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Using Internet‐enabled mobile handheld devices to access the World Wide Web is a promising addition to the Web and traditional e‐commerce. Mobile handheld devices provide convenience and portable access to the huge information on the Internet for mobile users from anywhere and at anytime. However, mobile commerce has not enjoyed the same level of success as the e‐commerce has so far because mobile Web contents are scarce and mostly awkward for browsing. The major reason of the problems is most software engineers are not familiar with handheld devices, let alone programming for them. To help software engineers better understand this subject, this article gives a comprehensive study of handheld computing and programming for mobile commerce. It includes five major topics: (i) mobile commerce systems, (ii) mobile handheld devices, (iii) handheld computing, (iv) server‐side handheld computing and programming, and (v) client‐side handheld computing and programming. The most popular server‐side handheld applications are mostly functioning through mobile Web contents, which are constructed by using only few technologies and languages. On the other hand, various environments/languages are available for client‐side handheld computing and programming. Five of the most popular are (i) BREW, (ii) J2ME, (iii) Palm OS, (iv) Symbian OS, and (v) Windows Mobile. They are using either C/C++ or Java programming languages. This article will explain J2ME, a micro version of Java, and Palm OS programming, using C, by giving step‐by‐step procedures of J2ME and Palm application development.

Emerging technologies are shaping the way we use information and undergraduates are early adopters of technology; however the purpose of their use of these devices has been of concern. The purpose of this paper is to examine use of internet capable handheld devices among Information Resources Management (IRM) undergraduates at Babcock University, Ilisan, Nigeria.

Non‐experimental ex post facto design was adopted for the study. Total enumeration was used to capture 220 IRM undergraduates. Using an adapted ECAR study, six questionnaire with reliability value (x=0.89) were administered; all questionnaires administered were retrieved and used for the study.

The study revealed that the majority (90 per cent) own handheld devices, used mainly for social networking, checking of information, instant messaging and e‐mails. Most of the students (70 per cent) are frequent users of their devices for internet activities, expending about 2‐100 h on a weekly basis. Factors which include slow network connection, limited access, and other ways of internet access, battery life and cost hinder use of the internet via handheld devices.

The use of internet capable mobile technology is crucial in engaging higher education students.

The purpose of this paper is to carry out a survey in order to better understand the nature of handheld mobile computing use by academic library users and to determine whether there is a significant demand for using the library services with these small screen devices.

A survey is created to measure whether people want to access an OPAC with a small screen. Additionally, through open‐ended questions, the survey attempts to gain a broader understanding of handheld mobile computing's impact on, and implications for, the services provided by academic libraries.

A total of 58.4 percent of respondents who own a web‐enabled handheld device indicate that they would use small screen devices, such as PDAs or web‐enabled cell phones to search a library OPAC.

The increasing prevalence of handheld mobile computing devices such as PDAs and web‐enabled cell phones warrants investigation as to its impact on libraries. This study examines an academic library user population and the potential demand for using the library's catalog with handheld mobile computing devices

Mobile handheld devices, such as cellular phones and personal digital assistants, are inherently small and lack an intuitive and natural user interface. Speech recognition and synthesis technology can be used in mobile handheld devices to improve the user experience. The purpose of this paper is to describe a prototype system that supports multiple speech‐enabled applications in a mobile handheld device.

The main component of the system, the Program Manager, coordinates and controls the speech‐enabled applications. Human speech requests to, and responses from, these applications are processed in the mobile handheld device, to achieve the goal of human‐like interactions between the human and the device. In addition to speech, the system also supports graphics and text, i.e., multimodal input and output, for greater usability, flexibility, adaptivity, accuracy, and robustness. The paper presents a qualitative and quantitative evaluation of the prototype system. The Program Manager is currently designed to handle the specific speech‐enabled applications that we developed.

The paper determines that many human interactions involve not single applications but multiple applications working together in possibly unanticipated ways.

Future work includes generalization of the Program Manager so that it supports arbitrary applications and the addition of new applications dynamically. Future work also includes deployment of the Program Manager and the applications on cellular phones running the Android Platform or the Openmoko Framework.

This paper presents a first step towards a future human interface for mobile handheld devices and for speech‐enabled applications operating on those devices.

This paper explores the context, development and outcomes of a cross-European in-service training programme, developing mobile learning practices in school classrooms – MLEARN – in The Netherlands, England, Greece and Italy. This paper focuses on: contextual backgrounds; a training needs analysis; and initial, mid-term and final outcomes from teachers and learners.

Evidence was gathered about: contextual backgrounds through literature reviews and key informant responses; a training needs analysis through online survey responses from teachers and trainers; and outcomes of uses from five surveys, largely completed online by teachers and learners, after some 2, 3, 5, 9 and 13 months of use.

Findings from survey periods were compared to identify shifts and gaps. The training programme led to successful outcomes; there was rapid uptake and use of the mobile devices, as well as shifts in emphasis across the period of the pilot, dependent on contextual factors. But long-term integration requires focus on specific learning activities, as well as on integration beyond a one-year period.

Uses of mobile devices are increasing, across countries and age ranges. How devices can be used to support learning and teaching in contemporary contexts is not temporally independent. Country curricula, legislation, training programme access, and teacher and learner awareness and perceptions, all influence practice.

Teachers have limited access to training programmes in this field. This study investigated a key pilot in this under-developed research area. Key factors need to be considered when programmes are developed and run.

Society may be on the verge of a revolutionary phase of mobile device use in higher education generally and in libraries in particular. This paper seeks to address this issue.

Through an examination of trends and technological developments in the area of mobile devices and a review of the potential of mobile devices, the paper analyzes the potential of mobile devices in academic libraries.

Most college students own cell phones and laptops and the capabilities of these and other devices are expanding.

Libraries have the opportunity to extend new types of services to users of mobile devices and to develop, license, or otherwise make available scholarly content that is configured for mobile devices. Ideally, libraries will become part of an institutional planning process for the development of services for mobile devices.

The more pervasive use by students of smartphones, the uptake of e‐book readers, and the increasing use of mobile devices in some areas of the curriculum all have implications for libraries.

Some writers in this area believe that the increased capabilities of mobile devices could lead to new forms of engagement with student learning; this possibility can be embraced by academic libraries that seek to be strong partners in the teaching and learning process of their institution.

The paper synthesizes developments and provides suggestions for the future.

As the technology evolves, the ways in which supply chain is coordinated improve. During a careful study on the intelligent wireless web (IWW) and its services for future applications, its great potentials for the implementation of a mobile real‐time system for supply chain coordination were realized. This paper seeks to introduce a development process for the IWW. In addition, it aims to explain the concept of mobile real‐time supply chain coordination, and propose and describe a practical model for this subject matter based on the most recent technologies including the IWW and agents.

Objectives were achieved through a thorough study on the IWW, agent technology, and the ways of applying them for mobile real‐time coordination in supply processes. As a method to conduct the research, first, the paper made out what the IWW services are and how one may develop them. Since mobile real‐time coordination is an absolutely innovative concept, the study prepared a comprehensive understanding of it and then, a practical framework was sketched and explained to implement the suggested system. The approach to this topic was a realistic one and an attempt was made to include all the prerequisites and details for the intended system.

In the course of the work, it was found that the IWW and other corresponding technologies have the greatest potentials ever available for the realization of a mobile real‐time supply chain coordination system and most of the chapters illustrate the claim.

Mobile real‐time coordination and its use in supply chains is something new. The development process for IWW proposed here is totally practicable and no other implementation scenario for the application of the IWW in mobile real‐time coordination has been suggested yet.

With the facility management industry increasingly adopting building information modeling (BIM) technologies, there is a need to investigate where this industry stands in its application. Moreover, studies on efficient and cost-effective solutions to integrate BIM and mobile augmented reality (MAR) present an environment where facility managers can experience an intuitive natural interaction with their mobile interfaces to efficiently access needed information. The industry’s view on this new approach of accessing information from BIM models should also be investigated, and its feedback should be considered for future phases of this avenue of research.

This paper explores not only how BIM can be beneficial to facility management practitioners, but also how its integration with MAR and making the data accessible through handheld mobile devices can enhance current facility management practices. An online survey was conducted to assess professional facility managers’ characteristics, technology use and working environment as well as the current status of BIM application in their practices. An online video scenario has also been used to illustrate to facility managers how an ideal BIM-MAR-integrated environment could provide them with mobile access to their required information. Facility managers’ feedback on usability, applicability and challenges of such environment has also been investigated through a follow-up survey.

With this paper, industry practitioners as well as academic researchers will be able to understand the current status of BIM and mobile computing application in facility management along with the benefits and challenges of implementing these technologies in an augmented reality (AR) environment.

Understanding facility managers’ requirements, characteristics and the way they do their tasks would be of great value for development of tools or systems that would facilitate their practices.

The purpose of this paper is to assess how Canadian academic libraries have responded to the rapidly evolving mobile environment and to identify gaps in the services provided, while suggesting areas for future development.

The paper conducted an examination of the mobile content and services provided by the libraries of the member institutions of the Association of Universities and Colleges of Canada (AUCC). Based on this examination, the paper describes the current state of mobile librarianship in Canadian academic libraries. A review of the literature places the investigation in its broader context.

Only 14 percent of AUCC libraries currently advertise some type of mobile web presence, with mobile web sites being prevalent over downloadable apps. Examples of content and services are highlighted to illustrate current trends and to provide insight into future directions for developing mobile services.

This study raises awareness of the importance of mobile technology for academic libraries and the need to address the lack of mobile content and services provided by most Canadian post‐secondary institutions. The paper also identifies best practices exhibited by the surveyed libraries.

This is the first exploration of this type into how academic libraries in Canada have responded to the mobile environment. The value of this research is in helping libraries identify and address shortcomings in the mobile content and services they provide, and in highlighting efforts by libraries to address their users' needs in this area.

The purpose of this paper is to facilitate the process of monitoring construction projects. Classic practice for construction progress tracking relies on paper reports, which entails a serious amount of manual data collection as well as the effort of imagining the actual progress from the paperwork.

This paper presents a new methodology for monitoring construction progress using smartphones. This is done by proposing a new system consisting of a newly-developed application named “BIM-U” and a mobile augmented reality (AR) channel named “BIM-Phase”. “BIM-U” is an Android application that allows the end-user to update the progress of activities onsite. These data are used to update the project’s 4D model enhanced with different cost parameters such as earned value, actual cost and planned value. The “BIM-Phase” application is a mobile AR channel that is used during construction phase through implementing a 4D “as-planned” phased model integrated with an augmented video showing real or planned progress.

The results from the project are then analysed and assessed to anticipate the potential of these and similar techniques for tracking time and cost on construction projects.

The proposed system through “BIM-U” and “BIM Phase” exploits the potential of mobile applications and AR in construction through the use of handheld mobile devices to offer new possibilities for measuring and monitoring work progress using building information modelling.