Taking into account user requirements, expectations and social experiences, HOPES will integrate a range of ICT-based solutions for:
- managing existing e-information by exhaustive search of existing information (Web and databases crawling) and intelligent structuring (i.e. TextMining) in the HOPES repository;
- then transforming selected information into personalised solutions,and finally providing validated solutions as “e-Social Best Practices” (SBP)*.
This stepwise process represents the “HOPES virtuous circle” for transforming raw data into knowledge (SBP) with help of many European organisations (end users).
The SBP will be provided to HOPES end users together with recommendations about how and when they can be best used during the elderly person’s daily life (“personal social calendar”). The social pertinence and high quality of the proposed HOPES SBP will be guaranteed through a validation process based on the Web 2.0 strategy (by and for end users) and following the “Evidence-Based Medicine” (EBM) method for certification.
Cooperation technology will ensure user-friendly interactivity, personnalisation, practical accessibility and usability of the HOPES platform, ICT solutions and content.
The technology will support interoperability and multiple roles as content user and provider, semantic technologies for semantic similarity reasoning and routing, human – system interfaces adapted to the elderly and a single but multilingual access point to share HOPES SBP all over Europe. In the pilot phase, each end user will be asked, in an iterative and interactive process, to provide his/her personal feed back about the SBP he/she tested, then about its impact (social relevance and user satisfaction) and social benefits on his/her quality of life and autonomy. HOPES will thus be in a position, soon after the end of the pilot, to commercialise a global and validated e-service.
Objectives
The HOPES project aims at developing an intelligent multimedia platform providing innovative social e-services for European elderly persons and their social entourage (as carers / supporters and ICT tutors when needed). Through this platform, HOPES will create the first European network dedicated to social interactions of the elderly and self-animated by its adherents. The ultimate goal of the project is to enhance socialisation, quality of life and autonomy of elderly persons by preventing isolation and loneliness, and generating positive social experiences and behaviour.
Specifically, HOPES aims to address the needs of the elderly population with adapted ICT, by:
- Creating a European network of virtual greying e-community(ies) in a multicultural and multilingual social environment, following European guidelines concerning quality,reliability and privacy;
- Preventing social exclusion by encouraging and/or re-creating special interactions,social engagement and self-esteem, as well as sharing of knowledge with other seniors (“communitying”);
- Carrying out a large analysis of user expectations, barriers, requirements and meaningful solutions that have the potential to change aging persons’ behaviour regarding ICT;
- Providing the technical environment, based on a web platform with innovative but validated ICT (containers, features / interfaces and contents), that allows to search for or create, evaluate and validate, organise and disseminate shared solutions for SBP in an iterative process allowing stepwise optimisation of the proposed SBP (“HOPES virtuous circle”);
- Using ICT to create / develop the “personal social calendar”, to organise and prioritise day-to-day rituals and social experiences, and recommend the preferred time for SBP; with electronic motivator services, e.g. email alerts; ;
- Enabling an active and intuitive interaction of users (elderly persons and their entourage when needed) with the system and with other people through the system, by means of an advanced multimedia and multilingual cooperation platform, according to a social web philosophy;
- Using adapted ergonomic interfaces and features, intelligent information solutions and ontologic / semantic technologies to ease management, sharing and use of its validated content, especially with regard to the targeted user group of elderly people who are generally weak users of ICT;
- Developing and implementing a participative, interactive and personalised validation system, (“HOPES certification”) based on a Web 2.0 strategy (online when possible,otherwise with help from entourage) and the EBM method, to guarantee the quality of the SBP and other solutions stored in the HOPES repository and shared with all users;
- Evaluating the time spent by end users (or their relatives as helpers / tutors) to use HOPES e-services properly, and use this information to improve the platform ergonomics;
- Evaluating the HOPES platform and SBP in a real end user situation (European-size
Expected results and impact
The HOPES project proposes to foster social interactions through the development of an accessible, easy-to-use and innovative ICT platform as forum of well aging and exchange of SBP and socialisation services in a European network.
Through the cooperative multimedia and multi-language social platform created by HOPES, its intelligent support systems, knowledge repository of SBP, social calendar and practical solutions, and provision of services “on the spot”, elderly people and their social entourage will be empowered to help themselves and others in their everyday life
Increased beneficial social interaction will reduce isolation and loneliness by conserving personal social rituals for better quality of life and mobility.
HOPES will contribute to progress beyond the state-of-the-art by developing a Europeanwide, social network platform for elderly and their entourage. HOPES innovation will come from implementation of an innovative ICT service with the most up-to-date yet userfriendly technology (hard-/software, interfaces) on the one side, and focus on an innovative elderly-centred approach with adapted models from geriatric psychology and ethnology, person-centred communication, evidence based medicine, practice and healthcare and health belief models on the other side.
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HOPES will contribute to the improvement of quality of life both directly and indirectly by considering three main dimensions of enhancing social interactions and quality of life of elderly persons (wellness and healthy behaviour; social and cognitive activities; improving / re-activating rituals)
Contact
Christian Schoen
E. : cschoen@info-techno.com
T. : +33 (0)6 85 10 60 59
