A Framework for ranking ubiquitous computing services by AHP analysis

Abstract

With the increasing advances in technology, ubiquitous computing services have been able to satisfy users by providing high quality services. Such services can be found in different areas such as healthcare, social networks, urban transportation, and multimedia. Nowadays, there are a wide variety of services with similar functionalities in each of the abovementioned areas. Ranking these services based on quality of service (QoS) criteria can help the users to choose the most appropriate services that meet their preferences. The aim of this research is to create a comprehensive framework based on QoS criteria in ubiquitous environment to rank services. At first by extending the previous research, this paper gathers and classifies the QoS criteria into four classes of architecture, usability, ubiquity, and security. This classification organizes QoS criteria in a hierarchical structure. Afterward, Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) is used to propose a customized service ranking framework according to the values of each criterion. To utilize the opinions of experts of the subject, a questionnaire is designed to evaluate the proposed structure of QoS criteria and to determine the weight of each criterion. Finally, comparing the proposed framework with previous approaches indicates that this framework includes a complete set of criteria, which leads to a deep perception of QoS in a ubiquitous computing environment. Moreover, the computed inconsistency ratio indicates that the performed decision-making process has a reasonable consistency.