scholarly journals A “Social Bitcoin” Could Sustain a Democratic Digital World

Author(s):  
Kaj-Kolja Kleineberg ◽  
Dirk Helbing

AbstractA multidimensional financial system could provide benefits for individuals, companies, and states. Instead of top-down control, which is destined to eventually fail in a hyperconnected world, a bottom-up creation of value can unleash creative potential and drive innovations. Multiple currency dimensions can represent different externalities and thus enable the design of incentives and feedback mechanisms that foster the ability of complex dynamical systems to self-organize and lead to a more resilient society and sustainable economy. Modern information and communication technologies play a crucial role in this process, as Web 2.0 and online social networks promote cooperation and collaboration on unprecedented scales. Within this contribution, we discuss how one dimension of a multidimensional currency system could represent socio-digital capital (Social Bitcoins) that can be generated in a bottom-up way by individuals who perform search and navigation tasks in a future version of the digital world. The incentive to mine Social Bitcoins could sustain digital diversity, which mitigates the risk of totalitarian control by powerful monopolies of information and can create new business opportunities needed in times where a large fraction of current jobs is estimated to disappear due to computerization.

Author(s):  
Burak Pak

This paper aims at discussing the potentials of bottom-up design practices in relation to the latest developments in Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) by making an in-depth review of inaugural cases. The first part of the study involves a literature study and the elaboration of basic strategies from the case study. The second part reframes the existing ICT tools and strategies and elaborates on their potentials to support the modes of participation performed in these cases. As a result, by distilling the created knowledge, the study reveals the potentials of novel modes of ICT-enabled design participation which exploit a set of collective action tools to support sustainable ways of self-organization and bottom-up design. The final part explains the relevance of these with solid examples and presents a hypothetical case for future implementation. The paper concludes with a brief reflection on the implications of the findings for the future of architectural design education.


2021 ◽  
pp. 238133772110275
Author(s):  
Elizabeth (Betsy) A. Baker

In the spring of 2020, schools across the country and world closed. COVID-19 reached pandemic proportions. Were schools prepared? Was there a research base available to help schools prepare students for reading and writing digital texts? The ability to read, analyze, compose, and communicate with digital texts requires digital literacies. However, the rapid-fire development of information and communication technologies (ICTs) makes the identification of digital literacies and the development of curriculum and instruction a moving target. In her Literacy Research Association Presidential Address, Dr. Betsy Baker asserts that digital literacies are no longer an entity separate from reading and writing instruction, they are no longer a technology issue, students live in a digital world, and digital literacies are not optional. Digital literacies have become the literacies of our culture. Baker synthesizes over 25 years of research to propose that digital literacies are persistently public, semiotic, product-oriented, and transitory. Researchers, educational leaders, and teachers can leverage these characteristics as footholds to identify ever-changing digital literacies, design curricula, and provide instruction so that all students can be autonomous as they seek to thrive in a digital world. Dr. Baker’s Presidential Address is available online (see https://youtu.be/Avzup21ZnA4 ).


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Doris Emetarom Aduba ◽  
Victoria O. Odegwo ◽  
Obiora Kingsley Udem

This paper aims at establishing the effectiveness of physical academic libraries in a digitally-evolved world. It tends to explore the priorities of academic libraries in line with the changing global environment. Data was gathered through desk research and content analysis approach. Data generated from analysis of literature were augmented by brainstorming and interaction with professional colleagues from different academic libraries within the south-east geo-political zone of Nigeria. The paper described the physical library and nature of academic libraries with reference to the digital world, explain the attributes of the digitally-evolved world and need for transforming physical academic libraries in line with changing global space, highlight the constraints to the effectiveness of academic libraries in a digital world, discuss the keys to effective services delivery in physical academic libraries as it relates to the digital world and outline the prospects for the physical academic libraries in a digital world. The implications for librarians in the digital world were described. The paper concludes that most libraries are still at the analogue stage and that despite the overwhelming influence of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) on the services provided by libraries, the physical space of the academics libraries is still relevant.


2021 ◽  
Vol 23 (1) ◽  
pp. 6-12
Author(s):  
NATALYA YASKOVA ◽  

The pandemic has become the reason for structural reforms as well as for discussing many issues by the expert community. In this regard, the Gaidar Forum – 2021 became the very platform where experts in various fields of knowledge could meet. Specialists discussed such issues as sustainable development problems, the innovative focus of development, the introduction of IT technologies, restructuring of national economies, new business models, etc. Most of the questions, one way or another, concern the problem of the evolution of the living environment. These are the questions that were presented by the experts of the “Building together” discussion platform. Analyzing the results of the construction complex, which ensures the implementation of the national project “Housing and the Urban Environment”, made it possible to identify the nature of further measures taken by the Government of the Russian Federation in order to create a competitive living environment. Experts systematized the prospects for business models of investment and construction activities involved in the development of territories, identified new tools for enhancing investment activity, and focused the attention of the authorities on information and communication technologies used in modeling the living environment.


Author(s):  
Dishita Khandelia

Abstract: The development of information and communication technologies has undergone rapid changes because of which many activities are integrated online and have become more pliable and effectual. With the tremendous growth of online user’s, the concept of virtual word has been activated and have generated a new business occurrence to assist the monetary activities such as purchasing, trading and selling of cryptocurrency. Cryptocurrency constitutes precious and impalpable items that are to be electronically used in various implementations and system such as digital social system and digital worlds. This paper enlightens the readers on how cryptocurrency is functioned. It also lets the readers gain confidence in dealing with cryptocurrency by informing them that the use of such kind of digital money is not entirely authorized. Anyway, this paper aims in guiding the readers about the escalation of cryptocurrency to view it more vividly and practically. This paper also analyses ways of regulations & legislations towards cryptocurrencies and other things like merits, demerits, and criticisms attached to it so that a clear picture can be developed of its impact on various laws to regulate.


Author(s):  
Rosa M. Baños ◽  
Ernestina Etchemendy ◽  
Alba Carrillo-Vega ◽  
Cristina Botella

Since the advent of Positive Psychology there has been a connection between positive psychological interventions (PPIs) and the digital world. The development of PPIs, especially those delivered online, is becoming widespread within and outside the scientific field. Therefore, there is currently a need for accurate information that provides a critical view of all the interventions currently available. This chapter presents an updated review of the relationship between these two fields (PPIs and technologies), and discusses relevant considerations that should be taken into account when technologies are used to deliver PPIs, as well as the elements that can moderate their effectiveness. The final aim of the chapter is to provide readers with basic tools to make critical judgments about PPIs delivered via a technological format.


Author(s):  
Puseletso Kekana ◽  
Leila Goosen

The purpose of this chapter was to investigate how effectively information and communication technologies (ICTs) were used at primary schools in the Ekurhuleni South district of Gauteng Province, South Africa for re-envisioning and restructuring e-schooling in underprivileged communities. Governments and schools made huge investments, integrating ICTs and providing computer-based education, to support teaching and learning. There have been numerous initiatives, which have been endorsed by national and international bodies worldwide. The main aim of all ICT-based initiatives was to enhance the quality of education and prepare learners for the emerging digital world. Numerous studies across the world have provided impressive outcomes for the use of ICTs in schools, and more evidence is also emerging regarding the sustainability of ICT transformation in schools. There has also been abundant literature, which emphasized the need for teachers to change their beliefs about and perceptions of ICTs in order to realize the full potential.


Author(s):  
Carmen De-Pablos-Heredero

Organizational changes are required for the implementation of information and communication technologies (ICT) at firms operating in the textile industry. Technologies for a new way of doing things will not provide good results if applied to an old established process. ICT allows putting into action processes in a different way, which may result in many cases, in more efficient and convenient process from the perspective of customer value generation. Textile firms highly invest in digital transformation to get new business models that constitute a challenge for traditional ways to operate. For that, they must face organisational changes. Change management implies leaving a group of structures, procedures, and behaviours and the adoption of new ones. Organizations must be able to identify potential efficient processes as a consequence of the application of new technologies. An appropriate management of more tangible aspects—equipment, financial resources—and intangible ones—people, users, and perceptions—will have impact on change management results.


Author(s):  
Cheryl Brown

Critical discourse analysis (CDA) is a cross-disciplinary methodological and theoretical approach. At its core CDA explores the intersections between discourse, critique, power, and ideology which hold particular values for those teaching in developing contexts. CDA has emerged as a valuable methodological approach in cultural and media studies and has increased in prominence since the 2010s in education research where it is drawn on to explore educational policy, literacy education, and identity. This research has intersected with the field of information systems which has explored the dominant discourses and discursive practice of how information and communication technologies (ICTs) are viewed in policy and the contradictions between rhetoric and reality. It has also been drawn on in research in developing contexts to critique the role of ICTs in education. A brief historical background to CDA and overview of the key components of the approach will be provided. How CDA has been drawn on in educational studies will be examined and research on CDA will be highlighted to explore discursive practices of students and the influence of students’ digital identities on their engagement with and experience of online learning. By focusing on four key constructs of CDA—namely meaning, context, identity, and power—the potential of CDA to critically investigate how students’ are constructing their technological identity in an increasingly digital world will be demonstrated, particularly as examples of research emanating from developing contexts will be drawn.


Bankarstvo ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 49 (3) ◽  
pp. 102-127
Author(s):  
Marija Stojmenović

The notion of a cashless society is slowly becoming an inevitability of the modern way of doing business. Withdrawal of cash from use is the result of wide application of information and communication technologies. Increasing digitalization has contributed to the fact that most transactions are performed via smart devices (phones, tablets, desktops), without the use of cash and without going to the bank. The development of technological innovations, as well as innovations in finance, has undoubtedly contributed to increasing efficiency in business, but the question is whether the increasing digitalization of life and business, which is reflected in the creation of a cashless society, is still so desirable for humanity. The paper focuses on the socio-economic aspects of withdrawing cash from use. On the one hand, states are given the opportunity to influence economic activities even more directly through their central banks, while on the other hand, the issue is raised concerning human freedoms and rights in the digital world, in which it will be possible to electronically control the entire business.


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