View Proposal

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Proposer

Ralph Barthel

Title

Revisiting the Internet of Old Things: Human-Centred Interaction with Connected Objects

Goal

To design and evaluate a digital object passport that connects a physical object with its evolving lifecycle, provenance and human history.

Description

Early Internet of Things research explored how physical objects could be connected to digital information, histories and user-generated content. This project will revisit these ideas in the context of contemporary connected technologies and investigate how people understand and interact with the data associated with physical objects. A possible question for investigation could be "How can Digital Object Passports support meaningful interaction with the accumulated histories of physical objects?" There are several interesting application domains that would profit from such bi-directional interactions.

Resources

Background

[1] Lopes, C., & Barata, J. (2024). Digital Product Passport: A Review and Research Agenda. Procedia Computer Science, 246, 981–990. [2] Enabling a dynamic information flow in digital product passports during product use phase: A literature review and proposed framework (2025). Sustainable Production and Consumption, 54, 362–374. [3] Barthel, R., Kröner, A., & Haupert, J. (2013). Mobile interactions with digital object memories. Pervasive and Mobile Computing, 9(2), 281–294. [4] Barthel, R., Leder Mackley, K., Hudson-Smith, A., Karpovich, A., de Jode, M., & Speed, C. (2011). An Internet of Old Things as an Augmented Memory System. Personal and Ubiquitous Computing, 17(2), 321–333.

Url

Difficulty Level

Variable

Ethical Approval

Full

Number Of Students

2

Supervisor

Ralph Barthel

Keywords

digital object biographies, human-computer interaction, human-data interaction, internet of things, digital provenance

Degrees

Bachelor of Science in Computer Science
Bachelor of Science in Computer Systems
Master of Engineering in Software Engineering
Master of Science in Business Information Management
Master of Science in Information Technology (Software Systems)
Master of Science in Software Engineering
Bachelor of Science in Computing Science
BSc Data Sciences