Human values in curating a human rights media archive

Cultural institutions, such as museums, often curate politically and ethically sensitive materials. Increasingly, Internet-enabled, digital technology intersects with these curatorial practices offering new opportunities for public and scholarly engagement. We report on a case study of human rights media archiving at a genocide memorial centre in Rwanda, motivated by interests in ICT support to memorialisation practices. Through an analysis of our discussions with staff about their work, we report on how accounts of the Rwandan Genocide are being captured and curated to support the centre's humanitarian agenda and associated values. We identify transferable curatorial concerns for human rights media communication amongst scholarly networks and public audiences worldwide, elucidating interaction design challenges for supportive ICT and contributing to HCI discourses on value sensitive design and cultural engagement with sensitive materials

The Role of Information and Communication Technology in Self-Management of Chronic Diseases: An Empirical Investigation through Value Sensitive Design

This paper primarily investigates sensitivity towards patients’ values in the designs of the information and communication technologies (ICTs) that are capable of empowering them. We focus on the role of ICTs in self-management (SM) of diabetes, a chronic disease. Chronic diseases, declared an invisible epidemic by the World Health Organization, cause and perpetuate poverty and impede the economic development of many countries. As a means of informing the design of ICTs that facilitate self-management, we draw on value sensitive design (VSD) to conduct an in-depth interpretive field study to reveal the values that are important to diabetic patients. Specifically, we reveal twelve values shared by these patients: accessibility, accountability, autonomy, compliance, dignity, empathy, feedback, hope, joy, privacy, sense-making, and trust. A conceptual model emerged from analyzing interviews with diabetic patients; this model explains how these values, which are integrated into ICT features, afford or constrain patients’ abilities to self-manage their activities. This study makes multiple theoretical contributions: By granting ICT artifacts a clear theoretical status, it advances the field of SM that has nominally covered ICTs; it extends design research by extending the VSD literature and by introducing a valuecentric design perspective to examine a complex sociotechnical system; and it broadens work system theory by applying it in the healthcare space. The study’s findings have implications for design science researchers, healthcare providers, and policymakers

Examining learning in relation to the contexts of use of ICT

Although ICT resources are commonly expected to produce uniform benefits, they are necessarily employed within pre-existing contexts of educational and social activity, and the outcome in terms of both pattern of use and learning depends on how they fit in with these. As a result, the same technology or software may have unexpectedly diverse effects, according to specific setting. If the object is to exercise control over outcome, then the conditions of use need to be planned for within the design and implementation of the technology. In order to do this, it is crucial that research gathers data on how outcomes are affected by the interplay between technology and context. This raises questions about the methods that would be appropriate for the conduct and dissemination of such research. These points are discussed in relation to three studies, one each at primary, secondary and university levels of education

Leishmania (Viannia) spp. dissemination and tissue tropism in naturally infected dogs (Canis familiaris).

First evidence is presented for Leishmania (Viannia) spp. dissemination and tissue tropism in the domestic dog. Using PCR and histology, parasites were detected in the conjunctiva, lung, lymph nodes and ovaries of 2 naturally infected Peruvian dogs. The detection of parasites in the blood indicates that parasite dissemination to those organs may have been haematogenous

Challenges in Complex Systems Science

FuturICT foundations are social science, complex systems science, and ICT. The main concerns and challenges in the science of complex systems in the context of FuturICT are laid out in this paper with special emphasis on the Complex Systems route to Social Sciences. This include complex systems having: many heterogeneous interacting parts; multiple scales; complicated transition laws; unexpected or unpredicted emergence; sensitive dependence on initial conditions; path-dependent dynamics; networked hierarchical connectivities; interaction of autonomous agents; self-organisation; non-equilibrium dynamics; combinatorial explosion; adaptivity to changing environments; co-evolving subsystems; ill-defined boundaries; and multilevel dynamics. In this context, science is seen as the process of abstracting the dynamics of systems from data. This presents many challenges including: data gathering by large-scale experiment, participatory sensing and social computation, managing huge distributed dynamic and heterogeneous databases; moving from data to dynamical models, going beyond correlations to cause-effect relationships, understanding the relationship between simple and comprehensive models with appropriate choices of variables, ensemble modeling and data assimilation, modeling systems of systems of systems with many levels between micro and macro; and formulating new approaches to prediction, forecasting, and risk, especially in systems that can reflect on and change their behaviour in response to predictions, and systems whose apparently predictable behaviour is disrupted by apparently unpredictable rare or extreme events. These challenges are part of the FuturICT agenda

When Cost-Efficient Technologies Meet Politics: A Case Study of Radical Wireless Network Implementation

Cost efficiency has been a dominant perspective in the traditional IT literature. However, in complex technology and business environment, the widely recognized cost efficient assumption of information technology has been increasingly challenged. Drawing from a case study of wireless network implementation situated in a politically sensitive workplace, this paper provided practice insights for IT managers in today’s networked economy. More specifically, stories experienced in the case study illustrated that despite well-calculated cost efficiency of wireless network infrastructure, the radical implementation process in the case organization encountered enormous challenges and opposition due to the fact that administrators failed to consider various stakeholders’ positions and interests. Eventually, the implementation objectives and outcome were considerably undermined. Implications from this empirical case research reemphasized the significance of understanding political forces situated in any business environment where different stakeholders hold conflicting interests. Lessons learned from the case story further encouraged IT managers and policy makers to better strategize emerging information technology in general and wireless networks in particular as the whole global society and business environment are increasingly facing an emerging wireless world

The value of learning geometry with ICT: lessons from innovative educational research

This chapter reviews research on using ICT to support the teaching of geometry. The research selected focuses on learners’ use of interactive geometry software, the design of suitable teaching and learning activities, and the nature of relevant teacher professional development. The central theme of the chapter is that while ICT has considerable potential in enlivening the teaching and learning of school mathematics (and geometry in particular), there is much to take account of in terms of enabling this potential to be fully realise