Context Level

Dimensions

Description

Relevance for

Mobility

BI

Personal context

Goal

The mobile person’s goal, agenda, needs, intentions or interests in what he is doing or intend to do.

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Pertinent to assist the user to reach the expected task. For example, detecting the user’s intention to visit the closest client by sensing his current position and direction, and then propose him the most rapid route and display the most up to date and critical indicators about this client.

Identity

The person’s role and identity such as his civil, professional or use profile.

+

Moderately relevant for accessing spatial navigation support applications.

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Strongly relevant for supplying right information to the right decision maker based on his identity.

Cognition

The way the person thinks, acts or feels. In short, the person’s psychological profile (mood, behavior) and preferences (like/dislike).

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Relevant to know for example where the user should not go (e.g. agoraphobic or claustrophobic), or would like to visit.

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Relevant for handling in which ways the mobile worker might be “advised” and assisted in his activities.

Tasks

Tasks carried out. These can be Mobility tasks (e.g. driving, walking, etc.), BI tasks (requesting decisional data, meetings), Communication tasks (calling, messaging, etc.), Other tasks (e.g. carrying a weight, painting a wall, etc.)

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Relevant for Mobility tasks

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Relevant for BI tasks

Surrounding context (including ambient

context)

Business context

All information about business strategy, activities, resources, markets, competition and partnership. In short, all about business facts and problems: metrics, indicators, KPIs, etc.

-

Not really relevant for mobility

++

Of course, highly relevant for business intelligence support

Techno-logical context

Technological capabilities in the surrounding environment (Hardware (networks, devices, etc.), Software, Data, possible interactions (HCI)).

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Relevant for way finding support or delivering context-aware services

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Relevant for accessing and processing context-based business data

Social context

Social context is not only about social networks, but also about culture, power systems (i.e. politics) and resources management (economy). In short, it’s about social organizations of humans and resources.

+

Moderately relevant for asking location information or discovering POIs of a society

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Strongly pertinent for understanding and dealing with social groups, local culture, resources and institutions.

Environmental context

Refers to environmental conditions (seasons, weather, noise) and services (transportation, banking, hotels booking, etc.) available in this environment.

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Strongly relevant for adapting activities (Mobility and BI tasks) to environmental conditions and available services.

Spatial context

Refers to spatial localization of pertinent objects located in the mobile environment including persons, natural geography objects (e.g. lands, vegetation, water, natural resources, etc.) and human geography objects (roads, places, POIs, infrastructures, etc)

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Strongly relevant for spatial navigation

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Strongly relevant for locating companies, customers and for delivery issues (costs, delays, etc).

All contexts and dimensions above

Tempo-ral

Dimen-sion

Refers to the time or the period during which tasks are carried out, events occur, resources are available, etc. For us, the temporal dimension is specific and affects all context and dimensions we treated above. This specificity is explained in [5] .

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Relevant for journey duration, transportation means availability time, etc.

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Pertinent for monitoring business evolution over time, timeliness, etc.