Exploring the PageRank Algorithm

5th May 2017 travis Leave a comment

INTRODUCTION & BRIEF HISTORY

At the self-proclaimed “heart” of Google’s software (2014) lies their remarkable PageRank algorithm. PageRank added an extra hypertextual layer of abstraction to earlier keyword driven search models used by companies such as AltaVista and Infoseek (Chater & Oaksford, 2008). PageRank utilised a weighted ranking algorithm that took into account the number of hyperlinks pointing towards a connected page and their interrelation with other popular websites (Brin & Page, 1998). Named after its inventor Google founder Larry Page (not just a simple reference to the “pages” being ranked) (Page, 2001) PageRank was based upon previous conceptual ideas of academic citation using hypertext technology. These original principles were pioneered through the earlier works of Ellen Spertus (1997) and Massimo Marchiori (1997). These early concepts around hypertext and academic citation where then modified and applied directly to ranking webpages popularity and their relevance to web user’s search queries.

ALGORITHM BREAKDOWN

The PageRank Algorithm uses a probabilistic distribution to calculate the rank of a website. This rank is then updated every time Google’s web-crawler scours the web. This follows the Random Surfer Model which models user behaviour based on the probability that they will follow a hyperlink to a new site or randomly leave and request a new page.

There have been two public versions of the PageRank algorithm released which were famously mixed up by the Google founder Serge Brin and Larry Page in their original paper The Anatomy of a Large-Scale Hypertextual Web Search Engine (1998).

Figure 1. PageRank without the damping factor being relative to the number of pages

PR(A) = (1-d) + d (PR(W1)/C(W1) + … + PR(Wn)/C(Wn))

Figure 2. PageRank with the damping factor relative to the number of pages

PR(A) = (1-d) / N + d (PR(T1)/C(T1) + … + PR(Tn)/C(Tn))

ALGORITHM KEY FOR FIGURE 1: from http://interestingwebs.blogspot.co.uk/2009/05/simple-explain-of-google-pagerank.html

PR(A) – Page Rank of page A
PR(Wi) – Page Rank of pages Wi which link to page A
C(Wi) – number of outbound links on page Wi
d – damping factor which can be set between 0 and 1.

PageRank is calculated as a recursive function, meaning the accuracy of a page’s ranks increases after every iteration. If we look at the following diagram below in figure 3.

Figure 3. PageRank Diagram: from http://codispatch.blogspot.com/2015/12/java-program-implement-google-page-rank-algorithm.html

We can see the probabilistic distribution using eigenvector centrality. For example on the first or ‘zero’ iteration the PageRank value is calculated as an even distribution of 1 divided by N number of pages. Which would give a value of 0.2 for each of the 5 pages (1/n). As you can see in table 1 below.

Table 1: PageRank Values: from http://codispatch.blogspot.com/2015/12/java-program-implement-google-page-rank-algorithm.html
Once the initial zero iteration value has been calculated as seen in figure 4 above in the 0 row. The next iteration will then divide each page or node’s current rank by the number of outbound links. For example node C has 4 outgoing links so its initial value of 0.2 is divided by 4 to give a value of 0.05. As node A has 1 inbound link from node C it now has a value of 0.05. This process is repeated for all of the inbound and outbound links for each node and repeated for each iteration as show in the table in table 1.

After this initial calculation has been made a dampening factor taking into account the probability of a user leaving the site is incurred. Note – Google employees have alluded to the fact that the dampening factor of the random surfer model lies somewhere between 0.7 and 0.85 (Levy, 2011).

POTENTIAL INTEGRATION INTO BRITIZEN

The concept of if eigenvector centrality utilised by Google’s PageRank algorithm can be applied successfully to the Britizen’s scoring system If the dampening factor induced by the random surfer model of the PageRank algorithm is discarded due to its irrelevance in peer to peer scoring. This is due to the fact that the hypertextual links are not hypothetically traversed as in Google’s model and are therefore superfluous in our design. Utilising the dispersal of scores via eigenvector centrality based on the peer to peer links on the site where a user’s number of friends represents even bidirectional links could induce certain desirable social behaviours. For example if a user had a small closely-nit group of friends with high Britizen points this would be more beneficial than having lots of friends with mediocre scores as the division of the users overall score would be dispersed equally to their peers. The implementation would of course only utilise eigenvector centrality as a weighted proportion or metric to calculate the user’s overall score, depending on how much social engineering is the focus of the scoring system. For more radical effects I believe a weighting of 50% of a user’s overall score would statistically show the greatest results as the user’s own background and whom they befriend would be calculated in equal measure, allowing us to observe the social effects of our scoring algorithm more clearly.

REFERENCES

Brin, S. & Page, L., 1998. The Anatomy of a Large-Scale Hypertextual Web Search Engine. Seventh International World-Wide Web Conference (WWW 1998), 14-18 April.

Chater, N. & Oaksford, M., 2008. The Probabilistic Mind: Prospects for Bayesian Cognitive Science. New York: Oxford University Press, USA.

Chitpady , S., 2017. Java Program to Implement Simple PageRank Algorithm. [Online]
Available at: http://codispatch.blogspot.com/2015/12/java-program-implement-google-page-rank-algorithm.html
[Accessed 23 April 2017].

Google, 2014. Our history in depth. [Online]
Available at: https://www.google.com/about/company/history
[Accessed 16 11 2016].

Levy, S., 2011. In The Plex: How Google Thinks, Works, and Shapes Our Lives. New York: Simon & Schuster.

Marchiori, M., 1997. The Quest for Correct Information on the Web: Hyper Search Engines. The Sixth International WWW Conference (WWW 97), 7-11 April.

Page, L., 2001. Method for Node Ranking in a Linked Database. USA, Patent No. US 6285999 B1.

Spertus, E., 1997. ParaSite: Mining Structural Information on the Web. The Sixth International WWW Conference (WWW 97), 7-11 April.

Webs, I., 2009. Simple Explanation of Google PageRank. [Online] Available at: http://interestingwebs.blogspot.co.uk/2009/05/simple-explain-of-google-pagerank.html

Dragon's Den

Dragon’s Den Presentation

5th May 2017 luis Leave a comment

This project will be delivered to a number of professionals following the format of Dragon’s Den.

Our presentation would be aimed to the British Government representatives as Britizen would be mainly financed by the public coffers as described in the Business Plan Section.

It will be clearly stated that this social network will create a comunity of people that support the Government and hence it is something highly desirable by them. Not only that but also it wil be a source of Open Data that can be used in many Public initiatives. It will also be a platform for the Government to publish important information and receive valuable feedback.

Structure

The presentation will consist on:

A pitch were we will state the main goals of Britizen and motivate why our iniative should be taken into account. A presentation with slides will be delivered in order to give an idea of how our project would look like and convey its real context and usefulness. Each member will be in charge of explaining the features he/she was in charge of. The pitch will not last for more than 10 minutes, and we will try to express the contents in a way people without technical background will be able to understand.

A Questions and Answers stage in which the members will answer any questions the Dragons might have. Each member is specialized in a number of aspects of Britizen, so the answers will be provided by the correspondent member to make sure the ideas are expressed in the best way possible.

Preparation

In order to prepare for the presentation, we will schedule a rehearsal, trying to perform the same as if it was the real delivery. The members will also watch previous Dragon’s Den chapters from the show, in order to understand how the process works and what to expect.

We will also try to be critical and propose difficult questions to each other and think about how we would answer them.

Britizen Score

5th May 2017 Darron Tang Leave a comment

A user’s Britizen score is made up of several factors, these factors include:

Your friend’s scores and groups scores
Normal credit check
Criminal Record
Post history
Employment

Your friend’s scores and groups scores

This part of one’s score are the networks in which the user is a part of, the higher score of the networks such as friend’s and group’s the higher their own personal score. Having this as part of a personal score will encourage users to apply pressure on their networks to improve their scores as it directly affects one’s own score. This could potentially lead to ostracising friend’s with low scores in the most extreme cases.

Normal credit check

This credit check will be performed via a third party company such as Experian[1] and will be a measure of how likely a person is able to pay their bills. This will promote users trusting other users with high scores as they are more confident when lending money or favours.

Criminal Record

Having one’s criminal record be a part of their score will encourage users not to commit crimes as this will have an even greater damaging affect on their reputation if it is on show via their Britizen score.

Post History

Users who make posts on Britizen which promote British values will be given higher scores. Users who post material which do not agree with British values will be penalised in their score.

Employment History

A user’s employment history will affect one’s score, this will encourage users to obtain better jobs as the bonus for employment can be tailored specific to jobs which the country currently needs, for example the NHS is currently understaffed, therefore doctors and nurses could receive larger Britizen score bonuses, hopefully encouraging more users to become doctors or nurses.

[1] http://www.experian.co.uk/

Overview of standards and Protocols

Facebook Integration

5th May 2017 travis Leave a comment

Introduction

This blog will demonstrate and explore Facebook integration into our online Britizen platform. I will first discuss the functionality offered by Facebook integration, followed by a discussion of the initial setup process and requirements, and finally some in depth examples of our implementation’s design.

Functionality

According leading online marketing firm Jetscram (2015) most online users in the UK are already signed up to Facebook. Facebook integration has become a common constituent of the development process for modern web and mobile applications. It allows users an easy way to authenticate their login credentials without the developer having to create a bespoke login system. This also allows developers to add social characteristics and metrics to their application in form of personal profiling and analytics.

Setup & Requirements

This will not be a step-by-step guide of every stage necessary to implement the Facebook SDK but this will serve as an overview and outline of the most important stages and features. For this example I will use the mobile iOS platform to demonstrate what is required to integrate Facebook into a potential app. The setup process is essentially split between two main stages: firstly, set up and configure your new app by registering it via the Facebook developer page and secondly, download and add the Facebook SDK to your iOS app build. These two stages will then bridge the gap between your app and the online features of Facebook.

Facebook Registration and Setup

First, sign up to Facebook. This will then give you access to the Facebook developer page which contains relevant downloads for the SDK (System Development Kit) as well as a reference for their proprietary API (Application Programming Interface). To create a new app choose a display name as seen in figure 1, you can also optionally create a unique namespace identifier, this is most commonly created using the reverse namespace convention for example co.uk.britizen.britizen. you can see an example of the reverse namespace convention later in the IOS configuration screen (figure 3)

Figure1. App Secret and App Name Selection

Once you have chosen your app name an App ID and App Secret are generated, you can later use these credentials to connect to the Facebook API from within your application. The App ID and App Secret are used to identify your developer account and allow Facebook to manage and track a multitude of different applications as well as perform app specific analytics. This is contrary to open API’s such as older versions of Google APIs that allowed users direct access to Google API calls without a need for user specific app credentials, by simply editing URI strings.

One of the most salient features of the Facebook dashboard is the ability to recruit and delegate other Facebook members from within the role tab in the Facebook developer dashboard as shown below in figure 2 .

Figure 2. Facebook Roles

The roles of your development team can be ascribed easily which is helpful for delegating tasks to team members. The roles tab also includes deeper levels of functionality such as in depth analytics for users, testers and developers. This can allow you to keep tabs on your development team’s progress from a central integrated hub. This is great for sandboxing early development before your apps go live, so you can work out any issues before releasing your final version to the public. As administrator your Facebook account is automatically verified for testing. The first feature of the Facebook API we will discuss is single sign on.

Single Sign On

To configure single sign on functionality select iOS tab or which ever proprietary system you are using from the Facebook developers dashboard. Here you can enter the bundle ID for your app, which depending on the nature and platform of your app can consist of either JSON file of meta data if it’s a web application or in the case of iOS an info.plist file which can be edited either in Xcode or a text editor. Make sure that your app’s bundle ID matches the one entered in the Facebook dashboard (you can use the reverse namespace convention for both as discussed earlier in the Facebook registration and setup section). Now select single sign on as seen in figure 3, this allows a user who is already logged in with Facebook to sign into you application with one click. This will generate a unique identifier token which is stored on the user’s device (similarly to how a web cookie stores user information over a period of time) for a user which can be used to login to Facebook as a means of verification. This token can then be used to authorise users for your app. This token can last typically from 24 hours to a 28 days in duration before a user has to re-login to Facebook, making the sign in process relatively painless in comparison to signing in every time they use your application. The single sign in also eliminates the need for users to re-enter their credentials if they already have a Facebook account, saving a great deal of time when compared to having to set a completely new account with their name and email etc. You now are all set to try out the API on the web dashboard side now let’s delve at little into the app!

Figure 3. Single Sign On

I won’t go into detail about the specific app side coding and installation as it is beyond the scope of this blog post but I will describe the functionality employed on the software side with visual examples of the results. Once you have configured the web side of the Facebook API you must then install the Facebook SDK packages and dependencies into your application following the Facebook API reference guidelines . Please make sure that you whitelist the Facebook API URL, this is a common mistake as most platforms such as Android and IOS will automatically blacklist or block any external servers URLs for security reasons which of course includes any dependencies or APIs you have installed. Once you have correctly installed the Facebook API you can start building your bespoke Facebook single sign on integration. First create a button object called “login with Facebook” as shown in figure 4 below and create an event to fire when the button is touched by the user. Connect this event to the Facebook sign in function designated by the Facebook API reference.

Figure 4. Login Screen

This will connect to the API seamlessly and if the user is already logged in will automatically generate their unique login token and sign them into you application as shown below in figure 5.

Figure 5. Sign in Complete

If the user has not signed into to Facebook recently or does not have a Facebook account the API will automatically open a web view as seen in figure 6, that allows the user to enter their credentials. If after the user has connected to the Facebook web view sign in is unable to verify their current account or create a new one, they will simply be returned to the original login screen seen in figure 4. This will fire an a login error which you can choose to ignore or store for your records. If the user is unable to login with Facebook it is considered good design practice to also create your own authorised login system as a back up to make you app more inclusive.

Figure 6. Facebook Login Web View

You can also potentially setup similar buttons to connect with Facebook as seen below in figure 7, even after they have logged in with a different system, effectively marrying the two account to each other for one single seamless login experience to a single user account, this is also a powerful feature of the API. You can also of course allow the user to sign out at which point you can direct them back to the original login screen in figure 4 to create a complete login flow.

Figure 7. Settings – Connect with Facebook and Log Out

I hope this has given the reader some insight into the speed and efficacy of Facebook Single Sign On compared to conventional methods as well as the plethora of features such as analytics and team management offered through the Facebook SDK.

REFERENCES

Facebook, 2017. Facebook for Developers. [Online]
Available at: https://developers.facebook.com/
[Accessed 7 April 2017].

Jetscram, 2014. Social Media User Statistics & Age Demographics for 2014. [Online]
Available at: http://jetscram.com/blog/industry-news/social-media-user-statistics-and-age-demographics-2014/
[Accessed 24 April 2017].

Project Map and Storyboards

Mobile and Desktop Responsive Design Mockup

4th May 2017 travis Leave a comment

This post describes the design process and the final mock up screens for the Britizen mobile application. We decided to focus mainly on the mobile version for the design mockup as smartphones are now the primary method of accessing the web and internet services in the UK, according to industry monitor Ofcom (2015). All images are to scale and were built using Xcode’s interface builder running on iOS 10.3 on a simulated iPhone 7 but are also designed to be responsive for tablet and desktop, as shown in figure 2.

Figure 1. Landing Screen

The Britizen logo designed by Luis Cayola in his post was utilised throughout the app including the dark blue background colour which is used for consistency and to facilitate a more pervasive brand recognition. The landing page follows a minimalist design of all the salient features needed for a new user to either sign in using Facebook (see Facebook Integration post) or link to a new account creation page (figure 3). Following from Sue Breeze’s post centred around digital inclusion the app also incorporates features for people with sight difficulties. These features are the option for larger text throughout the app which is shown as text being over 16pt by the Royal National Institute of Blind People (2014). This helps to make our app more inclusive for the elderly and people with impaired vision. To further increase the inclusive scope the app we also opted to support text to speech so that users can navigate using the assistive controls on their system either via a computer keyboard or touch screen keyboard, to navigate the various on screen elements while a text to speech synthesiser will describe each element such as ‘input your email’ or ‘next page button’. These features can also be reconfigured in the settings screen. This screen also includes the legal terms and conditions and privacy statement links for users to peruse before signing up as per the EU Privacy Directives minimum requirements which states that any app that allows for user account creation that stores sensitive information such as personal details like emails and names must show clear and concise terms and conditions and privacy policies, Lubuenda (2016).

Figure 2. Sign Up Screen – responsive for desktop or large tablets

This screen shows that in app elements have been designed with the responsive design paradigm in mind. Each element has been given responsive scale and position parameters that will dynamically adapt to the screen size and operating system of the host device. In this example all of the elements have been scaled to the standard 12pt font size as per the Apple iOS Human Interface Guidelines (2017) for typography and text legibility. Elements remain centred and visible, relative to the desktop screen width, as well as the terms and conditions text remaining relative to the bottom bounds of the screens as per the original design. These practices are implemented across all of the screen view designs, as scalability is extremely important for a wide reaching inclusive platform such as Britizen.

Figure 3. Sign Up Screen

This is just a simple screen for account creation that allows the user to create their own account based on their personal email address as opposed to simply signing in with Facebook. This again makes the app more inclusive as it is not just targeted on users with Facebook accounts. This is to avoid any bias towards very young and old users who are statistically less likely to have a Facebook account according to leading online market research firm Jetscram’s Social Media User Statistics & Age Demographics for 2014 shown in figure 4.

Figure 4. Social Media User Statistics & Age Demographics for 2014 taken from http://jetscram.com/blog/industry-news/social-media-user-statistics-and-age-demographics-2014/

Facebook Age Demographic	Number of Users	Percentage of User Base
13-17	9.8 Million	5.4%
18-24	42 Million	23.3%
25-34	44 Million	24.4%
35-54	56 Million	31.1%
55+	28 Million	15.6%

Figure 5. Welcome Screen

The welcome screen shows a personalised message to the user if they have logged in with Facebook using their display name and Facebook profile picture, this is employed to create a personal bond with the user, as calling people by their first name has been shown to solidify human relationships as outlined by the book Maximum Influence: The 12 Universal Laws of Power Persuasion, increasing the user’s connection and warm feelings towards our app. The user is also presented with their Britizen Score or BP, this score visualisation was built using the D3 visualisation framework which is fantastic for displaying multi-faceted information in segmented views. The user can also look at their recent achievements, this was included to compound the practical usefulness of the platform to the user to increase their motivation to keep using Britizen in the future. The users can then select a link to be forwarded to the main screen which includes a tabulated view of the main”feed”, “groups” and “Score” views.

Figure 6. Main Screen – Feed

This view shows the main layout of the app with the top area of the view delegated to the Britizen logo and and a link to the settings screen. The settings button is configured to be a minimum of 44 x 44 pixels wider as per the Apple iOS Human Interface Guidelines (2017) to account for the user’s finger size when using the touch screen to provide a more responsive interface. The settings and send buttons are also situated on the right edge of the screen to make it easier for the predominantly right-handed users to access. The feed itself is very similar to other social networking sites such as Tumblr, Instagram and Facebook. Providing users with a timeline of posts and events that have taken place on the platform in the form of images and text. This design view also highlights the use of embedded sponsored advertising in the feed as a potential revenue stream for Britizen’s monetisation as outlined in Sue Breezes post on the Britizen Revenue Model. Users can also post to the their personalised feed using the controls at bottom of the screen that were modelled on Facebook messenger so users would already have a good understanding of the universal controls and icons used to post text, images and attachments such as PDFs, for example if they wanted to post their CV. At the bottom edge of the view, users can navigate the app using the segmented tabulated view control for the “feed”, “groups” and “Score” sections. This type of design is extremely pervasive within apps and should seem simple and intuitive to the user.

Figure 7. Main Screen – Groups

This screen displays some of various groups that are available to join on Britizen. Due to limited real estate of the screen size of iPhone7 and smaller mobile devices when compared to tablets and desktop, this screen example previews a maximum of 4 groups in any given instance. Each group is designated by a “B” shaped group icon, this icon was created using an image clipping mask in a similar way to how other social networking sites such as Facebook would use a circle mask. The “B” denotes the Britizen’s brand, as one of the initially outlined design focuses, was to keep a consistent British theme and brand recognition. The actual “B” used was taken from Luis Cayola’s Britizen logo design. Users are also presented with the name of each group as well as the number of current members and a button underneath that allows them to join. By selecting the group icon or group name the user will be forwarded to that groups individual page. Users can also explore further Britizen groups as the white area of the view is scrollable. The ‘Manage groups’ button will direct the user to a group management page where the user can edit their currently joined groups. As well as this the user can also create a new group denoted by the large plus symbol icon which will forward them to a group creation page. Towards the bottom of the screen the user can also perform a textual search for relevant groups that may interest them, which will be updated in the central white scrollable groups area.

Figure 8. Main Screen – Scores

The tabulated score view is essentially a user accessible version of the welcome screen (see figure. 5 for more information). The main difference being the colour scheme has been altered to be consistent with the style of the rest of the tabulated views by reversing the blue and white colouring. The only other difference is you are now referred to via your full name in a more serious and formal manner, this is to highlight the scores more official nature of your score when selected within the main screen.

Figure 9. Settings Screen

The settings screen which is accessible from the main tabulated view screens allows the user to configure their account, email and passwords settings as well as log out of the app. The user can also delete their account which will seamlessly remove any of their data we have stored on our records this is future proofing the app as the UK government is currently considering new laws and sanctions on the storage and control of personal data. This allows the users greater control over the information that is stored about them. The user can also configure the assistive options originally presented on landing screen (figure 1).

REFERENCES

Apple, 2017. Apple iOS Human Interface Guidelines. [Online] Available at: https://developer.apple.com/ios/human-interface-guidelines/visual-design/typography/ [Accessed 24 April 2017].

Iubuenda, 2016. Iubenda Blog. [Online] Available at: http://www.iubenda.com/blog/privacy-policy-for-ios-apps/ [Accessed 24 April 2017].

Mortensen, K., 2013. Maximum Influence: The 12 Universal Laws of Power Persuasion. s.l.:AMACOM.

Ofcom, 2015. Smartphones most Popular way to Browse Internet Ofcom. [Online]
Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/aug/06/smartphones-most-popular-way-to-browse-internet-ofcom
[Accessed 24 April 2017].

People, R. N. I. o. B., 2014. Reading Large Print Size. [Online]
Available at: https://help.rnib.org.uk/help/daily-living/reading/large-print-size
[Accessed 24 April 2017].

Trust

Trust and Credibility

4th May 2017 sueb Leave a comment

Trust can be at a one-to-one dyadic level between individuals, or more generalised (such as trusting professionals or family). Trust involves risk: making oneself vulnerable to the decisions of others. Credibility is a measure of others perception an individual or group’s trustworthiness.

A Britizen credit score is an independent measure of credibility. Each individual’s score is affected not only by their own actions, but by that of their Britizen ‘friends’. Having high scoring friends increases the score; lower scoring friends reduce it. Peer pressure encourages individuals to act in a trustworthy and socially responsible fashion, without government interference. Those behaving inappropriately risk the disapproval or exclusion from a friendship group. Essentially Britizen scores provide a global reputation based trust mechanism. This is explored in more detail in a separate post.

Global reputation systems such as Ebay[1] and Tripadvisor[2] are common on Web platforms. When individual identities are not verified there is a risk of deception by collusion. Britizen accounts are identified with the user’s National insurance number; which makes it difficult to create false identities and reduces the risk of deception.

[1] http://www.ebay.co.uk/

[2] https://www.tripadvisor.co.uk/

Team Management

4th May 2017 luis Leave a comment

In this post we will describe how the team worked together to develop the Britizen project and what technologies were employed for this purpose.

First meetings

When the teams were formed, a first meeting took place in order to introduce ourselves to the other members and explain everyone’s experience and preferences to distribute the tasks.

Special Group meetings took place at the beginning of the project to discuss the main ideas face to face and come up with a conclusion about Britizen as a social network and its technical and social goals. Also, the list with expected contents provided for the assignment was printed and used in the following weeks as a guideline to decide the new tasks.

Weekly supervised meetings

The team arranged a meeting with the project supervisor every week. In these meetings, the achieved goals were explained and the supervisor provided with his feedback and advices to improve our work or determine the new tasks.

Each member updated the others on their individual achievements and new task distribution (short term and long term) was discussed. During the meetings, the members took notes of the points reviewed in order to discuss them later through the Messenger group.

During the lastest stage of the project, we created a “Britizen Plan & Progress” document where all the assigned tasks were described, to be used as a checklist and determine which aspects needed to be completed.

A number of technologies were used in order to ease the communication among the members of the group, share contents and overcome the logistic problems:

Facebook Messenger Group

This free platform was used for the following tasks:

Discuss the short term goals.
Share light multimedia contents and links.
Update the other members on indidivual achievements.
Arrange meetings and express our availability.
Review the assigned tasks.
Used as a forum to express our doubts and help each other.

The use of this tool was essential as our schedules did not allow us to program daily meetings, so we found in Facebook Messenger an excellent way to keep in contact with the other members at any time.

Google Drive

This cloud storage system was used as a repository to include all the multimedia contents that were created for the project. A share folder was created, including:

A collection of links to be used for documenting and research at the first stages of the project.
Documents with the contents of posts in order to publicly modify them on real time.
Statements of the distribution of tasks.
Multimedia contents with a bigger size.

University Email Client

In order to get in contact with our supervisor and share official documents such as the Ethics application, the team members made use of their official university accounts.

Focus Group

Focus Group With Sesame Credit users

1st May 2017 luis Leave a comment

Sesame Credit is one of the applications that have influenced the idea of this project because of its social credit scoring system and all the information available on the net about it. However, many sites provide with wrong or distorted information that, although inspirational for the project, must be double checked in order to know to what extend Sesame Credit affects society.

This way, a Focus Group was arranged in order to get a more realistic and true knowledge of Sesame Credit. The participants were Chinese students that have been using this application for a long time. A number of questions about the use they make of Sesame Credit, how they feel about it, and how it affects their daily lives were proposed.

Questions were proposed in a structured way and participants came up with common conclusions that are presented below in this post. When opinions were too different among the participants to give a common description, the different answers are provided.

What do you think of Sesame Credit?

It is definitely convenient. You can make payments at any time with your phone, and there is no need to have a card or cash. It can be used in many contexts, from hotels to groceries. It is also highly usable.

What sort of tangible benefits do you receive from Sesame Credit?

First of all, life becomes easier as it is possible to make payments with the phone in a very convenient and fast way. Also, when your credit score is high enough, you can get loans that you will have to pay back after a certain amount of time. This way you can buy a new laptop in the Apple Store by asking for a loan from Sesame Credit proving your score is high enough, and then pay in installments.

There are many options for different kinds of people such as pay the house rent or the phone bills.

Last but not least, when your score is high you get some kind of honor and status. If you compare my score with other friends and yours is higher, it means you are an honest person (as this score is increased also by the trust worthy someone is when paying back a loan)

Do these benefits influence your actions?

Yes they do. If your phone gets stolen, they are having access to your personal platform to make payments and even ask for loans (let alone the risk of someone modifying your score), so this is something to really take care about. When the phone runs out of battery is also something to be worried about, as you might need to make any unexpected payment and would not be able to use this platform.

Also, you spend more money in order to get higher scores and so get even more benefits (access to new loans or increase of the maximum loan amount, etc). This benefits make you spend even more so it is like a loop.

Finally, some businesses send information about discounts through this application so it is also a platform to get to know if there is any sale or promotions in nearby places. This discounts can sometimes only be used through the application.

In general this all translates into using your phone much more.

Has Sesame Credit affected your behaviour?

Yes it has.

If so, how?

You kind of depend on your phone and on this application to do many things in your daily life such as buying fast food on the street (In China).

Definitely it also makes you spend more.

Do you see this as positive, negative or both?

It is positive as consuming you are helping your country’s economic development and increase its GDP (Gross Domestic Product). On the other hand, from and individual perspective, you spend more than what you like, so there is a risk that you become a wasteful person. Also you become more dependent on your phone which is not very positive.

Do you think Sesame Credit affects the behaviour of other people?

Yes.

If so, how?

People might go out less than usual as they can do their shopping from their homes, from checking to menu to purchase for delivery.

People from business will use this application to measure how trust worthy you are, so they check their consumers’ honesty, for example at the time of deciding whether to borrow money to them.

People also have to be responsible of their loans. A friend forgot to pay her loan back and by the time she realized she had to pay a huge amount of interests.

Do you see this as positive, negative or both?

Both. People become more dependent on their phones and their social skills might be harmed as they do not go outside that often (regarding face to face contact).

On the other hand it is positive for business as they have a way to determine the client’s honesty and so they can make better decisions.

The mentioned interests problem would be less likely to happen with banks as they would send informative letters (as these institutions may be better established and organized). Banks are generally more reliable and people take them more seriously.

What information can you see about other people on Sesame Credit?

You can check other’s people scores but you cannot buy the purchase history or how they improved their score due to privacy reasons.

Do you discuss your credit score with friends?

Yes

How often?

-Sometimes, but it is not a very important topic.

-I used to some time ago when the app came out, but not now anymore.

Are your friends interested in your credit score?

-It used to be something you talk with your friends like a game. It can also be seen as a way to show off how rich you are.

-Nowadays it depends on the person, but asking might not especially polite. Some of my friends post their credit score on Social Networks but

Have you asked to see your friend’s credit scores?

-Sometimes but not very thoroughly.

-I have never asked because I think it is private information.

Is it clear what affects your credit score?

The applications provides with information about how your score is calculated from factors such as: your current occupation, the veracity of your data, your financial behaviour (through factors like the kind of hotels or flight tickets you book), your shopping behaviour and paid bills, your social relationships and how influential you are on the credit scores of your friends, your loan history and the properties you have.

However, most people in China do not know this (as it is quite technical) and they just know that the more they consume, the higher mark they will get.

How much do you use Sesame Credit?

Very often.

How long have you been using it?

Around 4 years since it was released.

How often do you use it?

Quite a lot in my daily life in China as it can be used for many kinds of shopping or to pay bills.

Ethical considerations

Ethical Approval to run Focus Groups

1st May 2017 sueb Leave a comment

Southampton University requires ethical approval to be obtained for all research studies including ‘living things’. We used the university online ERGO system to formally request approval for our focus groups.

The Britizen Ethics application (Ethics ID:26030) to run focus groups was approved by the university Ethics Committee on April 23rd.

The focus group is described in more details in the post Focus Group with Sesame Credit Users.

Britizen

Monthly Archives: May 2017

Exploring the PageRank Algorithm

Dragon’s Den Presentation

Britizen Score

Mobile and Desktop Responsive Design Mockup

Trust and Credibility

Team Management

Focus Group With Sesame Credit users

Ethical Approval to run Focus Groups

Britizen development group blog