The Social Informatics of Ignorance

Social informatics researchers use a variety of techniques to explore the intersections between technology and society. Current interest has turned to making more explicit our commonly tacit knowledge processes that involve people and technology. Knowledge creation, sharing, and management processes are commonly hidden, and this is even more the case regarding ignorance processes such as the denial and obfuscation of knowledge. Understanding the construction, generation, and perpetuation of ignorance can: (i) provide insights into social phenomena that might otherwise seem inexplicable (for instance, persistence of “urban myths”), and (ii) enable development of interventions to either facilitate (as with privacy‐sensitive material) or combat (as with malicious disinformation) ignorance. Although several pressing information issues relate to ignorance, agnotology (the study of ignorance) has only recently entered into the information science literature. An agnotologic approach expands the repertoire of methods and approaches in social informatics, better enabling the field to grapple with pressing contemporary issues of mis/dis/lack of information. Using Robert Proctor\u27s typology of constructions of ignorance, this article describes ways that each type may be germane to and within social informatics, highlighting social informatics topics that would benefit from agnotologic exploration, and suggesting theoretical and methodological approaches useful to a social informatics of ignorance

Making the world a better place with Mixed Reality in Education

Mixed Reality (MR) is an emerging technology in which the real world is enhanced by an overlay of computer graphics-based interaction. The use of MR in the Information Systems (IS) pedagogy is becoming more and more to be taken as a reflection of reality. This study expands on the current literature to plan, design, test, and evaluate the use of Microsoft HoloLens a MR device in IS classroom. This study uses design science guidelines to introduce HoloLens to 205 students in a postgraduate and undergraduate class. Student responses were both positive and negative highlighting the advantages and disadvantages of the technology, the applications and its interface as presented in this paper. This study uses Socio-Technical Interaction Networks (STIN) analytical strategy for social informatics to compare the different forms of knowledge embodiment in the mixed reality system for education

“They Have to Combine the Future of the University and Their Own Future”:OpenCourseWare (OCW) Authoring as an Academic Practice in Spain

This study looks at OpenCourseWare (OCW) in Spain, a country where most public universities have tried to promote that particular model of open educational resources (OER) provision among academics. Using three universities with varying levels of OCW activity as a case study, this article examines key drivers behind the implementation of OCW initiatives and unpacks what it means, as an academic practice, to engage in OCW authoring. Following a qualitative case study approach and a multi-methods design, this study offers a basis for theoretical generalisations that can be useful for understanding similar dynamics taking place within different organisational contexts in Spain and beyond. The findings reveal a major disconnect between the drive to implement OCW initiatives in Spain and actual opportunities for academics to engage with them as part of their work. The author concludes that the extrapolation of a highly prescriptive model of OER provision into institutional realities different from the context where it was originally devised—in this case, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the United States—is rather problematic. The article also provides some recommendations to university leaders and policy makers, encouraging the creation of alternative models that are mindful of the institutional and cultural specificities of their own contexts and also to take into consideration the social and material realities of the communities they aim to provide with lifelong learning opportunities

Leveraging Digital Intelligence for Community Well-Being

The world of information is mediated by digital technologies, and the growing influence of Artificial Intelligence (AI) on society, through its involvement in everyday life, is likely to present issues with lasting consequences. In the context of improving community well-being using AI, the knowledge, insights, and impressions or analysis required for activating such improvement necessitate a frame of reference. This frame needs to take into account how well-being is understood within the current paradigm of technological innovation as a driver of economic growth. The evaluation of well-being, often defined as an individual’s cognitive and affective assessment of life, takes into account emotional reaction to events based on how satisfaction and fulfillment are discerned. It is a dynamic concept that involves subjective, social, and psychological dimensions, along with a state of being where human needs are met and one can act meaningfully, thus highlighting a relational element underlying social and community well-being. Transitions from a predominantly industrial society towards one that is information-led demand a strategic social design for AI. This article evaluates how well-being is understood within the current paradigm to offer a framework for leveraging AI for community well-being.© The Author(s) 2020. This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriatecreditto theoriginalauthor(s) andthesource,providealink totheCreativeCommons licence,and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's CreativeCommons licence,unless indicated otherwise ina creditline to thematerial.Ifmaterialis not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use,youwill need to obtain permissiondirectly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.fi=vertaisarvioitu|en=peerReviewed

How Is the Internet of Things Industry Responding to the Cybersecurity Challenges of the Smart Home?

In this article, we investigate the privacy and security challenges of the smart home as perceived by the industry, with findings relating to cybersecurity awareness, transparency on legal data use, malicious data use, regulation issues, liability, and market incentives for cybersecurity; we also reveal how the industry has been responding to these challenges. Based on survey findings, we outlined a series of socio-technical challenges to smart home adoption. To understand these findings in more depth, we investigated qualitatively how these challenges were perceived and responded to by organizations in the Internet of Things (IoT) sector. We interviewed seven experts from six organizations involved in the design, development, or review of consumer IoT devices and services including both businesses and NGOs. Thematic analysis focused on two main themes, that is, responses to privacy and responses to security challenges of smart home adoption. Our study revealed that industry stakeholders are looking to address these adoption challenges by providing new technical solutions to mitigate the privacy and security risk of the smart home, producing new standards and influencing regulation, as well as building up communities of learning surrounding common issues. With this knowledge, industry stakeholders can take steps toward increasing smart home acceptability for consumers

The social informatics of knowledge

In the introduction to this special issue on the Social Informatics of Knowledge, the editors of the issue reflect on the history of the term “social informatics” and how the articles in this issue both reflect and depart from the original concept. We examine how social informatics researchers have studied knowledge, computerization, and the workplace, and how all of those have evolved over time. We describe the process by which papers were included, how they help us understand the field of social informatics scholarship today, and reflect briefly on what the future of the field holds.UK Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC)Alan Turing Institut