Process-Driven Mobile Data Collection (Extended Abstract) [original]

Process-Driven Mobile Data Collection (Extended Abstract)

Johannes Schobel1

, R¨

udiger Pryss1

, Marc Schickler1

, Manfred Reichert1

Abstract: Structured instruments are commonly used to collect data in various application domains

(e.g., psychology). Still, the former are handled in a traditional paper-based fashion. In this context,

the widespread use of smart mobile devices offers promising perspectives with respect to the con-

trolled collection of high-quality data. The design, implementation and deployment of such mobile

data collection applications, however, is challenging in several respects, turning both the program-

ming and maintenance of mobile data collection applications into a costly, time-consuming, and

error-prone endeavor. In order to empower domain experts to create mobile data collection applica-

tions themselves, a powerful framework, applying process management concepts in a broader scope,

was developed. The framework enables the development of sophisticated mobile data collection ap-

plications by orders of magnitude faster compared to current practices on one hand. On the other,

domain experts are relieved from manual tasks, like digitizing the data collected. The work summa-

rized in this extended abstract has been published in [Sc16a, Sc16b, Sc16c, Sc17].

Keywords: Mobile Data Collection, Process-Aware Information System, End-User Programming

The QuestionSys Framework

In the light of digital transformation and cloud computing, mobile technology has become

a salient factor for large-scale data collection scenarios, which have been accomplished

based on paper and pencil so far. In this context, mobile applications offer promising per-

spectives with respect to the collection of high-quality data. However, platform-specific

peculiarities as well as domain-specific requirements need to be properly addressed when

engineering such mobile applications. For example, heterogeneous mobile platforms need

to be supported, taking their short release cycles into account, or common usability styles

need to be obeyed. Altogether, this turns both the programming and maintenance of mobile

data collection applications into a costly, time-consuming, and error-prone endeavor.

In the QuestionSys framework, we developed a generic approach for transferring paper-

based instruments (e.g., questionnaires) to digital ones (cf. Fig. 1). To properly assist do-

main experts during data collection, the developed framework considers the entire Mobile

Data Collection Lifecycle. The Design & Modeling phase allows creating sophisticated

data collection instruments based on a specific modeling notation. In particular, domain

experts without any technical background are enabled to realize mobile data collection

applications in a model-driven way. The models created by them are directly mapped to

process models expressed in a common modeling notation (e.g., BPMN 2.0). In turn, this

allows representing the logic of an instrument as an executable process model. In order

to empower domain experts to create sophisticated instruments themselves, a configurator

1Institute of Database and Information Systems, Ulm University, James-Franck-Ring, 89081 Ulm, Germany,

{johannes.schobel, ruediger.pryss, marc.schickler, manfred.reichert}@uni-ulm.de

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Fig. 1: The QuestionSys Approach

component is provided that combines process management concepts with end-user pro-

gramming techniques [Sc16a]. This configurator, in turn, was evaluated in a controlled

experiment measuring the mental effort of end-users during modeling [Sc17]. The created

models can be distributed to registered smart mobile devices in the Deployment phase.

During the Enactment & Execution phase, multiple instances of the respective mobile data

collection instrument may be executed on a lightweight process engine running on hetero-

geneous smart mobile devices [Sc16b]. Moreover, the Monitoring & Analysis phase allows

domain experts to evaluate the collected data in real-time on the respective device. Finally,

the Archiving & Versioning phase allows managing different versions of a deployed instru-

ment [Sc16c].

Overall, the QuestionSys approach applies process management concepts in a broader

scope. This, in turn, will significantly affect the way mobile data collection applications

can be developed for large-scale scenarios in future (e.g., clinical trials).

References

[Sc16a] Schobel, Johannes; Pryss, R¨

udiger; Schickler, Marc; Reichert, Manfred: A Configurator

Component for End-User Defined Mobile Data Collection Processes. In: Demo Track of

the 14th Int’l Conf on Service Oriented Computing. 2016.

[Sc16b] Schobel, Johannes; Pryss, R¨

udiger; Schickler, Marc; Reichert, Manfred: A Lightweight

Process Engine for Enabling Advanced Mobile Applications. In: 24th Int’l Conf on Coop-

erative Information Systems. LNCS 10033. Springer, pp. 552–569, 2016.

[Sc16c] Schobel, Johannes; Pryss, R¨

udiger; Schickler, Marc; Ruf-Leuschner, Martina; Elbert,

Thomas; Reichert, Manfred: End-User Programming of Mobile Services: Empowering Do-

main Experts to Implement Mobile Data Collection Applications. In: 5th IEEE Int’l Conf

on Mobile Services. IEEE Computer Society Press, pp. 1–8, 2016.

[Sc17] Schobel, Johannes; Pryss, R¨

udiger; Schlee, Winfried; Probst, Thomas; Gebhardt, Dominic;

Schickler, Marc; Reichert, Manfred: Development of Mobile Data Collection Applications

by Domain Experts: Experimental Results from a Usability Study. In: 29th Int’l Conf on

Advanced Information Systems Engineering. Springer, 2017.