The concept of information architecture in the context of enterprise architecture

PurposeInformation architecture (IA) is often understood as a comprehensive master plan for organizational data assets and is widely considered as an essential component of broader enterprise architecture (EA). However, the status and practical operationalization of IA still remain largely unclear. In order to clarify these questions, this paper investigates what instruments related to IA are actually employed in organizations.Design/methodology/approachThis study builds on the analysis of architecture practices in 27 diverse organizations. Based on the semi-structured interviews with architects and the examination of utilized architectural documents, we explore IA-related instruments with their usage scenarios that have been adopted in the studied organizations.FindingsThe authors identify 12 distinct instruments used in the industry and analyze in detail their features, properties and relationships. This paper analysis shows that these instruments are rather diverse and largely inconsistent across different organizations. The study findings also suggest that IA cannot be considered as a comprehensive plan for information, but rather as a variable set of loosely related instruments and practices that help organizations manage information.Originality/valueThe study offers a unique perspective on the concept of IA, as it is practiced in the industry today, as well as a critical scrutiny of the respective prescriptions abundant in the existing literature. Although this study does not attempt to theorize on the findings, it makes a significant empirical contribution by offering a solid evidence-based view of IA and its key instruments currently missing in the available literature.

Accepting automated news as “low-quality” journalism

This ethnographic case study explores how developers, editors, and reporters in two Norwegian newsrooms evaluate automated news and which logics underlie their assessments. Despite automation being described as the most disruptive data-centric practice of journalism, the observations and in-depth interviews show that all three groups define automated texts as journalism. At the same time, they characterize automated news as simplistic, lacking creativity and a critical approach, and argue that today’s machine-written texts are incapable of fulfilling central professional ideals such as critical scrutiny and advocating on behalf of the citizenry. Accepting automated news as journalism while simultaneously stressing its low quality shows a growing gap between what the newsroom groups are willing to accept because of organizational demands and what they ideally want journalism to be. The conflicting assessments may indicate financial motives gaining ground within Nordic media companies.

Digital Inclusion Challenges in Bangladesh: A Case of National ICT Policy

This study assesses the impact and effectiveness of the National Information and Communications Technology Policy (NIP) in Bangladesh, which is a key legal framework for ‘Vision 2021’ and ‘Digital Bangladesh’. It investigates the extent to which digital inclusion can be achieved by the NIP strategies, as well as exploring the conceptualisation of digital inclusion, which undergirds the contemporary debate on the digital divide and inclusion. The study employs a qualitative approach using policy goal-means analysis to explore critical scrutiny of the internal rationality and logic of the NIP based on three distinct criteria of the digital inclusion analytical framework: ICT access, use and skills. The analysis argues that the policy is ambiguous and techno-centric, with a narrow digitisation frame of reference, which does not comprehensively address the issues associated with digital inclusion. Policy needs to be consistent and relevant to a person’s daily life, giving the user a sense of empowerment and skill. The article concludes that a focus on a skill-based approach and the context of societal challenges of Bangladesh is crucial to ensuring digital inclusion.

Editorial policy

The Journal of Vocational, Adult and Continuing Education and Training (JOVACET) recognises the need for critical engagement through studies in TVET and Adult and Continuing education and training, and for encouraging critical scrutiny of this expansive knowledge area on the African continent.

Algorithmic Governance and the International Politics of Big Tech

Big technology companies like Facebook, Google, and Amazon amass global power through classification algorithms. These algorithms use unsupervised and semi-supervised machine learning on massive databases to detect objects, such as faces, and to process texts, such as speech, to model predictions for commercial and political purposes. Such governance by algorithms—or “algorithmic governance”—has received critical scrutiny from a vast interdisciplinary scholarship that points to algorithmic harms related to mass surveillance, information pollution, behavioral herding, bias, and discrimination. Big Tech’s algorithmic governance implicates core IR research in two ways: (1) it creates new private authorities as corporations control critical bottlenecks of knowledge, connection, and desire; and (2) it mediates the scope of state–corporate relations as states become dependent on Big Tech, Big Tech circumvents state overreach, and states curtail Big Tech. As such, IR scholars should become more involved in the global research on algorithmic governance.

On the breach: Identifying infringements of section 35 rights

Section 35 of the Constitution Act, 1982, the Supreme Court of Canada has said, protects existing Aboriginal and treaty rights from unjustified infringement at the hands of federal and provincial legislatures and governments. To give meaningful effect to section 35’s protection, we need, therefore, to understand what counts as infringement of such rights and why. The Supreme Court’s own jurisprudence to date on this question, alas, disappoints; it does not withstand close critical scrutiny. This article calls attention to several shortcomings and inconsistencies in that jurisprudence and proposes for initial consideration a more inclusive approach to infringement identification, one that draws a sharper distinction between the infringement and justification inquiries. Adoption of such an approach, however, could have unwelcome substitution effects, prompting cautious courts to be more selective when asked to authenticate future claims of Aboriginal right, more penurious when construing the constitutionally protected scope of particular treaty or Aboriginal rights and/or more generous to governments during the justification inquiry. If the goal is to optimize the protection that Canadian constitutional law affords to treaty and Aboriginal rights, we shall need to be mindful of the interdependence among the authentication, infringement, and justification inquiries, and we shall need to understand much more clearly than we currently do just where the outer limits are beyond which mainstream Canadian law cannot, or will not, countenance Indigenous ways and why.

When protest humor is not all fun: The ambiguity of humor in the 2017 Romanian anti-corruption grassroots mobilization

This article focuses on the ambiguous ideological work of citizen-produced humor in protest. Using the case of the 2017 Romanian anti-corruption protests as empirical data, the article shows how humor can simultaneously signal grassroots creativity and resistance to power structures, and reproduce conservative gender and class hierarchies. Unlike other types of texts, humor presents itself as an innocent and light message, absolved of the need for critical scrutiny. However, protest studies need to engage in a more nuanced way with the ideological articulation of democratic politics via protest humor by asking not only how humor helps protest communication, but also how it achieves shared enjoyment, for whom, and to what consequences for the ideological articulation of democratic politics. The article concludes by proposing that researcher reflexivity can afford a new sensitivity to the ambiguousness of protest humor.

Border Walls, Pushbacks, and the Prohibition of Collective Expulsions: The Case of N.D. and N.T. v. Spain

This essay explores the impact of N.D. and N.T. v. Spain on the ECHR system. The case deals with the immediate return of aliens at Melilla’s border fence. Based on conceptual analysis, the author submits to critical scrutiny the arguments developed by the ECtHR. The Court’s reasoning is framed within the riveting interdisciplinary debate on external border control. The Grand Chamber’s final decision reduces the scope of the protection offered by Article 4 Protocol 4, for it introduces a highly indeterminate exception to the prohibition of summary returns at the border. The author suggests that this solution might favor non-entrée strategies and promote the current trend of externalizing the asylum procedures. Introducing broad exceptions to the prohibition of collective expulsion, especially if coupled with strong presumptions in favor of States, increases the effectiveness of border walls qua accountability waivers.

Building a Natural Hazard Insurance System (NHIS): The Long-Lasting Italian Case

The worrying growth of extreme natural events and their socioeconomic impact over time is increasingly fuelling the debate on how to manage disasters in view of developing resilient and sustainable societies. One possible financial tool may be represented by insurance against natural hazards, such as earthquakes, floods, and landslides. From this perspective, the current article considers legislative attempts to build a Natural Hazard Insurance System (NHIS) in Italy. The (never promulgated) bills proposed over a time span of about 30 years were analysed by: (a) A text-mining technique, considering the extraction of relevant data for the research; (b) the careful reading of the texts and their cross-correlated critical analysis. Approximately forty bills have been proposed since the 1980s and they mainly concern the proposal of an NHIS based on a certain degree of compulsoriness (the voluntary system is contemplated only on a subordinate basis). Two possible main hurdles to the promulgation of such laws were inferred: the insurance scheme to be adopted and the issue of illegal buildings. Furthermore, the item of natural hazard risk perception was a factor not adequately considered by the bills. Based on the critical scrutiny of the bills and taking advantage of international experiences, the establishment of a voluntary national scheme managed by a public authority with specific competences on NHIS is proposed.

DEVELOPMENT OF UZBEK THEATER ARTIN THE HISTORICAL AND THEORETICAL ASPECT

The article provides a scientific analysis of the difficult financial situation of the theaters of Uzbekistan in recent years in the post-Soviet space, a sharp decline in the quality of stage performances, staff turnover, as well as changes in the theaters of the republic during the period of perestroika. Although the strategy “Main Directions of Theatrical Development and Reconstruction of Theater Creativity in Uzbekistan” is well thought out, in practice it has undergone critical scrutiny based on the sources from which most theaters operate in the old way. It is scientifically substantiated that radical changes in the theatrical art began to take place only in the period of independence. This process is analyzed on the basis of laws, decrees, decisions taken at the state level