Software projects are failing for several decades due to multiple reasons. In this regard a lot of research has been done to investigate the reasons behind the failure. However, most of this research was executed in developed countries while under-developed and developing countries got little attention. The main objective of this study is to assess the impact of critical factors on the success of software projects for under-developed countries (like Pakistan), because enterprise environmental factors along with staff working habits, their experience and expertise level also have an impact on the success of a project. To accomplish this, a survey was conducted through the Pakistan Software Export Board (PSEB), and logistic regression enquiry was executed to measure the relationship between various factors affecting software. The results reflect that improper planning along with wrong cost and time estimation are positively and significantly associated with software failure. Based on the finding of the survey, a model is proposed for intelligent decision support system (IDSs). The proposed model keeps track of the previous knowledge and behavior in a well-structured manner that might be helpful for project managers in the estimation and decision-making process of upcoming software projects. This research adds new knowledge from an under-developed country which will open new dimensions for the IT industry and project manager working under similar circumstances.

The use of Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) beacons is becoming widespread for context-aware learning environments. This technology can be used in indoor and outdoor settings such as museums, shops, home and schools in order to identify the location of learners and their contexts. Specifically, in the constructivist view of learning, learners can use such sensing technology for constructing knowledge and experiencing learning at any time, anywhere. However, exploration of such technology has been limited in the constructivist context-aware ubiquitous learning (U-learning) literature. For this purpose, the authors evaluated two android-based U-learning applications: one was an outdoor learning environment in a garden, the other was about locating books in a library. The applications were implemented and tested with school and university students. The qualitative results are presented in this article, and show how such sensing technology is promising for both pedagogical environments.

Online social networks have gained ubiquitous popularity in the last decade but despite the advantages, they have also raised privacy concerns for users. Many people have lost their jobs, relationships, and are stalked because of online privacy breaches. This situation is even more disturbing for young teens as they are in the process of learning emotional, social, and physical behaviors. Online predators take advantage of their immaturity and raise various threats to teens including aggression, rape, abduction, physical and emotional sadistic torture, and even human trafficking. Teens, on the other hand, do not have any mechanism to protect them against such threats. Therefore, this research addresses this overlooked need and proposes a trust model for the teen community, which can evaluate the trustworthiness of a stranger based on teens’ psychological and social needs. This paper first identifies various factors of teen psychology from literature, and then proposes a trust model for teens based on those factors. The model ensures the trustworthiness of a stranger through a two-dimension matrix consists of his reputation in other teens and reliability. The proposed model was simulated through colored Petri nets and implemented as a real-time trust evaluation application over Facebook. A user acceptance testing was also performed by teens, which suggests that 81.77% of teens were overall satisfied with the proposed approach.

With the advancement of mobile technologies, pedagogical innovations have been emerging since last two decades. The potential use of mobile devices has attracted many educators and researchers to conduct inquiry based learning (IBL) activities in a classroom or a fieldwork. In recent years, augmented reality (AR) technology has become widespread for conducting learning activities using mobile devices. In the literature related to science education, there are limited mobile systems found in which AR technology is used for IBL activities. We have therefore designed a mobile system MAPILS to conduct plant IBL activities using AR technology. Further, two application-related aspects of MSI (Mobile science inquiry) evaluation framework are used. For evaluation purposes, this system was tested with 42 local secondary high school students in order to identify the potential benefits of such technology in science education. The results showed that a designed mobile system possesses motivating and enjoyable learning experience for science students.