Foresight for a responsible future with ICT

The ACM Code of Ethics asserts that computing professionals have an ethical responsibility to minimize the negative consequences of information and communication technologies (ICT). Negative consequences are rarely intended, but they can often be foreseen with careful sociotechnical analysis in advance of system building. Motivated by an interest in extremely complex sociotechnical contexts (e.g., mortgage lending and automated trading) where ICT appears to be having negative consequences in addition to many benefits, this paper identifies and evaluates future-oriented problem analysis and solution design tools in three potentially relevant literatures: 1) ICT ethics, 2) environmental sustainability, and 3) technology hazards. Several promising future-oriented technology analysis techniques (e.g., anticipatory technology ethics, technology roadmapping, morphological analysis, and control structure analysis) were found and are discussed in this paper, but much work remains to be done to customize them, integrate them, and codify them for use in education and high-quality IS research on very complex sociotechnical contexts like the global financial network.     

Temporal enactment of resettled refugees' ICT‐mediated information practices

“In this paper, we explain how resettled refugees use information and communication technology (ICT) to respond to their changed circumstances and, in doing so, enhance their well‐being and effective participation in a new society. Focusing on three modes of ICT‐mediated information practices (ie, orienting, instrumental, and expressive), we identify eight patterns of ICT use: learning about a new environment, keeping informed, transacting online, communicating with others, managing everyday life, sustaining support networks, maintaining transnational ties, and expressing cultural identity. Further, we draw on a temporal theory of human agency to explain how current dilemmas and contingencies, cultural identities and connections to the past, and future expectations and aspirations shape resettled refugees' enactment of these patterns of ICT‐mediated information practices. We show that, as resettled refugees move between multiple and overlapping temporal‐relational contexts, ICT use makes a difference to managing their bifurcated lives.”     

Components of human experience in virtual environments

Framework is presented for measuring human experience in virtual environment (VE). Human experience is defined as the content of direct observation or participation in an event. Both psychological and emotional properties are integrated into this ongoing person–environment interaction to give an experience meaning and value and to enhance its quality and intensity. The sense of presence, i.e., being in the VE is in the center of psychological study of a human experience in VEs. The ‘Big three’ structure of physical presence consists of perceptual, attentional and cognitive components. However, it is considered to ignore, e.g., emotional and ecological aspects in developing a holistic human experience. In this study, components of physical presence are integrated with three different measures of interaction and a set of motivational and cognitive-affective components. These components are integral in the theory of optimal experience, i.e., flow, which has been studied in various human activities. The results show, how these different experiential components relate each other in VE. It is also shown how common patterns can be found from various experiences and profiled to better understand human–computer interaction.     

Towards co-design with users who have autism spectrum disorders

People with cognitive disorders, such as autism or Asperger’s syndrome, face many barriers when being involved in the co-design of information and communications technologies (ICT). Cognitive disorders may require that co-design techniques be modified to fit with individual abilities. Up until recently, with technology design, purpose and use being in the hands of ‘experts’ there was little opportunity for customisation. However, ICT bring together various threads that make open many new possibilities. Not only are technologies cheaper, more powerful and more available than ever, but now parents, support agencies and people with autism spectrum disorders expect information technologies to be part of their worlds, and they have the capacity to participate in co-design for customisation. However, co-design techniques have not evolved to the extent that they capture this potential democratisation of the ICT. This paper reports on an investigation of the potential to develop a set of guidelines for co-design techniques to enable people with autism spectrum disorders to participate in ICT design.     

From Publics to Communities: Researching the Path of Shared Issues Through ICT

In recent years, citizens’ movements such as the Arab Spring or Euromaidan protests have clearly shown that, whenever affected – whether negatively or positively – by the state and government decisions, citizens act to deal with the shared issues. Groups of people who organize themselves to address (mainly political) issues were defined as a ‘public’ by the philosopher John Dewey. He believed it is necessary to improve communication to create a ‘Great Community’ as a cohesive group of a public. Although information and communication technologies (ICT) lead to ambivalent effects on pursuing this goal and often distract the mass of people from discussing these issues, we argue that nowadays ICT can improve communication and has the potential to foster the detection of issues and therefore promote the (trans-)formation of a public into an issue-based community. As our foundation we took a literature study covering the formation of publics and their potential to evolve into communities, as well as their interplay with technology. This formed the basis for the development of our operational model that ‘follows the issues’ for capturing the (trans-)formation of a public. Based on our model, we outline different perspectives on detecting shared issues as early indicators for publics based on ICT and derive implications for researching this process from a practical perspective.     

Teacher factors associated with innovative curriculum goals and pedagogical practices: differences between extensive and non‐extensive ICT‐using science teachers

Second Information Technology in Education Study (SITES) 2006 was an international study about pedagogical practices and the use of information and communication technology (ICT) in math and science classrooms. One of the findings of SITES 2006 was that – across educational systems – a proportion of the math and science teachers in the 22 countries researched in the SITES 2006 study were using ICT extensively and their pedagogy was oriented towards lifelong learning which is considered relevant for the 21st century. Starting from this finding, a secondary analysis has been conducted to explore differences between extensive and non‐extensive ICT‐using science teachers with respect to pedagogical orientation, ICT competencies and professional engagement. Based on selected questions from the SITES 2006 teacher questionnaire, indicators have been developed for these constructs. Differences between the two groups were calculated using simple t‐tests and effect sizes. The findings showed that both groups of science teachers had a pedagogical orientation that reflected traditionally important as well as lifelong learning curriculum goals and practices, but extensive ICT‐using science teachers, much more than their non‐extensive ICT‐using colleagues pursued curriculum goals and practices that are oriented towards lifelong learning. In addition, extensive ICT‐using science teachers appeared more confident about their ICT competencies and felt more professionally engaged; two factors that were also found in other studies to positively relate to a lifelong learning orientation towards teaching and learning.     

Disruptive information system innovation: the case of internet computing

Abstract. Information system (IS) innovation can be defined as a novel organizational application of digital computer and information communication technologies (ICT). This paper discusses how modalities of applying ICT technologies in their form and scope exhibit radical breaks, which are introduced herein as ‘disruptive IS innovations’. This notion of disruptive IS innovation is developed by drawing upon and extending Swanson's (1994) theory of IS innovation as well as the concept of radical innovation. Disruptive innovations strongly influence the future trajectory of the adoption and use of ICT in organizational contexts and make the trajectory deviate from its expected course. In doing so, these disruptive innovations distinctly define what an IS is and how it is deployed in order to address current and future organizational and managerial prerogatives. Such changes are triggered breakthroughs in the capability of ICT that lead to the revision and expansion of associated cognitive models (frames) of computing. Disruptive IS innovations are those that lead to changes in the application of ICT that are both pervasive and radical. The pervasive nature implies that innovative activity spans all innovation subsets of the quad‐core model of IS innovation introduced herein. Innovation types include: IS use and development processes; application architecture and capability; and base technologies. Radical in nature, disruptive is innovations depart in significant ways from existing alternatives and lead to deviation from expected use and diffusion trajectory. This paper demonstrates the importance of a concept of disruptive IS innovation by investigating how changes triggered by internet computing (Lyytinen et al., 1998) meet the conditions of a disruptive IS innovation defined herein. The analysis also affirms both the pervasive and radical nature of internet computing and explains how internet computing has fundamentally transformed the application portfolio, development practices and IS services over time. The analysis demonstrates that, with the concept of disruptive IS innovation, we can fruitfully analyse ‘long’ waves of ICT evolution – an issue that has largely been overlooked in the IS community. On a theoretical plane, the paper advocates the view that we need to look beyond linear, unidirectional, and atomistic concepts of the diffusion of IS innovations where innovative activity takes places in a linear fashion by oscillating between small technological innovations and small organizational innovations. In contrast, IS innovation can exhibit fundamental discontinuity; we need to theoretically grasp such disruptive moments. The recent influx of innovation, spurred by internet‐based technology, offers one such moment.     

Predicting ICT integration into classroom teaching in Chinese primary schools: exploring the complex interplay of teacher‐related variables

Available research has explored a wide variety of factors influencing information and communication technologies (ICT) adoption and integration in classroom teaching; however, existing research seldom centre on the combined impact of these variables. In addition, the little research available is set up in the Chinese context. The latter is important given that the different cultural context in which the interplay between teacher beliefs and educational practices has only been documented quiet little. The present study centres on the complex interplay of a number of internal teacher variables to explain ICT classroom integration. These variables comprise ‘teachers’ constructivist teaching beliefs’, ‘teacher attitudes towards computers in education’, ‘teachers’ computer motivation’, ‘teacher perception of ICT‐related policy’. A survey was set up, involving 820 Chinese primary school teachers. Path modeling was used to explore the direct and indirect effects of the teacher‐related variables on their level of ICT classroom integration. Firstly, two distinctive types of ICT use can be distinguished in the Chinese context: (a) teacher supportive use of ICT that refers to the use of ICT for e.g. student administration, preparing worksheets, developing evaluation activities; and (b) classroom use of ICT to support and enhance the actual teaching and learning process. The results show that classroom use of ICT directly depends on teachers' computer motivation and the supportive use of ICT. Teachers' constructivist beliefs, their attitudes towards computers in education and perceptions about the ICT‐related school policy influence ICT integration in an indirect way. The results demonstrate how the complex interplay between teacher‐related variables and ICT integration in the classroom is partly in line with findings in non‐Asian contexts. A number of differences can be explained by the particular Chinese context. In particular an indirect relationship was found between teachers' constructivist beliefs and their level of ICT integration.     

21st-century competences: The relation of ICT competences with higher-order thinking capacities and teamwork competences in university students

The Knowledge Society, along with the non-stop growing technological evolution, entails university students acquiring new competences for them to be successful in society. These are called 21st-century competences that come as high-skill competences – higher-order thinking capacities and teamwork competences – and information and communication technologies (ICT) competences – technological, pedagogical and ethical. This study aims to determine the link between ICT competences and high-skill competences. A correlational study was conducted whose sample was formed by 983 students studying degrees at the Universidad de Valencia (Spain), selected by non-probabilistic incidental sampling and collecting information with two questionnaires. The results indicate a positive and statistically significant relation between ICT competences with the other two considered sets: higher-order thinking capacities and teamwork competences. Moreover, pedagogical competences are more related with the two high-skill competence sets. This suggests the need for training plans that favour learning 21st-century competences and for stressing pedagogical competences in ICT.     

What drives global ICT adoption? Analysis and research directions

Information and communication technology (ICT) adoption is increasing globally and offers unique opportunities for information systems (IS) and electronic commerce researchers to undertake research that will have an impact. The purpose of this article is to survey the academic literature on this topic and provide research directions for future work. We analyze economic, social and other factors that drive global ICT adoption and the individual, organizational, industry and economy impacts. We do this with respect to a set of relevant problems, technology opportunities, theories, research methods, and solutions. The integration of these areas enables us to establish a balanced picture of the current state of global ICT adoption research. It also offers a useful means to analyze the kinds of research that needs to be pursued to make additional progress in the related area of e-commerce research. With these ideas in mind, we present five emerging research directions in three different categories: new economic geography, rational expectations theory, and new empirical methods. We also analyze several topics in the global arena of emerging technologies.     

Trick with treat – Reciprocity increases the willingness to communicate personal data

Information security is a significant challenge for information and communication technologies (ICT). This includes withstanding attempts of social engineering aimed at manipulating people into divulging confidential information. However, many users are lacking awareness of the risks involved. In a field survey that tested reciprocal behavior in social interactions, 1208 participants were asked to reveal their personal password. In line with the social norm of reciprocity, more than one third of the participants were willing to do so when they received a small incentive. Elicitation was even more successful when the incentive was given right before asking for the password. The results, including moderating factors (e.g., age, gender), are discussed in the light of security awareness of ICT users and the mechanisms of psychological persuasion.     

How and why do student teachers use ICT?

This paper examines how and why student teachers made use of information and communication technology (ICT) during a 1‐year initial teacher education programme from 2008 to 2009. This is a mixed methods study involving a survey (N = 340) of the entire cohort and a series of semi‐structured interviews with a sample of student teachers within the cohort (N = 21). The study explored several themes, including the nature of student teachers' use of ICT; variation in the use of ICT; support for, and constraints on, using ICT; attitudes to ICT and to teaching and learning more generally. It was found that nearly all teachers were receptive to using ICT – more so than their in‐service counterparts – and made frequent use of it during their placement (internship) experience. The Interactive Whiteboard (IWB) was central to nearly all student teachers' use of ICT, in good part, because it was already used by their mentors and was widely accessible. Student teachers' use of ICT was categorized in three levels. Routine users focused mostly on the use of the IWB for whole class teaching; extended users gave greater opportunities for pupils to use ICT for themselves; innovative student teachers used ICT in a greater range of contexts and made more effort to overcome barriers such as access. ICT use was seen as emerging from a mix of factors: chiefly student teachers' access to ICT; their feeling of ‘self‐efficacy’ when using ICT; and their belief that ICT had a positive impact on learning – in particular, the impact on pupils' behavioural and affective engagement. Factors which influenced ICT use included mentoring, training and support. Limitations on student teachers' use of ICT are explored and it is suggested that new teachers need to be supported in developing a more discerning use as they begin their teaching careers.     

A Platform Studies Approach to the Role of Technology in the ICTD Ecosystem: The SMS in m4d Interventions

We have good evidence – not least from widespread adoption – that mobile communications can improve the lives of the poor. Building on this success, interventions using mobile technology to tackle development problems have become common in ICT4D. The short message service (SMS), which works on even basic phones, is a popular platform for mobiles for development (m4d) apps and services.

This paper documents the historical origins and technical characteristics of SMS as a platform for m4d interventions, demonstrating how inherent technological rigidities in the platform combine with creative adaptation, appropriation and re-use to produce a particular set of affordances and constraints. I argue that optimism about the potential for new technologies to contribute to development should be tempered by awareness that the developing world is seldom the intended audience of technology development. Approaches from the social construction of technology – infrastructure studies and platform studies – contribute to a holistic and historicized understanding of the role of technology in the information and communication technology ecosystem.     

Cooperative control in production and logistics

Classical applications of control engineering and information and communication technology (ICT) in production and logistics are often done in a rigid, centralized and hierarchical way. These inflexible approaches are typically not able to cope with the complexities of the manufacturing environment, such as the instabilities, uncertainties and abrupt changes caused by internal and external disturbances, or a large number and variety of interacting, interdependent elements. A paradigm shift, e.g., novel organizing principles and methods, is needed for supporting the interoperability of dynamic alliances of agile and networked systems. Several solution proposals argue that the future of manufacturing and logistics lies in network-like, dynamic, open and reconfigurable systems of cooperative autonomous entities.The paper overviews various distributed approaches and technologies of control engineering and ICT that can support the realization of cooperative structures from the resource level to the level of networked enterprises. Standard results as well as recent advances from control theory, through cooperative game theory, distributed machine learning to holonic systems, cooperative enterprise modeling, system integration, and autonomous logistics processes are surveyed. A special emphasis is put on the theoretical developments and industrial applications of Robustly Feasible Model Predictive Control (RFMPC). Two case studies are also discussed: (i) a holonic, PROSA-based approach to generate short-term forecasts for an additive manufacturing system by means of a delegate multi-agent system (D-MAS); and (ii) an application of distributed RFMPC to a drinking water distribution system.     

Understanding collective human movement dynamics during large-scale events using big geosocial data analytics

Conventional approaches for modeling human mobility pattern often focus on human activity and movement dynamics in their regular daily lives and cannot capture changes in human movement dynamics in response to large-scale events. With the rapid advancement of information and communication technologies, many researchers have adopted alternative data sources (e.g., cell phone records, GPS trajectory data) from private data vendors to study human movement dynamics in response to large-scale natural or societal events. Big geosocial data such as georeferenced tweets are publicly available and dynamically evolving as real-world events are happening, making it more likely to capture the real-time sentiments and responses of populations. However, precisely-geolocated geosocial data is scarce and biased toward urban population centers. In this research, we developed a big geosocial data analytical framework for extracting human movement dynamics in response to large-scale events from publicly available georeferenced tweets. The framework includes a two-stage data collection module that collects data in a more targeted fashion in order to mitigate the data scarcity issue of georeferenced tweets; in addition, a variable bandwidth kernel density estimation(VB-KDE) approach was adopted to fuse georeference information at different spatial scales, further augmenting the signals of human movement dynamics contained in georeferenced tweets. To correct for the sampling bias of georeferenced tweets, we adjusted the number of tweets for different spatial units (e.g., county, state) by population. To demonstrate the performance of the proposed analytic framework, we chose an astronomical event that occurred nationwide across the United States, i.e., the 2017 Great American Eclipse, as an example event and studied the human movement dynamics in response to this event. However, this analytic framework can easily be applied to other types of large-scale events such as hurricanes or earthquakes.     

Open classroom: enhancing student achievement on artificial intelligence through an international online competition

Limitations of formal learning (e.g., one‐way communication, rigid methodology, results‐oriented approach) can significantly influence the motivation and expectation of students, thus resulting in an academic progress reduction. In order to make learning processes more playful and motivating, this paper presents a new educational experience developed by two groups of Computer Science students at the University of Huelva (Spain). As a result, an authentic real experience was incorporated into the classical teaching of Artificial Intelligence courses where classroom sessions were changed during some days for an international online competition. A comprehensive study considering the competition ranking, the students' opinion and their academic progress was analysed to assess the followed methodology. We found out that the educational experience improved the students' motivation, thereby enhancing their academic performance and personal skills as a result of learning through play. Moreover, additional teaching goals (e.g., learning new programming languages or increasing exam attendance) were obtained because of the positive motivation experienced by the competition. As a conclusion, this paradigm of real‐life experience – not otherwise provided by traditional practical lessons – allowed us to ascertain that the process is more important than the outcome, which could be adapted to different teaching scenarios within an institution.     

Toward a comparative theory of agents

The purpose of this paper is to address some of the questions on the notion of agent and agency in relation to property and personhood. I argue that following the Kantian criticism of Aristotelian metaphysics, contemporary biotechnology and information and communication technologies bring about a new challenge—this time, with regard to the Kantian moral subject understood in the subject’s unique metaphysical qualities of dignity and autonomy. The concept of human dignity underlies the foundation of many democratic systems, particularly in Europe as well as of international treaties, including the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Digital agents, artificial organisms as well as new capabilities of the human agents related to their embeddedness in digital and biotechnological environments bring about an important transformation of the human self-appraisal. A critical comparative reflection of this transformation is important because of its ethical implications. I deal first with the concept of agent within the framework of Aristotelian philosophy, which is the basis for further theories in accordance with and/or in opposition to it, particularly since modernity. In the second part of this paper, I deal with the concept of personhood in Kantian philosophy, which supersedes the Aristotelian metaphysics of substance and builds the basis of a metaphysics of the moral human subject. In the third part, I discuss the question of artificial agents arising from modern biology and ICT. Blurring the difference between the human and the natural and/or artificial opens a “new space” for philosophical reflection as well as for debate in law and practical policy.     

ICT use in education: different uptake and practice in Hebrew‐speaking and Arabic‐speaking schools in Israel

Closing educational gaps between sub‐populations in Israel, particularly between students in Hebrew‐speaking and Arabic‐speaking schools, persists to be one of the priorities of Israel's education system. In the field of information and communication technology (ICT), this goal refers to infrastructure as well as practice, i.e. teaching and learning. A secondary analysis of Second Information Technology in Education Study 2006 study findings portrays a multifaceted state of affairs on some issues, e.g. vision and goals, attitudes on ICT importance in general and as a lever for paradigmatic change in particular. This is contrary to expectations due to the inequality in allocation (mainly of infrastructure) between the two sectors. Arabic‐speaking mathematics teachers indicate greater ICT usage in their target class, while among science teachers, Hebrew‐speaking teachers report greater usage and influence on their pedagogy, indicating innovative usage . Conclusions suggest that further effort is needed to close the gaps between Hebrew‐ and Arabic‐speaking schools as well as collaboration and exchange of ideas, information and educational experience between staff members from both sectors.