Intergenerational households often involve children and older adults sharing daily life. Yet, it remains challenging to find shared exercise activities due to the significant differences in motor ability, motivational preferences, and user experience needs. Existing exergames lower the entry barriers through body-based interaction, but screen-based setups restrict play to indoor environments. XR HMDs extend exergames into public contexts, yet the differential impact of VR and MR on intergenerational play remains underexplored. To address this gap, we developed an asymmetric-role XR exergame and conducted a $2\times 2$ within-subjects study with 20 intergenerational pairs (N=40) to explore the effect of Display Mode (VR vs MR) and Environmental Context (Private Space vs Public Space) on their user experience and collaborative performance. This work reveals clear age-related patterns: children exhibited greater engagement in immersive VR environments, whereas older adults preferred MR for improved safety and enhanced visibility of their intergenerational partners. Finally, we offer design guidelines for leveraging complementary strengths of XR display modes and environmental contexts to support inclusive and engaging intergenerational exergames.

Teleportation is widely used in Virtual Reality (VR) applications, especially for enabling efficient navigation in large-scale virtual environments. Leveraging foot movements for teleportation frees the hands for parallel tasks and helps maintain spatial orientation, making it particularly suitable for seated and multitasking VR scenarios. This work explores feasible foot actions for teleportation in confined seating conditions, such as traveling on an airplane or train, where users' leg motion is feasible, but its range is constrained. Such scenarios are common but are underexplored. We propose seven metaphor-inspired teleportation techniques based on foot interactions and evaluate their effectiveness through a user study. The findings provide valuable insights for designing effective teleportation techniques in VR scenarios where users are seated in constrained spaces.

Virtual reality (VR) not only allows head-mounted display (HMD) users to immerse themselves in virtual worlds but also to share them with others. When designed correctly, this shared experience can be enjoyable. However, in typical scenarios, HMD users are isolated by their devices, and non-HMD observers lack connection with the virtual world. To address this, our research investigates visually representing observers on both HMD and 2D screens to enhance shared experiences. The study, including five representation conditions, reveals that incorporating observer representation positively impacts both HMD users and observers. For how to design and represent them, our work shows that HMD users prefer methods displaying real-world visuals, while observers exhibit diverse preferences regarding being represented with real or virtual images. We provide design guidelines tailored to both displays, offering valuable insights to enhance co-located shared VR experiences for HMD users and non-HMD observers.

VR exergames offer an engaging solution to combat sedentary behavior and promote physical activity. However, challenges emerge when playing these games in shared spaces, particularly due to the presence of bystanders. VR's passthrough functionality enables players to maintain awareness of their surrounding environment while immersed in VR gaming, rendering it a promising solution to improve users' awareness of the environment. This study investigates the passthrough's impact on player performance and experiences in shared spaces, involving an experiment with 24 participants that examines Space (Office vs. Corridor) and Passthrough Function (With vs. Without). Results reveal that Passthrough enhances game performance and environmental awareness while reducing immersion. Players prefer an open area to an enclosed room, whether with or without Passthrough, finding it more socially acceptable. Additionally, Passthrough appears to encourage participation among players with higher self-consciousness, potentially alleviating their concerns about being observed by bystanders. Our findings provide valuable insights for designing VR experiences in shared spaces, underscoring the potential of VR's passthrough to enhance user experiences and promote VR adoption in these environments.

In the era of cloud computing, the focus of cyber criminals has shifted from traditional IT infrastructures to the cloud.Cyber forensic investigations in the cloud present several challenges due to legal obligations, technical limitations, and the dynamic nature of cloud resources.For instance, access to digital assets is crucial for practical analysis but is often hindered, as investigators may not have complete access to disk images or log files.The mainstream forensic frameworks and solutions for identifying, retrieving, and preserving evidence in the cloud are lacking.Yet, NIST has identified 65 cloud forensics challenges, with 13 related to log files alone.The preservation and integrity of forensic evidence are the backbones of a digital forensic investigation, and the chain of custody proves the authenticity of the evidence.However, cloud environments are not designed to handle digital evidence with integrity, leading to severe issues when presenting evidence in a court of law.This paper delves into the challenges of cloud forensics investigation, focusing on log files, and aims to identify potential solutions and frameworks to support the chain of custody.For that purpose, the authors evaluate the suitability of blockchain technology for maintaining a proper chain of custody of log files in the cloud.A prototype is implemented to serve as a proof of concept.

It is well documented that exergames are enjoyable to play and can significantly improve older adults’ health and well-being. However, there is limited research on exploring factors affecting these users’ acceptance of such games, especially in virtual reality (VR), a relatively newer technology. This study proposes an extended version of the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM). We use variables from TAM related to older Chinese adults and specific to VR exergames to explore and confirm critical factors that could influence these users’ acceptance of such games in VR. We tested the proposed model with 51 older Chinese adults (aged 65 and above) after playing three commercial VR exergames (Beat Saber, FitXR, Dance Central). Results show that these older adults who are younger and retired and have a higher education, better financial means, and a good health condition have a more positive view of VR exergames. In addition, Perceived Usefulness, Perceived Ease of Use, and Perceived Enjoyment positively affect the intention to play VR exergames. Self-Satisfaction has a positive impact on Perceived Ease of Use and Perceived Usefulness. However, unlike previous studies, our results suggest that Facilitating Conditions have a negative effect on Perceived Ease of Use. Finally, we discuss the theoretical and practical implications of our results.

Virtual reality head-mounted displays (VR HMDs) have become a popular platform for gaming. However, simulator sickness (SS) is still an impediment to VR’s wider adoption, particularly in gaming. It can induce strong discomfort and impair players’ immersion, performance, and enjoyment. Researchers have explored techniques to mitigate SS. While these techniques have been shown to help lessen SS, they may not be applicable to games because they cannot be easily integrated into various types of games without impacting gameplay, immersion, and performance. In this research, we introduce a new SS mitigation technique, VRCockpit. VRCockpit is a visual technique that surrounds the player with four 2D views, one for each cardinal direction, that show 2D copies of the areas of the 3D environment around the player. To study its effectiveness, we conducted two different experiments, one with a car racing game, followed by a first-person shooter game. Our results show that VRCockpit has the potential to mitigate SS and still allows players to have the same level of immersion and gameplay performance.

Text password is an important authentication method for computer supported cooperative systems and is usually required to be memorable, strong, and non-reusable. Some password managers can help users manage site-specific passwords locally or on the cloud. However, existing solutions still have a single point of failure risk if the password management scheme is breached. To address the risks identified in current password managers, we proposed a password generation and management scheme called PassImg that can generate consistent passwords through hashing a master password with a user-specified salt image. In this scheme, a weak master password is also allowed while not affecting the security of the scheme. We’ve also proposed a solution for offline parameters synchronization, which would decrease online attack vectors. The user-recognizable image as a parameter can be configured on different devices and synchronized through a QR code. PassImg can ensure password usability and security through an offline managing process without storing any data on the server.

Uncertainty is widely acknowledged as an engaging gameplay element but rarely used in exergames. In this research, we explore the role of uncertainty in exergames and introduce three uncertain elements (false-attacks, misses, and critical hits) to an exergame. We conducted a study under two conditions (uncertain and certain), with two display types (virtual reality and large display) and across young and middle-aged adults to measure their effect on game performance, experience, and exertion. Results show that (1) our designed uncertain elements are instrumental in increasing exertion levels; (2) when playing a motion-based first-person perspective exergame, virtual reality can improve performance, while maintaining the same motion sickness level as a large display; and (3) exergames for middle-aged adults should be designed with age-related declines in mind, similar to designing for elderly adults. We also framed two design guidelines for exergames that have similar features to the game used in this research.

Randomness is an important factor in games, so much so that some games rely almost purely on it for its outcomes and increase players' engagement with them. However, randomness can affect the game experience depending on when it occurs in a game, altering the chances of planning for a player. In this paper, we refer to it as “input-output randomness”. Input-output randomness is a cornerstone of collectable card games like Hearthstone, in which cards are drawn randomly (input randomness) and have random effects when played (output randomness). While the topic might have been commonly discussed by game designers and be present in many games, few empirical studies have been performed to evaluate the effects of these different kinds of randomness on the players' satisfaction. This research investigates the effects of input-output randomness on collectable card games across four input-output randomness conditions. We have developed our own collectable card game and experimented with the different kinds of randomness with the game. Our results suggest that input randomness can significantly impact game satisfaction negatively. Overall, our results present helpful considerations on how and when to apply randomness in game design when aiming for players' satisfaction.

The number of distance learning degrees has increased dramatically over the last decade. Yet, despite this increase, teaching computer security subjects for online students remains challenging. Online classes often need a special infrastructure such as devices with specific tools, or hardware requirements. It is also a challenge to design a course that is pedagogically sound, engaging and fun for students who may come from a wide spectrum of educational backgrounds. The quality of the education delivered also differs from one institution to another. To provide a sense of accreditation and regulation, the National Cyber-security Centre, which is a part of Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) in the United Kingdom (UK) has certified only two online (i.e. distance learning) cybersecurity MSc degrees in the country.This paper presents an innovative way of designing capstone projects (i.e. case studies) along with the impact of it on retention, completion, and success rates in a world-class distance learning degree at the University of Liverpool (UoL) over the last ten years. The Chartered Institute for IT (i.e. BSC) is the accreditation body of the degree program studied in this research1.

The amount of interest in Virtual Reality (VR) research has significantly increased over the past few years, both in academia and industry. The release of commercial VR Head-Mounted Displays (HMDs) has been a major contributing factor. However, there is still much to be learned, especially how views and input techniques, as well as their interaction, affect the VR experience. There is little work done on First-Person Shooter (FPS) games in VR, and those few studies have focused on a single aspect of VR FPS. They either focused on the view, e.g., comparing VR to a typical 2D display or on the controller types. To the best of our knowledge, there are no studies investigating variations of 2D/3D views in HMDs, controller types, and their interactions. As such, it is challenging to distinguish findings related to the controller type from those related to the view. If a study does not control for the input method and finds that 2D displays lead to higher performance than VR, we cannot generalize the results because of the confounding variables. To understand their interaction, we propose to analyze in more depth, whether it is the view (2D vs. 3D) or the way it is controlled that gives the platforms their respective advantages. To study the effects of the 2D/3D views, we created a 2D visual technique, PlaneFrame, that was applied inside the VR headset. Our results show that the controller type can have a significant positive impact on performance, immersion, and simulator sickness when associated with a 2D view. They further our understanding of the interactions that controllers and views have and demonstrate that comparisons are highly dependent on how both factors go together. Further, through a series of three experiments, we developed a technique that can lead to a substantial performance, a good level of immersion, and can minimize the level of simulator sickness.

Mobile computational offloading offers a solution to extend the computational power of a mobile device allowing it to run heavyweight activities/tasks. This turns low-end mobile devices into a capable machine of running heavyweight applications that require special processing power. Code offloading is achieved through migration. Migrating code from a local machine (i.e. mobile device) to the cloud where the code is actually executed is challenging. Questions such as when and how migration takes place are critical. Quite a few offloading frameworks are proposed in the literature. They are, mostly, mostly not efficient due to the lack of a standard offloading architecture, some did not propose an architecture at all. The abundance of Quality of Service (QoS) component is another concern. This paper introduces a layered approach to mobile computation offloading called LAMCO. LAMCO is implemented in the Android operating system and the run-time performance of the framework is evaluated in this paper. One advantage of LAMCO is that it does not require any modifications in the underlying operating system as the framework is dynamically installed and updated while the operating system is intact.

Virtual Reality (VR) models have been used in tertiary education to provide unreachable real-life experiences to learners. Often construction class facilitators find it is very challenging to engage in experiential learning activities (e.g., site visits) due to hectic project environment and its health and safety risks. VR models can, therefore, be used as an alternative way of conducting virtual construction site visits, as part of an effective curriculum delivery process. This study aims to evaluate the effectiveness of the use of VR models for promoting learners engagement in construction studies. We created a virtual reality model of sustainable building features (earth building techniques, rainwater harvesting tank, dry toilet, solar panels, and green wall) to stimulate sustainability in construction studies. We showcased the project at Auckland Build Expo 2018 (ABE2018) for the public. Construction students evaluated the effectiveness of the VR model through an anonymous questionnaire survey. The results show that VR models used could provide an intuitive and safe way to engage construction students. It was evident through student evaluation survey results, some visitors who commented on our VR model during ABE2018 and student assessment results. Further, 71.5% of learners involved in this project believed that VR models are useful in construction studies due to their convenience and easy access and found it an asset to their learning. VR models help understand earth building techniques and sustainable features which are rarely available to access. They could help class facilitators engage with experiential learning activities to improve their teaching quality and to make the learning process more enjoyable.

Learning to code can be a daunting experience for a lot of students. RunJumpCode is a novel 2D platformer video game, designed and developed in Unity, to teach players the fundamental concepts of C# programming. The game enhances the player’s programming knowledge by providing a fun range of challenges and puzzles to solve. We promoted the interaction of programming through a ‘Code Box’, allowing players to enter lines of predefined code that modifies in-game objects. This tool is essential in completing the challenges and puzzles we designed. To allow alterations of its properties, we made further manipulation of each object possible, which would give the player creative freedom to complete each level. Quizzes and journals were utilized to assess and collate their learnt material for future reference. In addition, we created a mobile application to track each player’s statistics throughout the game and compare their progress with other users. The results of a pilot study showed that users enjoyed playing the game and found it valuable for enhancing their programming knowledge.

The success rate of computer games in engaging children has prompted educational researchers to investigate if similar techniques can be used to engage children with learning. In this paper, we present the results of a study conducted with 120 primary school children, in which two versions of our proposed educational tool (Features Enriched Game (FEG) vs Feature Devoid Game (FDG)) were used for four weeks to teach primary school curriculum areas of Numeracy and Te Reo Maori language. The effectiveness of the educational tool was measured using a pre-test and a post-test, as well as the frequency and duration of time on playing the game. The results showed that the FEG version enhanced children's learning - it was more effective as an educational tool in both Numeracy and Te Reo curriculum areas, when compared to the FDG version. In the case of Numeracy, the increase in scores was twice as much as the FDG version and in the case of Te Reo (Maori Language) it was five times as much. Similar results were also shown by other indicators such as time and frequency. Finally, the results showed that the FEG version of the game was more popular with children.

The use of computer games as common vehicles for education, as opposed to pure entertainment, has gained immense popularity in recent years. In our earlier work, we investigated the appealing characteristics of engaging computer games for children and designed an educational tool based on those characteristics. In this paper, we present the results of a study conducted with 120 primary school children, in which two versions of our proposed educational tool (features enriched vs feature devoid) were used for four weeks to teach primary school curriculum areas of Numeracy and Te Reo Maori language. The effectiveness of the educational tool was measured using a pre-test and a post-test, as well as other indicators such as subjective analysis, the frequency and duration of time on playing the game. We found that the features enriched game enhanced children’s learning in both Numeracy and Te Reo curriculum areas more than the feature devoid version. In the case of Numeracy, the increase in scores was twice as much as the feature devoid version and in the case of Te Reo it was five times as much. Finally, the results of the subjective analysis showed that the feature enriched game was more popular with children – the test group indicated that they enjoyed playing the game more than the participants in the control group and are more likely to recommend it to their friends. The results also showed that the sound effects, the visual effects, the level of challenges in the game and the feedback messages contributed more to their engagement.

Previous research has shown that providing family engagement and social support play important roles in weight management success, helping to achieve long-term lifestyle changes. Traditionally, the support provided by online health communities is primarily targeted at individuals and does not involve their families. SOFA (SOcial FAmilies), a novel approach for engaging, motivating, and persuading families to adopt a healthy lifestyle, is proposed. SOFA is an online social network for families coupled with a repository of health-related educational content. This article reports the results of a live user study aimed at investigating how user profile representation and system-assigned tasks influence users engagement with the system and change their attitude toward a healthy lifestyle. The results show that representing family members as individuals increases the number of active members per family as well as their retention, contribution to, and engagement with the network. The results also show that family-based social networks positively change the attitude of family members toward a healthy lifestyle.

Sustaining user participation is a challenge for even the most popular web sites. In this work we report on an effort to increase exposure to, and interaction with, a repository of health based information by coupling the repository with a social networking application. We hypothesize that we can sustain user interaction with a repository and increase nutrition knowledge through content browsing by reporting on the browsing actions of other users in a Social Networking System's activity feeds. We report on the findings of a live user study, which showed that coupling health content with a social networking system successfully increased content browsing and that highly engaged users are seen to have an altered attitude toward control over their health.

Contemporary lifestyle has become increasingly sedentary: little physical (sports, exercises) and much sedentary (TV, computers) activity. The nature of sedentary activity is self-reinforcing, such that increasing physical and decreasing sedentary activity is difficult. We present a novel approach aimed at combating this problem in the context of computer games. Rather than explicitly changing the amount of physical and sedentary activity a person sets out to perform, we propose a new game design that leverages user engagement to generate out of game motivation to perform physical activity while playing. In our design, players gain virtual game rewards in return for real physical activity performed. Here we present and evaluate an application of our design to the game Neverball. We adapted Neverball by reducing the time allocated to accomplish the game tasks and motivated players to perform physical activity by offering time based rewards. An empirical evaluation involving 180 participants shows that the participants performed more physical activity, decreased the amount of sedentary playing time, and did not report a decrease in perceived enjoyment of playing the activity motivating version of Neverball.

Social relationships and family involvement play an important role in health management, whereas activity awareness is useful in decision-making and stimulating motivation and action. In this paper, we propose a novel activity awareness user interface for family-oriented healthy living social networks. It is intended to increase family members' interaction with healthy living social networks. A user study showed that the activity awareness interface can add value to specific aspects of interaction with family-based healthy living social applications. The interface increased interaction with the underlying healthy living content and led to higher level of learning about healthy living and impact on specific healthy living activities. There was also significant appreciation of and interaction with the activity awareness user interface elements.