Tracing sources of design uncertainty and controversy in Web 2.0 facilitated collaborative design process

The integration of Internet-based collaborative tools such as Web 2.0 technologies to facilitate the design process has rendered collaborative design a chaotic practice filled with controversy and uncertainty, with the inevitable risk of unintended consequences. The purpose of this study was to trace the sources of design controversy in a Web 2.0 facilitated collaborative design process. The study employed an Actor Network Theory (ANT) methodological framework to explore design controversy in five design teams comprising of 4 to 6 undergraduate engineering students. Data was constituted by following the traces left by the actors, both human and nonhumans, their actions and the associations they made and broke as they worked to provide a solution to a design problem. All of these traces were captured on a Web platform. Our position was that of non-participant observers to allow the participants to speak for themselves. In addition, some key participants (spokespersons) were interviewed to allow them to explain their actions. The findings of the study demonstrate that Web 2.0 technologies played a critical role in illuminating controversies encountered during the design process from the design group formation, design problem analysis, as well as the generation and realization of the design solution stages of the process. Web 2.0 technology enabled the tracing of the rich interactions among designers which allowed the mapping of provisional ties, and the translations that made these ties durable and seemingly irreversible

Perceptions of Information and Communications Technology (ICT) for Instructional Delivery at a University: From Technophobic to Technologically Savvy

Changing academics’ perceptions of information and communications technology (ICT) in developing countries has always been a challenge. A university in Zimbawe has witnessed an about-turn in lecturers’ perceptions and beliefs about technology, from being negative (technophobic) to positive (technologically savvy) users of technology. This paper reports on the interplay of factors that resulted in lecturers’ buy-in to the use of e-learning as a mode of instructional delivery. The study employed actor network theory (ANT) as both a methodological and analytical framework to trace the trajectory of the e-learning programme at this university. The conspicuous actors were followed using questionnaires, participant observation, and document analysis as well as tracing them through the trails they left on the e-learning platform. The results show that there are heterogeneous actants which influence lecturers through multiple associations created during implementation of the e-learning programme. These resulted in the lecturers’ change in perceptions from being technophobic to becoming technologically savvy. This article contributes to the growing body of literature that uses ANT to understand e-learning as a socio-technical process. ANT’s contribution to explaining the change in lecturers’ perceptions lies in its symmetrical power to consider technological developments and human capacity development as equal actants that can exert similar levels of influence on each other to bring about required change