Designing the Sakai Open Academic Environment: A distributed cognition account of the design of a large scale software system

Social accounts of technological change make the flexibility and openness of interpretations the starting point of an argument against technological determinism. They suggest that technological change unfolds in the semantic domain, but they focus on the social processes around the interpretations of new technologies, and do not address the conceptual processes of change in interpretations. The dissertation presents an empirically grounded case study of the design process of an open-source online software platform based on the framework of distributed cognition to argue that the cognitive perspective is needed for understanding innovation in software, because it allows us to describe the reflexive and expansive contribution of conceptual processes to new software and the significance of professional epistemic practices in framing the direction of innovation. The framework of distributed cognition brings the social and cognitive perspectives together on account of its understanding of conceptual processes as distributed over time, among people, and between humans and artifacts. The dissertation argues that an evolving open-source software landscape became translated into the open-ended local design space of a new software project in a process of infrastructural implosion, and the design space prompted participants to outline and pursue epistemic strategies of sense-making and learning about the contexts of use. The result was a process of conceptual modeling, which resulted in a conceptually novel user interface. Prototyping professional practices of user-centered design lent directionality to this conceptual process in terms of a focus on individual activities with the user interface. Social approaches to software design under the broad umbrella of human-centered computing have been seeking to inform the design on the basis of empirical contributions about a social context. The analysis has shown that empirical engagement with the contexts of use followed from conceptual modeling, and concern about real world contexts was aligned with the user-centered direction that design was taking. I also point out a social-technical gap in the design process in connection with the repeated performance challenges that the platform was facing, and describe the possibility of a social-technical imagination.Ph.D

Broadening the Scope of Security Usability from the Individual to the Organizational : Participation and Interaction for Effective, Efficient, and Agile Authorization

Restrictions and permissions in information systems -- Authorization -- can cause problems for those interacting with the systems. Often, the problems materialize as an interference with the primary tasks, for example, when restrictions prevent the efficient completing of work and cause frustration. Conversely, the effectiveness can also be impacted when staff is forced to circumvent the measure to complete work -- typically sharing passwords among each other. This is the perspective of functional staff and the organization. There are further perspectives involved in the administration and development of the authorization measure. For instance, functional staff need to interact with policy makers who decide on the granting of additional permissions, and policy makers, in turn, interact with policy authors who actually implement changes. This thesis analyzes the diverse contexts in which authorization occurs, and systematically examines the problems that surround the different perspectives on authorization in organizational settings. Based on prior research and original research in secure agile development, eight principles to address the authorization problems are identified and explored through practical artifacts

Information Technology's Role in Global Healthcare Systems

Over the past few decades, modern information technology has made a significant impact on people’s daily lives worldwide. In the field of health care and prevention, there has been a progressing penetration of assistive health services such as personal health records, supporting apps for chronic diseases, or preventive cardiological monitoring. In 2020, the range of personal health services appeared to be almost unmanageable, accompanied by a multitude of different data formats and technical interfaces. The exchange of health-related data between different healthcare providers or platforms may therefore be difficult or even impossible. In addition, health professionals are increasingly confronted with medical data that were not acquired by themselves, but by an algorithmic “black box”. Even further, externally recorded data tend to be incompatible with the data models of classical healthcare information systems.From the individual’s perspective, digital services allow for the monitoring of their own health status. However, such services can also overwhelm their users, especially elderly people, with too many features or barely comprehensible information. It therefore seems highly relevant to examine whether such “always at hand” services exceed the digital literacy levels of average citizens.In this context, this reprint presents innovative, health-related applications or services emphasizing the role of user-centered information technology, with a special focus on one of the aforementioned aspects

On the adoption of end-user IT security measures

[no abstract

Free Access to Public Information - More Transparency, Less Corruption: The Case of Republic of Macedonia

The traditional model of not transparent administration today disappears step by step. Citizens are increasingly becoming an equal entity with state institutions which have responsibility to ensure protection of their rights, accountability, openness and transparency in its operations - as the basic principles upon which rests the principle of good governance. Therefore, adoption of a law of free access to public information in many countries in the world which seek to enhance democracy in their societies today is a trend (process) that can not stop. Nowadays, countries that don’t have such a law can not claim that they have full democracy. One of the reasons for passing this law is reducing corruption. Corruption is based on secrecy. Citizens and institutions become corrupted when the public has no insight into their work. If the work of public institutions is transparent and offered for public inspection, then the chance for them to be corrupt is smaller. Republic of Macedonia has adopted the Law of free access to public information in 2006. This paper analyzes the law and its application; the situation in Macedonia after the adoption of the law; concluding that despite some inconsistencies, the law has contributed to increasing transparency and reducing corruption. Keywords: Free access, information, transparency, corruption

Proceedings /5th International Symposium on Industrial Engineering – SIE2012, June 14-15, 2012., Belgrade

editors Dragan D. Milanović, Vesna Spasojević-Brkić, Mirjana Misit

Proceedings /5th International Symposium on Industrial Engineering – SIE2012, June 14-15, 2012., Belgrade

editors Dragan D. Milanović, Vesna Spasojević-Brkić, Mirjana Misit