resources, three-dimensional presentations, to eHealth, and ambient assisted living.
• eHealth, specifically communicating systems, the Internet of Things (IoT), sensors, and mobile health care applications. This area also develops the concept of the medical digital items (MDI) developed in the SAMPOS project; semantics in health data, OpenEHR and personal health records (PHR).
• OCLM (open content lifecycle management) follows up the activity on ollaborative editing, development of version control for several types of content, relation to licenses for content, and non-destructive editing.
• Licensing of data and content is important for IT systems where prosumers stand for much of the content that is produced; open source, open data, open content, and their relationship to innovation, business models, open innovation, license compatibility, and mobile apps is in the focus of this research area. This is treated more in the courses INF5780/ITLED4240 at the University of Oslo.