Questioning Usability

2011 ◽  
pp. 455-467
Author(s):  
Marco Padula ◽  
Amanda Reggiori
Keyword(s):  
Information Systems ◽  
Social Context ◽  
Computer Science ◽  
Technological Progress ◽  
Virtual Communities ◽  
Working Environment ◽  
Digital Inclusion ◽  
Communications Systems ◽  
Access Information ◽  
Process Material

This chapter is intended to question what usability is, or should be, in the field of computer science. We focus the design of information systems meant as systems enabling large virtual communities to access information and communications; systems aimed to support the working activities of a restricted team, but also to offer services accessible and usable in the perspective of global digital inclusion. We shall not propose a specific viewpoint to usability, but a focus to many concepts, aspects, potentialities which have to be nowadays considered to detail the idea of usability and design suited systems. Systems must be used by a community of users in their complex working activity to process material or information; to modify rough material but also the working environment and methods. This requires to consider them as tools in a social context of use which has expectations from the technological progress.

Creating and Capturing Value through Crowdsourcing

2018 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Information Systems ◽  
Systems Biology ◽  
Computer Science ◽  
Open Innovation ◽  
Product Innovation ◽  
Collective Intelligence ◽  
Innovation Management ◽  
Private And Public ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
The Uk

Examples of the value that can be created and captured through crowdsourcing go back to at least 1714, when the UK used crowdsourcing to solve the Longitude Problem, obtaining a solution that would enable the UK to become the dominant maritime force of its time. Today, Wikipedia uses crowds to provide entries for the world’s largest and free encyclopedia. Partly fueled by the value that can be created and captured through crowdsourcing, interest in researching the phenomenon has been remarkable. For example, the Best Paper Awards in 2012 for a record-setting three journals—the Academy of Management Review, Journal of Product Innovation Management, and Academy of Management Perspectives—were about crowdsourcing. In spite of the interest in crowdsourcing—or perhaps because of it—research on the phenomenon has been conducted in different research silos within the fields of management (from strategy to finance to operations to information systems), biology, communications, computer science, economics, political science, among others. In these silos, crowdsourcing takes names such as broadcast search, innovation tournaments, crowdfunding, community innovation, distributed innovation, collective intelligence, open source, crowdpower, and even open innovation. The book aims to assemble papers from as many of these silos as possible since the ultimate potential of crowdsourcing research is likely to be attained only by bridging them. The papers provide a systematic overview of the research on crowdsourcing from different fields based on a more encompassing definition of the concept, its difference for innovation, and its value for both the private and public sectors.

Using information technology to integrate social and ethical issues into the computer science and information systems curriculum

1997 ◽  
Vol 25 (4) ◽  
pp. 38-47 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mary J. Granger ◽  
Elizabeth S. Adams ◽  
Christina Björkman ◽  
Don Gotterbarn ◽  
Diana D. Juettner ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Information Technology ◽  
Information Systems ◽  
Computer Science ◽  
Ethical Issues ◽  
Social And Ethical Issues ◽  
Information Systems Curriculum

Layering Learning – Geographic Information Systems (GIS)

2014 ◽  
pp. 821-835
Author(s):  
Donna Goldstein ◽  
Valerie C. Bryan
Keyword(s):  
Information Systems ◽  
Geographic Information Systems ◽  
21St Century ◽  
Learning Process ◽  
Digital Age ◽  
Geographic Information ◽  
Doing Business ◽  
Access Information ◽  
Potential Impact ◽  
Insight Into

There are several issues that we urgently need to address regarding K-20 education, including engaging students in the learning process, preparing our youth for entry into the 21st century workplace, enabling them to become fully productive citizens, and providing them with the tools they will need to succeed. Our ability to flourish as a nation depends on this. In his article, “Place-Based Knowledge in the Digital Age,” Thomas Fisher (2012) discusses the potential impact Geographic Information Systems (GIS) may have as our global society becomes more immersed in digital and spatial media. He suggests that “GIS will eventually become a major way—perhaps the dominant way—in which we will access information in the future because of the essentially spatial nature of that software” (Fisher, 2012, p. 5). While Fisher's notion of “spatializing education” may seem abstract, the reality is our ability to connect multiple layers of data based on place will afford a more informed insight into our past, present, and future by revealing relationships, trends, and patterns. Connecting data spatially shifts our way of thinking, and our way of doing business as well as education (Baker, 2012). This is explored in this chapter.

E-Portfolio to Promote the Virtual Learning Group Communities on the Grid

2012 ◽  
pp. 749-764
Author(s):  
Guy Gouardères ◽  
Emilie Conté
Keyword(s):  
Social Context ◽  
Informal Learning ◽  
Virtual Communities ◽  
Virtual Community ◽  
Virtual Learning ◽  
Peer To Peer ◽  
The Other ◽  
Educational Training ◽  
Learning Group ◽  
The One

In Vocational and Educational Training (VET), new trends are toward social learning and, more precisely, toward informal learning. In such settings, this article introduces a process — the e-Qualification — to manage informal learning on the ELeGI “Learning Grid Infrastructure.” It argues that this process must occur in a social context, such as virtual communities. On the one hand, it describes their necessary characteristics and proprieties that lead to the creation of a new kind of virtual community: the Virtual Learning Grid Community (VLGC). On the other hand, e-Qualification cannot occur without the help of a kind of user’s profile, called e-portfolio. Moreover, the e-portfolio is also a process, used to manage the Virtual Learning Grid Communities. The e-Qualification and Virtual Learning Grid Communities’ management will probably rely on the cooperation of different distributed, autonomous, goal-oriented entities, called Mobile Peer-to-Peer (P2P) Agents. Furthermore, we hope that implementing these services will decrease the lack of informal learning treatment on the grid and will become the basis for new services on the Learning Grid.

Why the Institutional Access Digital Divide Might Be More Significant than the Home Broadband Divide

2020 ◽  
pp. 61-79
Author(s):  
Christopher McConnell ◽  
Joseph Straubhaar
Keyword(s):  
Social Context ◽  
Internet Use ◽  
The United States ◽  
Descriptive Statistics ◽  
The Internet ◽  
Broadband Access ◽  
Digital Inclusion ◽  
The Family ◽  
Use Of The Internet ◽  
Policy Priority

Digital-inclusion policy in the United States has historically emphasized home broadband access as both its policy priority and goal. Supplying households with broadband access may not do much to improve the ability of individuals to make meaningful use of the Internet, however, since it provides Internet access with little social context beyond the family. Drawing on Bourdieu's concepts of disposition, habitus, and multiple forms of capital, this paper endeavors to situate Internet use in its broader social context and explores the importance of institutional access, Internet use at work or school, in developing the dispositions and competencies needed to use the Internet in instrumental ways, such as applying for educational programs or communicating with governments. Through descriptive statistics, it identifies which segments of a US city lack institutional access, and, using multivariate analysis, it highlights the role institutional access plays in developing these abilities and its role in further inequality.

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