Social Appropriation of Internet Technology: a South African platform

The social appropriation of Internet technologies is emerging as a research and practice field called Community Informatics (CI). Various research groups (for example Australia, UK, Canada, Latin America, Italy etc.) are contributing to Government's gradual realisation that the enabling of communities with Internet technologies can boost local economic and social development, as well as enhance personal empowerment. Civil society digital inclusion, linked with World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS), is now seen as a necessary component of social development strategy. However, various attempts at such initiatives have met different forms of resistance and various levels of success. Cape Technikon is establishing a research hub in Cape Town as part of the international CIRN (Community Informatics Research Network). This project will aim to establish a research, teaching and community engagement platform in Community Informatics (the social appropriation of Internet Technologies for local benefit) which will link Cape Technikon into a rapidly expanding international area of research and teaching as well as putting it into a national leadership position. Outputs will include demonstrated linkages with local, national and international Community Informatics efforts, the establishment of local projects and entities, the establishment of courses, the attraction of undergraduate and post graduate students, a profile with national and international funding agencies, publications, funding proposals, internal agency recognition in research and teaching, a program of high profile and internationally recognised visiting research fellows and academic sabbaticals. This paper discusses activities towards this South African initiative and experience elsewhere

Online Activities through Social Media by High Education Students: Business vs. Informatics

Online Social Networks (OSN) are the new tools that students are using to interact, communicate and collaborate for school work. The impact on school activities, as well as the communication mechanisms among students, have just started to be studied. This research focuses on this issue, trying to answer the question: How do college students use OSN to improve communication and exchange knowledge? For this purpose we used the application of two online surveys applied to students of business administration (BBA - Bachelor in Business Administration) and informatics management (BIM – Bachelor in Informatics Management) students in 2010 and 2012 in Mexico. Our findings reveal that business administration students are the ones that use these kinds of platforms more frequently for sharing information and communicating with their peers. The comparison of these two surveys shows how the behavior and activities among students have changed

A Social Informatics Perspective on Socio-Technical Networks

Network-centric perspectives have gained increasing salience, as interconnected information and communication technologies (ICTs) become more ubiquitous in our daily lives. In this paper, we provide an overview of socio-technical network studies, which we then use to help situate the development and use of ICTs within social and organizational domains. We briefly review traditional conceptualizations of socio-technical systems, and then introduce some contemporary theoretical extensions and sociological reconceptualizations. This discussion emphasizes the capability of social informatics perspectives to guide our current and future examinations of ICT use in sociotechnical networks

Sustainable Local Economic Development: The Role of Informatics in Determining Municipal Revenue Management

This paper discusses the challenges undermining the ability of smaller municipalities in South Africa (SA) to raise revenue to sustain local economic development (SLED). The concept of enactment of technology-in-practice (ETiP) of Structuration Theory (ST) was adopted as a lens to understand and interpret the factors hindering the implementation of relevant legislation e.g., the municipal property rates Act of 2004 (MPRA) for SLED. The purpose of the study was to determine the role informatics can play in the implementation of MPRA to institutionalise its provisions to improve revenue collection. An extensive investigation in twenty-five (25) smaller municipalities across SA indicated a number of factors suggested by ETiP have impacted on the implementation of MPRA and property rates collection. The view is that implementation of legislation e.g., MPRA is similar to the deployment of ICT solutions in governments. Thus, in the world of social theory, legislation implementation is a socio-technical phenomenon with significant political, economic and social components. The findings of the study is a general framework as a lens through which factors influencing SLED can be understood and interpreted to provide a richer understanding of the complexity associated with the role of informatics in government revenue management to support SLED

Context matters: Towards a concept of the organizational information environment

One of the core assumptions of social and organizational informatics (SI/OI) is that “context matters.” However, despite its importance in SI/OI, the composition of this context is largely unexamined. For the purposes of research and theorizing, how are we to think about the social context within which information and communication technologies (ICTs) are designed, developed, implemented, and used? This paper is a brief attempt to unpack this concept and decompose it into its constituent elements. This paper presents an outline of a structurational framework that recasts the context as an “organizational information environment” (OIE), clarifying a base from which the social implications of the assumption that context matters in ICT design and use may be explored

Systems, Networks and Policy

Systems theory is fundamental to understanding the dynamics of the complex social systems of concern to policy makers. A system is defined as: (1) an assembly of components, connected together in an organised way; (2) the components are affected by being in the system and the behaviour of the systems is changed if they leave it; (3) the organised assembly of components does something; and (4) the assembly has been identified as being of particular interest. Feedback is central to system behaviour at all levels, and can be responsible for systems behaving in complex and unpredictable ways. Systems can be represented by networks and there is a growing literature that shows how the behaviour of individuals is highly dependent on their social networks. This includes copying or following the advice of others when making decisions. Network theory gives insights into social phenomena such as the spread of information and the way people form social groups which then constrain their behaviour. It is emerging as a powerful way of examining the dynamics of social systems. Most systems relevant to policy have many levels, from the individual to local and national and international organisations and institutions. In many social systems the micro, meso and macrolevel dynamics are coupled, meaning that they cannot be studied or modified in isolation. Systems and network science allow computer simulations to be used to investigate possible system behaviour. This science can be made available to policy makers through policy informatics which involves computer-based simulation, data, visualisation, and interactive interfaces. The future of science-based policy making is seen to be through Global Systems Science which combines complex systems science and policy informatics to inform policy makers and facilitate citizen engagement. In this context, systems theory and network science are fundamental for modelling far-from-equilibrium systems for policy purposes

Decision Making: Social and Creative Dimensions

This volume presents research that integrates decision making and creativity within the social contexts in which these processes occur. The volume is an essential addition to and expansion of recent approaches to decision making. Such approaches attempt to incorporate more of the psychological and socio-cultural context in which human decision making takes place. The authors come from different disciplines and also belong to a broad spectrum of research traditions. They present innovative chapters dealing with both theoretical and empirical aspects of decision making in different personal and organizational contexts. All chapters are written from the perspective that human decision making is inherently social and more or less creative. The volume addresses fundamental questions about the nature of human decision making as it occurs in different social contexts. Thereby, it becomes essential reading for researchers in decision making and for advanced students in psychology, management science, informatics, and related disciplines.The present volume deals with social and creative aspects of decision making. Such aspects have, to some extent, been neglected in previous behavioral research. The volume contributes to the integration of theories, concepts and empirical results from different research traditions and in this way helps to better our understanding of the decision making process. The chapters hereby complements research achievements that have been presented under different headings such as 'naturalistic decision making', 'distributed decision making', and 'applied creativity' . Most of the contributing authors are from psychology, other come from management science, health science, education, policy and planning, and informatics. Several of the chapters address basic and general issues with regard to the social and creative dimensions of decision making. Other chapters deal with personal decision making and different aspects of decision making in organizations

The enterprise’ performance in the knowledge based society

As in the traditional enterprise, the performance of the enterprises in the knowledge based society is expressed through the same well-known financial indicators: return on equity, the profit margin, return on assets, gross margin, asset turnover, inventory turnover, the collection period, days’ sales in cash, payable period, fixed-asset turnover, balance sheet rations, coverage rations, market value leverage rations, liquidity ratios, return on invested capital and many others. But, the differences that appear are in the way of acquiring at this performance in the enterprises. The actual knowledge based society is promoting the methods and models of the rational management that will lead to performance acquiring by the enterprises. Although as a first step, the reference to financial character as income statement, balance sheet, schedules to a balance sheet started to include references to the brain capital that is considered the success key in the businesses. In this paper I intend to present the effects on enterprise’ financial performance of the main components of the brain capital: the human capital characterised through the employees’ competences and skills; organizational capital that defines the internal structures of the enterprises, inclusively the informatics structure and social capital, related to the enterprise relations with thirds (investors, banks, customers, suppliers etc.). The brain capital mustn’t be looked as a present vogue but as a necessity of its consideration and evaluation thus to the old economic-financial rules used in decision making to be added and the knowledge/information decision.enterprise’ performance, knowledge based society, ICTs, brain capital, social capital

The Enterprise’ Performance in the Knowledge Based Society

As in the traditional enterprise, the performance of the enterprises in the knowledge based society is expressed through the same well-known financial indicators: return on equity, the profit margin, return on assets, gross margin, asset turnover, inventory turnover, the collection period, days’ sales in cash, payable period, fixed-asset turnover, balance sheet rations, coverage rations, market value leverage rations, liquidity ratios, return on invested capital and many others. But, the differences that appear are in the way of acquiring at this performance in the enterprises. The actual knowledge based society is promoting the methods and models of the rational management that will lead to performance acquiring by the enterprises. Although as a first step, the reference to financial character as income statement, balance sheet, schedules to a balance sheet started to include references to the brain capital that is considered the success key in the businesses. In this paper I intend to present the effects on enterprise’ financial performance of the main components of the brain capital: the human capital characterised through the employees’ competences and skills; organizational capital that defines the internal structures of the enterprises, inclusively the informatics structure and social capital, related to the enterprise relations with thirds (investors, banks, customers, suppliers etc.). The brain capital mustn’t be looked as a present vogue but as a necessity of its consideration and evaluation thus to the old economic-financial rules used in decision making to be added and the knowledge/information decision.enterprise’ performance, knowledge based society, ICTs, brain capital, social capital