In this chapter, we investigate the complex process of analyzing and understanding the factors that influence individuals’ access to and participation in digital education within the Higher Education context. While the digital transformation in Higher Education Institutions (HEI) has produced numerous benefits for both students and educators, it has also brought forth challenges, particularly for students with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND). A literature review was conducted, to gain insight into the specific requirements of this student demographic. This review aimed to identify the multifaceted factors that impact e-inclusion within Higher Education. Our research resulted in the identification of 24 different factors that should be considered when evaluating e-inclusion within HEI. These factors serve as essential indicators in the assessment of the accessibility and inclusivity of digital education, allowing for a more multifaceted understanding of the dynamics in the Higher Education landscape.

This paper analyzes the shortest path problem (SPP) in social networks, based on the investigation and implementation of different methods on a simulated example. The objectives of the paper include identification of the most commonly used methods for finding the shortest path in a social network as a strategic attempt to speed the search of network nodes, focusing on the application of the two most used SPP methods: the Dijkstra and Bellman-Ford algorithms. A comparative analysis is used as an investigation method for performance evaluation of different algorithms, based on their implementation and behavior, tested on a social network example. The research results indicate that the Dijkstra algorithm is faster, and therefore more suitable for searching the shortest connection in social networks.

The realisation of smart cities has attracted much attention in recent years from private and governmental actors, as a means to make cities more efficient, climate friendly and socially inclusive through the use of modern technology. However, few studies examine how smart cities are framed and understood within the public sphere. The aim of this study is to compare how domestic smart city initiatives are reported in the news of their respective countries, and to clarify the differences and similarities in media content. In this paper, we present the initial findings of our planned long-term comparative news content analysis. As a first step, we analysed national newspaper articles published between 2011 and 2019 in Japan and Slovenia. Our corpus consists of 41 Japanese and 20 Slovenian articles, written in relation to domestic smart city initiatives. In total, we identified 14 themes, five of which were common in both countries, while the remaining nine appeared exclusively in the news of one country. Our conclusions indicate that the news in both countries differ in what application domains of Smart Cities are discussed (e.g. natural resources and energy, transportation and mobility). We establish a procedure for further cross-cultural analyses, necessary to understand how smart cities are framed in the public sphere. Thereby, we contribute to further discussion on the nature and definition of smart cities and how they are communicated.

Well organized data contributes extensively to the classification possibilities and quality of Knowledge Management. XML schemas play an important role in data organization activities, and provide basic foundations for companies and organizations dealing with large amounts of data. In times where knowledge represents the greatest advantage in a competitive economy and is relatively simple to find through different web providers, the quality of internal data structures and efficient management of a company’s valuable information is of the utmost importance. XML schemas are one of the mechanisms that can provide a data organization system in a qualitative manner, and efficient knowledge management as soon as data have been defined or accumulated. A good XML schema support is a way to increase the competitiveness of an organization by ensuring structured data quality and simplifying the Knowledge Management process.

The paper addresses the field of Process Optimization in Slovenian companies, and their attitude toward optimization approaches. A survey was conducted, including professionals from companies, as well as students, examining approaches to assure business process quality, its validation and optimization, containing several methods. Survey results, both in companies (24 participants) and among students (24 participants) indicate that, although a combination of methods provides the best results, modeling, KPI identification and simulation are the best indicators of process strengths and weaknesses, as well as optimization potentials. Therefore, the research was complemented with a review of 5 available modeling and simulation tools, providing evaluation and comparison. To get insight into which of the tools best supports the optimization process, a comparative analysis was conducted, identifying key differences between them, and providing suggestions for optimization enhancement in companies.

In the paper, we explore the topic of mobile user experience and we focus on native mobile applications. The goal of this paper is to research what mobile user experience is, identify important mobile patterns, and define processes and guidelines for the design and measurement of the mobile user experience and the identified mobile patterns. Based on the literature review, there are several elements or factors affecting the mobile user experience. We established a big advantage of native applications, which are designed for a specific platform, where there is more time to create a specific customer experience. The main findings of the paper showed that the mobile user experience differs from the desktop user experience, and that there are many mobile patterns, which may significantly improve or degrade the mobile user experience for various target groups.

Organizations in the publishing field accumulate large amounts of data and store it in different forms of knowledge databases. In the publishing field specifically, various multimedia content presentation is involved, requiring support for contemporary e-book standard formats (e-Pub) as well as traditional standard formats such as HTML, PDF, and others. Publishing organizations must support the same content presentation in various formats in order to meet the needs of their increasingly demanding clients. However, business (and organizational) processes in publishing in the presented case study have little IT support and almost no automation. Successful business flow and a competitive advantage for publishing organizations, especially for SMEs, requires a holistic solution for the optimization of publishing processes, including data/knowledge acquisition, data/knowledge aggregation and the creation of new knowledge based on existing data. Although partial IT solutions are available and can be used to support individual steps in the publishing process, they do not come in an out-of-the box solutions, suitable for adequate publishing processes automation and optimization. Two basic challenges regarding existing solutions available on the market are: (1) they do not provide support for automation or semi automation in the publishing processes, and (2) they are expensive and consequently not acceptable for SMEs. This paper is focused on analyzing publishing work processes and its quality aspects, addressing the automation of all possible process steps: especially the optimization of acquisition, aggregation and building of multimedia content for any device. In addition, a solution built on open source components is proposed as well, supporting the presentation of content in different published formats. Based on a case study, we present the solution's architectural design and analyze standards and technologies, providing an acceptable solution for SME's from an economical point of view, optimizing its work processes to the largest possible extent. A renewed publishing process is proposed and future research directions are also discussed.

Acceptance analysis is a well-known and widely used approach to evaluate the level of a product's or a solution's acceptance. A lot of research has been conducted in the field of software quality and acceptance. However, there is still a gap between potential users and the percentage of users that positively accept and use certain products. In addition, the process of gathering information regarding users' decisions is difficult and subjective. Users often decide against the use of solutions due to several reasons, not all of them objective, having different attitudes toward solutions due to a variety of factors. The paper focuses on the acceptance analysis based on existing models and users' behaviour characteristics. Research results present a foundation for an integrated acceptance model based on the integration of behavioural operational research and theory acceptance models, proposing a foundation for measuring and increasing the acceptance level of solutions based on human behaviour.