1,573 research outputs found

    Digitalization and Development

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    This book examines the diffusion of digitalization and Industry 4.0 technologies in Malaysia by focusing on the ecosystem critical for its expansion. The chapters examine the digital proliferation in major sectors of agriculture, manufacturing, e-commerce and services, as well as the intermediary organizations essential for the orderly performance of socioeconomic agents. The book incisively reviews policy instruments critical for the effective and orderly development of the embedding organizations, and the regulatory framework needed to quicken the appropriation of socioeconomic synergies from digitalization and Industry 4.0 technologies. It highlights the importance of collaboration between government, academic and industry partners, as well as makes key recommendations on how to encourage adoption of IR4.0 technologies in the short- and long-term. This book bridges the concepts and applications of digitalization and Industry 4.0 and will be a must-read for policy makers seeking to quicken the adoption of its technologies

    Mapping the Focal Points of WordPress: A Software and Critical Code Analysis

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    Programming languages or code can be examined through numerous analytical lenses. This project is a critical analysis of WordPress, a prevalent web content management system, applying four modes of inquiry. The project draws on theoretical perspectives and areas of study in media, software, platforms, code, language, and power structures. The applied research is based on Critical Code Studies, an interdisciplinary field of study that holds the potential as a theoretical lens and methodological toolkit to understand computational code beyond its function. The project begins with a critical code analysis of WordPress, examining its origins and source code and mapping selected vulnerabilities. An examination of the influence of digital and computational thinking follows this. The work also explores the intersection of code patching and vulnerability management and how code shapes our sense of control, trust, and empathy, ultimately arguing that a rhetorical-cultural lens can be used to better understand code\u27s controlling influence. Recurring themes throughout these analyses and observations are the connections to power and vulnerability in WordPress\u27 code and how cultural, processual, rhetorical, and ethical implications can be expressed through its code, creating a particular worldview. Code\u27s emergent properties help illustrate how human values and practices (e.g., empathy, aesthetics, language, and trust) become encoded in software design and how people perceive the software through its worldview. These connected analyses reveal cultural, processual, and vulnerability focal points and the influence these entanglements have concerning WordPress as code, software, and platform. WordPress is a complex sociotechnical platform worthy of further study, as is the interdisciplinary merging of theoretical perspectives and disciplines to critically examine code. Ultimately, this project helps further enrich the field by introducing focal points in code, examining sociocultural phenomena within the code, and offering techniques to apply critical code methods

    Microcredentials to support PBL

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    Facilitating prosociality through technology: Design to promote digital volunteerism

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    Volunteerism covers many activities involving no financial rewards for volunteers but which contribute to the common good. There is existing work in designing technology for volunteerism in HumanComputer Interaction (HCI) and related disciplines that focuses on motivation to improve performance, but it does not account for volunteer wellbeing. Here, I investigate digital volunteerism in three case studies with a focus on volunteer motivation, engagement, and wellbeing. My research involved volunteers and others in the volunteering context to generate recommendations for a volunteer-centric design for digital volunteerism. The thesis has three aims: 1. To investigate motivational aspects critical for enhancing digital volunteers’ experiences 2. To identify digital platform attributes linked to volunteer wellbeing 3. To create guidelines for effectively supporting volunteer engagement in digital volunteering platforms In the first case study I investigate the design of a chat widget for volunteers working in an organisation with a view to develop a design that improves their workflow and wellbeing. The second case study investigates the needs, motivations, and wellbeing of volunteers who help medical students improve their medical communication skills. An initial mixed-methods study was followed by an experiment comparing two design strategies to improve volunteer relatedness; an important indicator of wellbeing. The third case study looks into volunteer needs, experiences, motivations, and wellbeing with a focus on volunteer identity and meaning-making on a science-based research platform. I then analyse my findings from these case studies using the lens of care ethics to derive critical insights for design. The key contributions of this thesis are design strategies and critical insights, and a volunteer-centric design framework to enhance the motivation, wellbeing and engagement of digital volunteers

    Reshaping Higher Education for a Post-COVID-19 World: Lessons Learned and Moving Forward

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    International Academic Symposium of Social Science 2022

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    This conference proceedings gathers work and research presented at the International Academic Symposium of Social Science 2022 (IASSC2022) held on July 3, 2022, in Kota Bharu, Kelantan, Malaysia. The conference was jointly organized by the Faculty of Information Management of Universiti Teknologi MARA Kelantan Branch, Malaysia; University of Malaya, Malaysia; Universitas Pembangunan Nasional Veteran Jakarta, Indonesia; Universitas Ngudi Waluyo, Indonesia; Camarines Sur Polytechnic Colleges, Philippines; and UCSI University, Malaysia. Featuring experienced keynote speakers from Malaysia, Australia, and England, this proceeding provides an opportunity for researchers, postgraduate students, and industry practitioners to gain knowledge and understanding of advanced topics concerning digital transformations in the perspective of the social sciences and information systems, focusing on issues, challenges, impacts, and theoretical foundations. This conference proceedings will assist in shaping the future of the academy and industry by compiling state-of-the-art works and future trends in the digital transformation of the social sciences and the field of information systems. It is also considered an interactive platform that enables academicians, practitioners and students from various institutions and industries to collaborate

    Stimulating the Malaysian Rural Community Centres through the rural digital economy under the Smart Village Enablement Program

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    The Malaysian government, through the Ministry of Rural Development, has identified the digital economy as a vehicle for catalysing socioeconomic improvement in the country, with a focus on rural communities. The introduction of the Smart Village Enablement Program would serve as the catalyst for the rural digital connectivity that drives the socio-economic program to reduce the digital division and exclusion issues plaguing the rural communities. The aim of this study was to study the development of the rural digital economy in Malaysia, specifically to identify the determinants of the initiation of the rural digital economy and analyse the impact of initiating the rural digital economy. This study also aims to recommend the framework for the Smart Village Enablement Program. The qualitative grounded theory approach was adopted loosely, adapting the Theory of Social Change to identify the factors and their expected impacts. Cluster sampling was done to select 13 Rural Community Centres(RCCs)for the studies to accurately represent the total of 191 RCCs under the ministry of rural development purview nationwide.The data collected was through semi-structured interviews with the selected 13 RCCs’managers. The findings strongly support RCC as the rural digital hub for rural communities. The RCC will help spread the rural digital economy for rural communities. The RCC would need to be strategically located, have all the required internet connectivity to facilitate the digital platform for the rural digital services, and have full empowerment of the respective RCC Managers. With the full establishment of the RCC, the relevant sustainable programmes and activities could be implemented to drive the effectiveness of the RCC, together with ethnic integration and demographic assimilation of the rural communities. The findings of this study contributed greatly to the academic’s writings on the smart village conception and the rural digital economics program. Industry white papers and case studies were visibly evidenced, but the resources of the academic scholars were limited. On the other hand, there were many apparent practical business applications for the advent of rural digital and smart village enablement programs, with the obvious potential for future revenue by the respective industry players. In short, because the field was considered new and only established in the last decade, there would be many areas for future studies of the subject matter

    Ethnographically-informed distributed participatory design framework for sociotechnical change : co-designing a collaborative training tool to support real-time collaborative writing

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    Although Wikipedia’s immense success is partially due to its support of the asynchronous collaboration model, researchers argue that the bureaucratic rules and technical infrastructure enabling it feed into Wikipedia’s content bias. Attempts to introduce different collaboration models have so far failed, but the fact that they have occurred persistently over time suggests that at least part of the Wikipedia community favours incorporating features such as real-time collaborative editing. My research is founded on the argument that the advantageous aspects of the asynchronous model should be preserved, although the existing model needs to be complemented by real-time collaboration in settings such as Wikipedia training events. This thesis describes a Participatory Design process resulting in a prototype called WikiSync, a system that introduces real-time collaboration for the Wikipedia community using a responsible design approach that is respectful of Wikipedia’s rich social structure and history. Furthermore, my research has produced an adaptive methodology for co-designing sociotechnical solutions in a geographically distributed community. After an in-depth observation of online Wikipedia training and the existing community innovation processes, my participatory design sessions have helped create a mutual learning environment for co-designing WikiSync in tandem with the community, while addressing a wide range of their concerns about real-time collaboration. I also consulted the broader Wikipedia community using an online social ideation and voting tool to evaluate the desirability and applicability of the solution. Finally, the resulting ethnographically-informed distributed Participatory Design framework provides an innovation process for involving a diverse, widely distributed online community in co-designing sociotechnical solutions

    Digital Competencies at Work

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    The digitalized work environment poses challenges to the workforce, such as the meaningful use of ever-new technological advances, dealing with increasingly complex tasks, or effective collaboration in dispersed work groups. The individual worker needs to adapt to rapidly increasing demands due to far-reaching changes in the workplace, to complete their everyday work tasks. However, there is an increasing discrepancy between the existing and required digital competencies in the workforce. Due to the urgent need to expand the scientific knowledge on this important topic, the main focus of this dissertation is on the development and measurement of the construct of digital competencies at work. In the scientific literature, a comprehensive framework that integrates the perspectives of prior research and practitioners in a work context has not been developed yet. Additionally, a common definition of digital competencies at work was still lacking although many wordings have been used for the concept. Modern work practices, such as the ubiquity of remote work for office workers emphasize the importance of digital communication and collaboration competencies at work. Yet, to date, there was no measurement tool for individual digital communication and collaboration competencies at work that is needed to conduct more scientific research on the construct. Another research gap derived from the results of the prior studies in this dissertation measuring digital competencies: The high mean values in all collected data sets led to the assumption that office workers might over-estimate their digital competencies. However, the research question of how the self-assessment of workers’ digital communication and collaboration competencies can be influenced by varying instructions has not yet been explored in an experimental study. Moreover, to further explore the nomological net of the construct, the relationship between digital communication and collaboration competencies and the motivation to train those were investigated. In my dissertation, I realized the collection of quantitative and qualitative data in nine samples and conducted a literature review to address the outlined research gaps. By integrating perspectives from research and practice and combining diverse methods, a coherent and detailed framework of digital competencies at work was created and a definition of the concept was provided in Paper 1. As depicted in Paper 2, building on the theoretical framework and prior research, digital communication and collaboration competencies were identified as dimensions with particular relevance to the challenges of today’s work environments. By using mixed methods, a measurement tool for digital communication and collaboration competencies was developed. The role of those competencies as potential resources in a gain spiral with social support, ultimately boosting work engagement in the unique setting of a pandemic that fundamentally altered the way of work worldwide based on the Job Demands-Resource model (Demerouti et al., 2001) and the conservation of resources theory (Hobfoll, 2011) was explored. Although results did not support the assumption of a gain spiral, we found that digital competencies, social support, and work engagement were stable and high during the crisis. The findings add knowledge about the motivational processes of workers in times of crisis. Subsequently, in Paper 3 the initial measurement tool was refined into a reliable and valid short-scale of digital communication and collaboration competencies at work. In several studies, the short-scale was validated and the nomological net of the constructs was explored. The last part of my dissertation is dedicated to the systematic examination of the effect that varying instructions have on workers’ self-assessment of digital communication and collaboration competencies and the motivation to train those. The results imply that the self-assessment of competencies and the motivation to train those cannot be influenced easily by varying instructions. Nevertheless, workers with high levels of digital communication and collaboration competencies also showed high motivation to train those. The findings of this dissertation provide a solid base for further theory building and extension in research on digital competencies at work. The insights gained from the studies of this dissertation comprise theoretical and practical implications for training development and human resource management. Overall, the results of this dissertation imply that digital competencies at work could be an important benefit in meeting the challenges of today’s digital work environments. The concept of digital competencies at work deserves more attention in future research
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