Monthly Archives: April 2015

by | April 27, 2015 · 3:04 pm

Why TrustPal is an important step

online_help

Universities across the UK have a responsibility to develop appropriate interventions to respond to the welfare and mental health needs of their students. With the ever increasing reliance on technology and increasing amount of communication tools at students disposal, the need for universities to adapt and embrace new technologies is never been more pressing.

The online delivery of counselling has been noted as offering a positive effect on disinhibition and embraces the therapeutic benefit of writing. Online delivery benefits from increased access, flexibility, and on-time and on-demand services. Current research into online counselling has produced an significant amount of empirical studies that, for the most part, produced positive results. The broad area of computer-aided psychotherapy has produced studies that attest to the positive potential of online and remote delivery of psychological support (Richards, 2009).

TrustPal aims to create an environment which at it’s core promotes the advantages of what is known as ‘writing therapy’. There is evidence to suggest online counselling has the following advantages:

  • Immediacy of expression of feelings. (Baughan, 2000)
  • Greater control, writing gives the student a high degree of freedom to define her or his own experiences and explore whatever feels most relevant and proceed at a rate they feel comfortable with. (Wright, 2002)
  • Privacy – shame is overcome within the anonymous setting of TrustPal.
  • Client active participation in their own healing. (White & Epston, 1990).

There are some limitations in regards to online counselling & support, these were outlined in ‘Online Counselling: A descriptive analysis of therapy services on the internet’ by Chester & Glass (2007). They argued the inability to read non-verbal cues and the crucial role that body language plays in face-to-face discussion limits  the quality of help that can be given online. Online support is also severely lacking when it comes to severe pathology and risky behaviour such as suicidal conditions.

Application to TrustPal

It’s important to note that TrustPal aims to offer a first-step in the healing time-line for students in need. Most of the papers referred to are from Mental Healthcare and Counselling journals, the research from these offer a grounded basis for the successful application and adoption of a system such as TrustPal. TrustPal aims to utilise the current student body to help students in need. This means that though the staff of TrustPal will be students, they will need adequate training before being able to offer support and direction within the TrustPal environment. This is especially important when understanding and dealing with scenarios such as suicidal conditions.

As outlined above, TrustPal is born out of the evidence shown in many academic papers that anonymous online support offers advantages and will become an important channel for students to seek help 24/7.

 

Baughan, R. (2000). E-listening: the Samaritan’s experience. Counselling, 11(5), 292± 293.

Chester, A., & Glass, C. a. (2006). Online counselling: a descriptive analysis of therapy services on the Internet. British Journal of Guidance & Counselling, 34(2), 145–160. doi:10.1080/03069880600583170

Richards, D. (2009). Features and benefits of online counselling: Trinity College online mental health community. British Journal of Guidance & Counselling, 37(3), 231–242. doi:10.1080/03069880902956975

White, M. & Epston, D. (1990). Narrative Means to Therapeutic Ends. New York: Norton.

Wright, J. (2002). Online counselling: Learning from writing therapy. British Journal of Guidance & Counselling, 30(3), 285–298. doi:10.1080/030698802100002326

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by | · 1:34 pm

System Architecture

system architicture - New Page-2

 

As shown in the above diagram 3 Tier Client /Server Architecture is the proposed solution for our social network

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by | April 26, 2015 · 9:19 pm

Links to related news items in the tech media

This post will review some news related to the area of our suggested application (TrustPal).

Academic Advising:

It seems that online academic advising becomes the trend for number of universities. University of Colorado Boulder launched new academic advising service based on constituent relationship management (CRM) platform. The new system called MyCUHub. Students on the university will be able to login to the system though their normal accounts. In fact, the system will work only to facilitate number of tasks related to academic advising but not to provide instant communication (i.e. online chat) with advisors. [1]

Number of articles talks about the usage of social media in academic advising. Reyjunco [2] refused the idea of using technology as a replacement of face-to-face consultation. Whereas, he emphasis that technology can be of a great support in academic consultation arena. Reyjunco stated: “I’ve long theorized that social networking website use was not a “waste of time” (as many of my colleagues put it) but an important vehicle for student self-expression and connection.”

 

Future of Anonymous chat: [3] [4]

The most recent anonymous chat that most of the news talk about is Rooms, the new application from Facebook. Rooms lets users to create their own chat rooms without the need to reveal any of their data. “Users can have dialogue around basically anything they want”. The users can reach all of the application features without even linking Rooms application with their Facebook account. Facebook is aiming to compete with other anonymous chatting application like Secret and Whisper.

Some articles looks to the recent Facebook application as a “middle ground in the battle over anonymity on the internet.”:

“Released last week, the new Facebook app is a place where you can chat with other like-minded people about most anything, from the World Series to 18th century playwrights, and because you needn’t use your real name when joining one of its chat rooms, you have a freedom to express yourself that you wouldn’t have on, say, the main Facebook app.”

 

References:

[1]        L. Meyer, “CU Boulder Launches Academic Advising Hub Online,” 2015. [Online]. Available: http://campustechnology.com/articles/2015/04/14/cu-boulder-launches-academic-advising-hub-online.aspx.

[2]        Reyjunco, “Academic advising, social media, and student engagement,” 2010. [Online]. Available: http://blog.reyjunco.com/academic-advising-social-media-and-student-engagement.

[3]        D. ALBA, “The Future of Anonymity on the Internet Is Facebook Rooms,” 2014. [Online]. Available: http://www.wired.com/2014/10/facebook-rooms-future-anonymity-internet/.

[4]        Z. Blaszkiewicz, “Why Rooms is not the future of anonymous chat,” 2014. [Online]. Available: http://features.en.softonic.com/why-rooms-is-not-the-future-of-anonymous-chat.

 

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by | · 9:18 pm

Related Academic work (Technical)

This post review the recent technologies, methods and tools that has been developed in the effort of developing ‘similar’ applications to the one we are suggesting: TrustPal. The review covers number of research papers in addition registered patents.

Recommending common interest users to each other:

This section will review the academic literature that suggest framework and tools to match common users with common interest. This feature can be useful in our application by automated the selection of chatting parts.

  • Method and system for initiating conversations between callers having common interests [1]:

This patent suggest a framework for communication to find common interest between the registered users (i.e. the callers). Although the method does not specify the online communication, it suggest a way to match users (i.e. callers) with common interest.

  • Method and apparatus for recommending a match to another [2]:

This invention main idea is to provide and recommending ‘a match to another’. “The invention provides people with a way to take an active role in matchmaking between a friend, family member or client of theirs and a prospect date from a database of prospect-users.”

 

Anonymous communications:

This section will discuss the related works in field anonymous communications.

  • Method and system for enabling anonymous communications between two or more interested parties [3]:

This patent if very well suited to the framework of our suggested application. The patent presents a method and system for “communicating anonymously between two (or more) parties until such time that the parties may wish to reveal their identities to each other.”

  • Communication between parties over the internet without revealing personal or security information[4] :

Although this patent was presented to be implemented for voice communication, the suggested framework can be used in online chat systems. The idea is based on generating a code by the user to be used in conducting anonymous communications.

 

References:

[1]        S. Okon and R. Tal, “Method and system for initiating conversations between callers having common interests.” Google Patents, 2003.

[2]        J. Y. Shapira, “Method and apparatus for recommending a match to another.” Google Patents, 2006.

[3]        P. Richard, “Method and system for enabling anonymous communications between two or more interested parties.” Google Patents, 2013.

[4]        C. Y. Liu and W. H. Chang, “Communication between parties over the internet without revealing personal or security information.” Google Patents, 2011.

 

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by | April 24, 2015 · 7:08 pm

Social and ethical considerations of TrustPal

Due to the potential sensitive nature of the data and overall purpose of TrustPal, there are several serious social and ethical points which must be considered carefully.

– Application name and purpose: we chose the name TrustPal for the application as it signifies a means of talking to someone in an informal manner about problems, issues or concerns, in a safe environment. We feel it promotes both a positive outlook, as both trust and pal bring up positive ideas, and it is a simple and specific description of what the service offers. Since the application gives individuals a chance to talk about personal troubles, or other type of information that can be sensitive, establishing the fact that it is a safe and trustworthy application is very important. We chose ‘trust’ over ‘safe’ because trust also refers to being able to trust the volunteers or individuals behind the application, not just the technical aspect, such as the anonymity protocols. Furthermore, trust has a more reassuring quality than safe, which can sound more severe. We avoided words such as mental or counseling in order to not give the impression of a formal service (such as the counseling service at the university or NHS provided services) which would be misleading, since  TrustPal would be operated by volunteers and not by paid experts. The application intends to be a form of informal support, not a formalized service. We have also avoided references to mental healthy or mental problems, since they are generally socially stigmatized. Such stigma could prevent individuals from using the service and avoid seeking help. Furthermore, it can limit the scope of the application: since it is meant to help people with any type of difficulties, it might be interpreted or advertised in the wrong way.

– Privacy:

  • Personal and sensitive data: TrustPal is an application where people can chat anonymously. Because of the potential exchange of sensitive or personal information, both the identity of users and the safety of the data must be guaranteed. Anonymization protocols are considered in a separate post. This main feature helps protect the user’s identity, so people can feel safe communicating about things they struggle with, without the concern of being exposed or stigmatized. By keeping the users’ identity secret from the public, the use of disclosed information for the purpose of harassment or bullying is minimized. Nevertheless, the design has to allow the possibility of moderating or banning users who attempt to cause disturbance or harm to other users or the volunteers, or act in any inappropriate way. We propose that the service has one or two admins who can identify individual users only in exceptional circumstances. This would either be done by a system of unique identification or by being able to see which student account is being used. This will not only allow them to manage inappropriate behaviour, but in cases where an individual’s health and safety or the health and safety of people around them are deemed to be in danger (instances of self-harm for example), there is a way of identifying the user and delivering appropriate help. This is a policy maintained by all similar services, both university based and NHS based. Another point of concern is the disclosure of information from group chats by other users.  However, the anonymity of users should help in minimizing the damage, and can also prevent malicious use of information from group chats. Because of this, the personal gain from disclosing such information is rather low, so the likelihood of it happening is consequently low. Nevertheless, users casually mentioning things from the group chat in personal conversations with friends for example cannot be prevented. In order to improve on this point, a clause can be added to the user agreement that users agree to not share information from group chats for a malicious purpose or in any way that might harm or affect the safety and integrity of other users, volunteers, or the application itself.
  • Employees/Volunteers: one other point of concern is the reliability and professionalism of the volunteers operating the application service. One way of tackling this concern is by selecting the volunteers based on their previous experience and training them before they are allowed to work in the service and interact with users. This allows for the security that they have the appropriate knowledge and skills to be effective and not cause any damage. Additionally, volunteers must not disclose or share in any way information from within the service, such as what users talk about. They can be asked to sign a type of non-disclosure agreement specifically tailored for their position. This will also help to further reassure users that their information is treated appropriately. Volunteers’ identity should also be kept anonymous, as is the protocol with other similar services such as Nightline. This helps protect volunteers from any form of social stigma which might arise, but more importantly it will not discourage individuals to use the service out of fear of their friends or acquaintances finding out about their problems.
  • Scenarios involving suicidal issues bring with them social and ethical issues regarding TrustPals responsibilities. Such scenarios could call for TrustPal employees to remove anonymity and escalate to relevant university welfare personnel and/or national charities. This is not something we have agreed upon with the TrustPal application but it should be noted as a social and ethical consideration.

– Trust: the issue of trust arises at every step for TrustPal, from the very name, to the infrastructure, and the volunteers and user community. Due to the nature and purpose of the application, trust becomes even more important than in other circumstances, since users would expose sensitive information which can potentially cause damage if misused or compromised. The use of ‘trust’ as part of the application name is aimed at establishing the trustworthiness of the service from the start. The user agreement which would include the clause regarding forbidding users to share information from the group chat and the volunteer non-disclosure type of agreement are also steps to ensure the integrity of the service and thus improve the users’ trust. Furthermore, the build of the application has to be very well done, in order to insure that there are no technical dangers or risks from this side (such as the appropriate protocols being implemented correctly). Looking at trust between users and volunteers, a rating system for volunteers can be proposed, where users who have interacted with a volunteer can rate him/her, either overall or rate according to various categories of problems/issues (such as a volunteer can have a high rating for emotional issues, medium for educational problems, and fairly low for personal relations etc.). This will allow other users to choose the volunteers best suited for their needs, but it will also provide feedback on how well a volunteer is performing, which will in turn help improve the quality of the service. Since TrustPal is initially aimed only at students from the University of Southampton, having the approval of the University or the Students Union will further help validate the service and increase users’ trust in it.

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by | April 23, 2015 · 9:57 pm

Storyboard 1

Scenario: This storyboard depicts a scenario when a student thinking to sign up to the TrustPal but they are worry about the privacy issue.

Click on the picture for enlargement.

 

anonymous

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by | · 6:34 pm

Overview of Standards of Protocols

Our social network provide 3 main features:

  • Anonymity
  • Instant massaging
  • Live chat

– Data anonymization  

Our application is based on anonymity, which deals with hidden information such as user’s identity. Even though we ask for university email in the registration, just for verification, system will not store users emails in the database. System will use user nickname to identify users. Even the nickname can be hidden from other users by using “stranger” as identification. In addition, End-to-end encryption will be used to avoid IP identification.

k-anonymity: can be used to personalize application users without compromising individual privacy. Personalization can helps to provide better services and to identify their interest or issues.

 

-Instant messaging

I2P: is a serverless instant messenger provided by QT software. The main characteristic of this protocol is fully anonymous based instant communication. No server can be between 2 user’s conversations. No ISP can log. No information provide about whom the user chats. It is prevents any node between the two users from having access to the chat. So, I2p is ideal instant messaging solution for our social network. In addition, I2p support file transfer between the two parties.

Extensible Messaging and Presence Protocol (XMPP) can be used as instant messaging protocol for our social network. This protocol is open standard. however, it doesn’t support End-to-end encryption. To overcome this problem, Off-the-Record Messaging (OTR) can be used to provide encryption.

 

– Live chat

VPchat can be used to support live chat room. VPchat protocol uses a TCP connection.

Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) it is protocol for signaling media streams. This could be used in our social network to support voice call in conjunction with Real-time Transport Protocol (RTP)

References:

  • Sweeney. k-anonymity (2002) a model for protecting privacy. International Journal on Uncertainty, Fuzziness and Knowledge-based Systems, 2; 557-570.
  • Zantout, B., & Haraty, R. (2011, January). I2p data communication system. In ICN 2011, The Tenth International Conference on Networks (pp. 401-409).
  • I2p-bote features [online] http://i2pbote.i2p.us
  • Neal, L. (1997, November). Virtual classrooms and communities. In Proceedings of the international ACM SIGGROUP conference on Supporting group work: the integration challenge (pp. 81-90). ACM.
  • Rosenberg, J., Schulzrinne, H., Camarillo, G., Johnston, A., Peterson, J., Sparks, R., … & Schooler, E. (2002). SIP: session initiation protocol.
  • Frederick, R., Jacobson, V., & Design, P. (2003). RTP: A transport protocol for real-time applications. IETF RFC3550.
  • SIP [online] http://www.voip-info.org/wiki/view/SIP

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by | · 11:38 am

Introducing TrustPal

DeviceMockUp_Mobile

Above is the first draft outlining the colour scheme, logo plus introduction of the project name: TrustPal.

We’ve chosen TrustPal as the name as it invokes strong meaning of the word Trust plus the meaning behind Pal (Friend). The TrustPal logo is the head of a smiling dog. We chose a dog as part of the logo as they’re a common companion pets and invoke a strong sense of friendship and loyalty.

This is just the first draft, as such all of the above is subject to change. The creation of this prototype allows for further discussion into issues surrounding brand, marketing & user experience.

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by | April 22, 2015 · 10:22 am

UK Universities welfare services review

Below is a brief breakdown of similar services managed and/or recommended by other UK Universities. For this, I’ve taken a sample of Universities who form part of the Russell Group association.

Birmingham University

  • Nightline : Phone number / available from 6pm to 8am every night during term times.
  • Student Mentor Scheme
  • Listening service – linked in with the student mentor scheme
  • No University live-chat advice line available

Bristol University

  • Nightline
  • Confidential counselling for young people up to 25
  • Group support sessions
  • Just Ask : Support for any issue – phone / email
  • Vulnerable Students Service – Phone / Email / 24 hours a day
  • No University live-chat advice line available

Cambridge University

  • Student advice service
  • University Counselling Service
  • Group Sessions support service
  • Linkline – run by Students – listening and information service – 7pm – 7am during term time.
  • Recommendations for multiple services such as Cambridge Rape Crisis, B-eat Adult & B-eat Youth helplines ( helpline for those suffering with eating disorders), Samaritans, Saneline ( National service offering emotional support to anyone affected by mental illness.
  • Individual college counsellors.
  • No University live-chat advice line available

Sheffield University

  • Student advice service
  • University Counselling Service
  • Nightline
  • Counselling Service
  • BiteBack University Service – Support group which offers both group and 1 to 1 advice to those who suffer from eating disorders.
  • No University live-chat advice line available

Cardiff University

  • SilverCloud Online Support – Computer-based therapeutic programs
  • University Advice Squad – via email
  • No University live-chat advice line available

University College London

  • Peer Support Service – Student Minds UCL – A support group network for UCL students who suffer from eating disorders
  • Students for Students – Group meet once every 2 weeks for those suffering from stress, anxiety etc
  • Psycho-educational workshops – Cognitive therapy workshops to help with procrastination.
  • Survivors network – in the process of being created, this group will offer support to students who are survivors of sexual assault.

Further reading:

All the above Universities recommended local and national charities across a range of advice and well fare issues.

Application To TrustPal

By reviewing what services are available at other UK universities, we can assess whether TrustPal fills a needed gap whilst also drawing inspiration from differing universities. As shown above, an application such as TrustPal would be beneficial to not only the students of the University of Southampton but many other UK institutions. There seems to be an over reliance for recommending already stretched national services such as ReThink and Samaritans. These Charities are fantastic but with TrustPal using the student-mentor chat and group support, we can give instant, relatable advice for students in need.

 

 

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by | April 11, 2015 · 5:37 pm

Scenarios and Personas

Purpose:

Scenario that describes the use of an anonymous chat based application for University of Southampton students, which would enable them to chat to mentors, councilors or other students when they have various issues or problems.

Individual:

Jack is a University of Southampton student who is facing a depression after relationship break up.

Natalie is a mentor, working on University of Southampton Mentoring support department.

Layla is a University of Southampton student, who has experienced Jack’s problem before.

Equipment:

Any devices has an Internet connection and “TrustPal” Application.

 

Scenario:

  • Jack, Layla and Natalie (users) can login using their university ID.
  • Users identity will be hidden and they will use the system as anonymous.
  • Jack can search for keyword “depression” and the system will display all related public posts or support groups.
  • Jack can view and add comments to posts.
  • Jack can join support groups, which bring together student facing similar issue.
  • Jack can ask for virtual consulting and the system will assign the job to a mentor (Natalie).
  • Jack can send message to anonymous mentor (Natalie).
  • Natalie will receive message from anonymous student asking for help.
  • Natalie will provide student with helpful information such as: support groups, university services and NHS services.
  • Jack can also ask for online chatting with Natalie.
  • Natalie will response and start live chatting with Jack
  • After finishing consulting session, Jack can give feedback or rate the mentor.
  • Jack found an interesting post about his issue made by another anonymous student (Layla).
  • Jack can check Layla statues (online or offline).
  • If Layla online, Jack can ask for online chatting.
  • Layla can accept or refuse chatting request made by anonymous student (Jack).
  • Users can choose their status earthier online or offline.

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