The increased use of smart Electric Vehicles (EVs) and Plug-in Electric Vehicles (PEV) opened a new area of research and development. The number of EV charging sites has considerably increased in residential as well as in public areas. Within these EV charging sites, various entities need to communicate in a secure and efficient way. The Open Charge Point Protocol (OCPP) offers a way to coordinate this communication and is already being used in many implementations. However, only the latest OCPP 2.0 version of the protocol includes certain security features. In this article, we present the entities that take part in an OCPP-based smart charging scenario, we identify security issues and threats and present solutions that have been proposed by scholars. We identify open security issues for OCPP and propose future research directions for the security enhancement of the protocol.

The intelligent transportation services are part of the urban planning and smart <;everything> concept which aims to improve the user experience and to deliver new ways with increased added value. To prototype these services or to enhance the legacy transportation services with the evolving technology, it is likely to create significant overheads during various phases of the service lifecycle, such as during the design phase. To effectively tackle the challenges that appear in such an endeavour, the selection of the optimal modelling method and of the appropriate language plays a crucial role in creating and enabling innovative and efficient transportation service operations. In this paper, the utilization of a business-oriented modelling approach is proposed for the modelling of the Decision Support System (DSS) that supports these services. Two scenarios are assessed considering the DSS behaviour of an IoT-based intelligent transportation service. Finally, this paper provides a discussion on the modelling method in regard to the DSS processes and how this method can be widely utilised for developing novel intelligent transportation services.

Within the Internet of Things (IoT) ecosystem, there is a need to interconnect networks of sensors and smart objects in a way that they can intelligently interact with humans. In most cases, these networks have been implemented following the machine-to-machine (M2M) communication disciplines. To adequately design such an emerging system which also has legacy technology characteristics, it is crucial to adopt an architecture reference model. In the context of this work, an architecture and characteristics assessment is conducted to form a roadmap of evolution from an M2M solution to an IoT in the field of Autonomous Vehicles (AVs). Then, an architecture for an AV prototype within the IoT ecosystem is proposed; the intelligent Bus on Campus (iBuC). The respective services are illustrated through a customised real-life scenario.

Block-Based Programming Environments (BBPE) are an emerging way for teaching programming in individuals with minimum programming skills. In such environments, blocks are used to represent instructions and learners construct programs by snapping these blocks together. However, there are not any satisfactory research data in the literature related to how learners perceive the utility of this approach and the evaluation of BBPE in middle school classrooms. Moreover, there exists a great interest in Physical Computing using Blockly@rduino which is a widely used visual programming editor. This paper aims at applying the Blocks for @rduino in the Students' Educational (B@SE) Process as a school project that will last up to three years starting in the current school year with the first class middle-school and continue with the same students for the next two years.