SHIFTING STRUCTURES - A SYSTEMATIC LITERATURE REVIEW ON PEOPLE ANALYTICS AND THE FUTURE OF WORK

The sudden decentralisation of work caused by the COVID-19 pandemic challenges institutionalised work practices, which some companies seek to counter by using people analytics. Narratives around people analytics often portray it as an enabler of remote workers’ (self-)organisation. Simultaneously, especially when deployed for performance management, people analytics is considered an enabler of workplace surveillance. Further, algorithmic biases in the systems can perpetuate social injustice and discrimination of marginalised groups, impacting established hierarchies and social structures in the workplace. Our study 1) provides an overview of the status of emerging themes around people analytics, remote working, and leadership, and 2) assesses the impact people analytics has on shifting structures in organisations. We guide our analysis by deploying and extending the Structurational Model of Technology. Our results suggest that people analytics poses vastly different challenges for employees and leaders, and that it can potentially contradict current trends towards flat hierarchies

EXPLORING FACULTY ADOPTION AND UTILIZATION OF BLACKBOARD AT A COMMUNITY COLLEGE IN THE KENTUCKY COMMUNITY AND TECHNICAL COLLEGE SYSTEM

The study explored the faculty adoption and use of a Blackboard at a community college in the Kentucky Community and Technical College System. A cross-sectional survey design was constructed through the lens of Rogers’s Perceived Attributes of Innovations and Chickering and Ehrman’s Implementing Seven Principles: Technology as a Lever to investigate perceptions and opinions on faculty members’ use of Blackboard in their courses. The survey was piloted, modified and deployed to a population of 932 central Kentucky community college faculty who were recruited to participate in the online survey. Descriptive demographic items (gender, age, highest degree attained, years of teaching experience, employment status, and category of instruction) were cross-tabulated with users and nonusers of Blackboard. An additional cross-tabulation was performed on faculty who did and did not teach online. A Rasch analysis with Differential Item Functioning (DIF) was used to evaluate responses to the perceived attributes and opinions about the use of Blackboard. The Rasch model was employed since the model assumes that each person is characterized by ability, that each item of the survey is characterized by difficulty and that the results of differences in the probabilities of items and responses follow along a line. Misfit of items and faculty did occur and quality control measures were applied to the collected data. A Z-Residual table for the dichotomous items was applied to remove responses that were extreme or greater than 2 ZSTD. An Outfit plot for polytomous items was utilized to remove faculty responses above 3 ZSTD. Some items were determined to be redundant according to the Wright maps and Infit/Outfit tables. The results indicated 2 or 3 levels of discrimination in person reliability and an item separation that allowed an analysis of groups. Rogers’s perceived characteristics that persuade people to adopt a new innovation were indicated as differences between users and nonusers of Blackboard. In contrast to a previous study, those faculty who responded to the survey with 0-1 years of teaching experience had the greatest ratio of nonusers to users. Those respondents who associated their teaching to categories of pre-college and language had more nonusers than users of Blackboard. An overall theme where nonusers agreed more than users was the lack of seeing Blackboard, observing how to use Blackboard and not being able to properly try Blackboard. But users should also be encouraged to expand their use of Blackboard. The majority of users employed: syllabus, announcements, full grade center, course copy, and test and survey pool, but less than half who responded as users employed: discussion board, course calendar, and performance dashboard which may lead to increased communication between the faculty and students. The information obtained from the survey should be utilized when developing professional development activities to encourage Blackboard adoption and use. By studying the adoption and utilization of Blackboard by faculty through the lens of Rogers, the study highlighted differences in the characteristics that persuade faculty to use Blackboard. Through consistent utilization of course management systems, such as Blackboard, the hope is that communication between students and faculty will be enhanced which will ultimately help students to grow, develop and learn

Open government data publication and use in a developing country: a case of Ghana

Implementing Open Government Data (OGD) increases a government's ability to share data on its activities with citizens in machine-readable formats. OGD improves citizen participation, transparency, accountability and creates impact. By permitting more transparency, OGD helps citizens monitor government activities, which contributes to minimizing corruption. For example, while Also, OGD enables governments to track the impact of their actions; it gives citizens the ability to monitor government activities and critique where necessary. In addition, institutionalizing OGD by governments encourages economic growth and creates employment for citizens. The aim of this study is to examine OGD as a phenomenon in Ghana by focusing on how social factors either constrained or enabled the publication and use of OGD in Ghana. The investigation also examined how these social factors were created and sustained over time, influencing OGD institutionalization. The Structuration Theory was used as the primary theoretical lens to aid in understanding these social factors. In addition, the Structuration Theory was supplemented with concepts from Network Power, Ownership, and the Public Value Frameworks to provide additional theoretical categorization for the empirical findings. This study adopted a qualitative interpretive approach. Data sources for the research included semi-structured interviews, observations, and secondary data. The primary sources of data included Data Users, Data Publishers, Data “controllers,” and beneficiaries. The main findings from the study indicated that despite Ghana's long-standing democracy and being one of the early implementers of OGD, the phenomenon was yet to be institutionalized in the country. Data ownership, data quality, regulatory mandate, data sharing culture, control, and resources were the core social factors that influenced OGD publication. The meanings that actors ascribed to data ownership resulted in establishing and maintaining bureaucratic structures that allowed institutions and individuals to control available data. The actual use of OGD was influenced by social factors such as alliances/network creation, resources, power in networks, informal networks, and data quality assessment. Conversely, factors like alliances/network creation and technological resources acted as enablers that helped data users access the data. Data Users relied on technology and constantly drew upon their knowledge and understanding of technology and social connections to enable them to access and use data. They also relied on their ability to use technology to scrutinize data to ensure that it was of good quality and its use could create an impact or public value. Specific recommendations of this study include the need to use change management strategies targeted at all actors and institutions in the OGD ecosystem; educating and sensitizing actors on the relevance of making data technically available on a single approved web portal; and the creation of a context specific data quality indicators

Social Technologies and Informal Knowledge Sharing within and across Organizations

This doctoral dissertation is focused on both empirical and conceptual contributions relative to the roles social technologies play in informal knowledge sharing practices, both within and across organizations. Social technologies include (a) traditional social technologies (e.g., email, phone and instant messengers), (b) emerging social networking technologies commonly known as social media, such as blogs, wikis, major public social networking sites (e.g., Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn), and (c) enterprise social networking technologies controlled by a host organization ( e.g., SocialText). The rapid uptake of social technologies, combined with growing interest in their broader social implications, raises pertinent questions about uses for knowledge sharing in organizations. The work reported in this thesis is motivated by two broad phenomena: (1) the importance of informal knowledge-sharing in organizations and (2) the rapid rise in the variety and prevalence of social technologies. The empirical basis of this research is a field study focused on the uses of social technologies by knowledge workers, specifically those in consulting firms. Building from the theoretical lenses of sociomateriality, structuration, and technological frames, the findings from this work advances our understanding of: (1) the ways social technologies are used in combination as a suite of tools, (2) the ways in which organizational norms, policies, and arrangements shape the uses of social technologies for knowledge practices, and (3) the variations in uses of social technologies by different groups of knowledge workers. The theoretical contribution of this work is to conceptualize the suite of social technologies used to support and enable knowledge workers is a more useful approach than the single-technological-tool-in-isolation approach, which is the norm in studies of computing. A second contribution of this work is to situate social technologies-in-use through incorporating complementary theoretical concepts: technology-mediated knowledge practices, social structures of organizations, and workers\u27 distinct interpretations of social technologies (technological frames). Practical implications arising from this study both inform the ways social technologies can be collectively integrated in work practices and inform the design and implementation of social technologies for accommodating different needs and preferences of knowledge workers. This research also generates insight into how organizations can craft policies that realistically regulate the use of social technologies, while empowering individual workers to optimize their knowledge sharing capacity by supporting informal engagement via social technologies

A comprehensive framework with design principles for supporting interaction in fully online courses

 Advances in computer-mediated communication technologies have sparked and continue to facilitate the proliferation of online courses and degree programs in educational institutions. Fully online courses are becoming progressively more popular because of their “anytime anywhere” learning flexibility. These fully online courses are conducted via Internet-based learning environments and there are no face-to-face classes. One important aspect of any online learning environment is interaction. Different types of interactive activities assist students to share and gain knowledge from each other. However, quality interaction in fully online courses does not always take place and there is a lack of clarity about the appropriate role of the instructors in them. This thesis examines different types of interaction in fully online computing courses and develops frameworks with design principles for supporting quality interaction. By investigating different types of interaction and how quality interaction can be defined, we identify the best practices for fully online course management and provide significant guidelines for improvement of teaching and learning in fully online computing courses. In the first stage of the research, we investigate the course management factors that impact student participation and achievement in fully online computing courses. We identify several factors that affect student participation and grades. These results provide valuable information about expected student behaviour in fully online computing courses and hence support and add additional knowledge to prior research regarding interaction, undertaken in on-campus and blended learning environments. In the second stage, we identify two sets of criteria and two frameworks for effective interaction between students and instructors. These frameworks provide guidelines on how quality interaction can be designed and assessed. In the third stage, we evaluate the two frameworks developed in the previous stage. In the fourth stage of the research, we investigate student – content interaction and identify several factors that impact interaction between students and content. Identification of these factors provides guidelines in setting up and managing effective interaction between students and content

Investigating academics' voluntary usage of a learning management system

This research investigates the voluntary usage of learning management system (LMS) in a blended learning environment used by academics. The problem this research seeks to answer is: how do academics use the LMS in a voluntary context? This investigation was conducted in Mindanao State University – Iligan Institute of Technology (MSU – IIT), a university based in Southern Philippines. Thirty-three academics from different disciplines and professional levels participated in this study. Two major processes were carried out in this investigation: one-on-one in-depth interview; and analysis of computer logs of each of these participants. The mixed data were analysed using a grounded theory approach. The overarching findings in this study suggest that academics have different levels of acceptance of using the LMS. The benefits they get from using the LMS are associated with their motivation and their own disposition to use the system. More importantly, the study has provided support that academic disciplines have crucial influences to the voluntary usage of the LMS. This research found that there are varied approaches for each course, and more specifically, on subject content that can best fit a blended delivery of instruction. This thesis is significant in two aspects: Firstly, a model has emerged that has incorporated the four concepts: the drivers’ concept and three environmental constraints concepts, which are: training, learning environment, and institutional level constraints. Secondly, this study has provided a solid groundwork for the proposed model of voluntary LMS usage presented in this study. A framework that highlights necessary measures to increase or improve the voluntary use of the LMS was proposed. It is important to consider that academics’ use of the LMS largely rely on the conditions they are in. Academics’ voluntary use of the system can be influenced by the socio-technological landscape of the learning environment. Thus, this thesis proposed a measure of voluntary LMS usage as an ‘extra rich’ measure described as: the extent and way to which the user employs the system to carry out tasks given the environmental conditions that the user is situated

Between 'technological obduracy' and 'academic resistance': concepts of use of blackboard and the experience of university teachers.

Until recently, Blackboard has been one of the most common forms of learning-management systems (LMSs) in use in Australian universities. However, it has been adopted and used by academics far less than its proponents had anticipated. The literature of academic use of learning-management systems paints a picture, either of a relatively straightforward understanding of adoption of new educational technologies as an informational problem, or alternatively, of problematic academics who ‘resist’ using Blackboard. Academics themselves can understand the technology of Blackboard to be obdurate, time consuming and difficult to use. Drawing on a combination of sensemaking theory, practice theory and the socio-technical theories of social construction of technology and actor network theory, I ask how academics have set about using Blackboard. I clarify how educational technology use in the literature is constructed from diverse perspectives and how users in practice negotiate their way through Blackboard at four levels of encounter: as material infrastructure; as a process of orientation to, and reading of, navigational and interface symbolism; as an individual sensemaking project about representing education; and as an organisational representation and a technical system. Each level contains capacities for disruption and rebuilding of former habits and sense. “Rebuilding” a new interpretation and an effective use of Blackboard by any individual academic is never certain, as at each level different strategies are required, but rebuilding a notion of technologised education by creating ”genres of use” explains some of the differential in approaches to Blackboard use. At a meta level, this process of creating “use” also elucidates theories of action, practice and social change in practice theory and to a lesser extent in social construction of technology and actor network theory, by adding the insights of sensemaking theory to show how academics build their own concepts of use in an LMS, that can appear obdurate and unwieldy to users. The theoretical purpose is to offer an essay in understanding the processes of socio-technical change where change is not necessarily fostered by technological ease or user self-motivation