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1 – 10 of over 2000Gabrielle Samuel and Federica Lucivero
In April 2020, it was announced that NHSX, a unit of the UK National Health Service (NHS) responsible for digital innovation, was developing a contact tracing app that would offer…
Abstract
Purpose
In April 2020, it was announced that NHSX, a unit of the UK National Health Service (NHS) responsible for digital innovation, was developing a contact tracing app that would offer a digital solution to managing the COVID-19 pandemic. Despite the urgency with which the app was developed, a clear commitment was made to designing the technology in a way that enshrined key ethical principles, and an ethics advisory board (EAB) was established to provide timely advice, guidance and recommendations on associated ethical issues. Alongside this, there were extensive criticisms of how NHSX adhered to ethical principles in the handling of the app development-criticisms that require empirical exploration. This paper explores how ethics was incorporated into decision-making during governance processes associated with the development of app.
Design/methodology/approach
Interviews were conducted with those involved in the app's development/governance, those with a consulting role associated with the app, or those who sat on the EAB.
Findings
The EAB fulfilled an important role by introducing ethical considerations to app developers. Though at times, it was difficult to accommodate key ethics principles into governance processes, which sometimes suffered from little accountability.
Originality/value
While several articles have provided overviews of ethical issues, or explored public perceptions towards contact tracing apps, to the best the authors, knowledge this is the first empirical piece analysing ethics governance issues via stakeholder interviews.
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This chapter discusses how to involve children and young people in decisions and encourage them to express their needs and participate in the decision-making process to develop a…
Abstract
This chapter discusses how to involve children and young people in decisions and encourage them to express their needs and participate in the decision-making process to develop a quality intervention. By describing the different aspects of projects involving a participatory approach, it shows how giving voice to children and young people unlocked new perspectives regarding the Hungarian child protection system. Participation of children in research is limited in Hungary, partly due to the challenging legislation and authorisation process. This chapter shows how research to develop child-friendly digital tools can contribute to collecting children's views on their needs related to child protection support, and how the process of listening to children can improve parenting and caregiving responses to the needs of younger and older children living with their families or in the child protection system. The chapter analyses the effect of digital applications on children's and young people's capacity to advance towards autonomy, including applications and a video campaign with short video clips created by young people. These projects gave an opportunity for children and youth in the public care system to describe their lives and wishes for the future. The analysis found: (a) for a functional child protection system and to promote development for children and young people, children's voices need to be amplified; (b) by expressing their voices, children become more autonomous; (c) children's voices contribute to decreasing social prejudices against children and young people in public care; and (d) listening to children and youth who age out of care can help professionals working in the child protection system better understand their beneficiaries.
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Nsikak P. Owoh and M. Mahinderjit Singh
The proliferation of mobile phones with integrated sensors makes large scale sensing possible at low cost. During mobile sensing, data mostly contain sensitive information of…
Abstract
The proliferation of mobile phones with integrated sensors makes large scale sensing possible at low cost. During mobile sensing, data mostly contain sensitive information of users such as their real-time location. When such information are not effectively secured, users’ privacy can be violated due to eavesdropping and information disclosure. In this paper, we demonstrated the possibility of unauthorized access to location information of a user during sensing due to the ineffective security mechanisms in most sensing applications. We analyzed 40 apps downloaded from Google Play Store and results showed a 100% success rate in traffic interception and disclosure of sensitive information of users. As a countermeasure, a security scheme which ensures encryption and authentication of sensed data using Advanced Encryption Standard 256-Galois Counter Mode was proposed. End-to-end security of location and motion data from smartphone sensors are ensured using the proposed security scheme. Security analysis of the proposed scheme showed it to be effective in protecting Android based sensor data against eavesdropping, information disclosure and data modification.
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Umi Hanim Mohd Ibrahim, Fathinirna Mohd Arshad, Mazlan Zulkifly and Janet Woo Tai Kwan
The purpose of this paper is to discuss the progress of iRadio OUM over the years, the evolution of technology used and its overall significance to OUM’s continual growth and…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to discuss the progress of iRadio OUM over the years, the evolution of technology used and its overall significance to OUM’s continual growth and development.
Design/methodology/approach
Reports the results from web analytic data from previous years in terms of listening and downloading habits and trends. Reviews of how other institutions and/or organisations use podcasting or audio learning material in the teaching and learning process are also included.
Findings
Outlines the progress of iRadio OUM through the years in terms of content development, listening and downloading trends as well as research and development carried out. This paper summarises the changes in how segments are structured, produced and delivered. It also outlines the evolution of the technology used, mainly in terms of how content is delivered to the audience.
Research limitations/implications
The scope of the paper is such that it only highlights the experiences of iRadio OUM alone.
Practical implications
Offers practical advice in terms of the planning, development and implementation of an educational internet radio for higher learning institutions.
Originality/value
This paper is written by key team members of iRadio OUM itself and highlights the experiences and ultimately the best practices discovered by actual web-broadcast practitioners and audio learning materials instructional designers.
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In the wake of the pandemic (COVID-19) throughout the United States, many educators had to promptly switch to online modality to continue to provide education to students with…
Abstract
Purpose
In the wake of the pandemic (COVID-19) throughout the United States, many educators had to promptly switch to online modality to continue to provide education to students with safety through physical distancing requirements. This study mainly focuses on delivering an Information Systems module aligned with the information systems curriculum model during a pandemic.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors used data collection techniques from student assignments and course tasks. These data are used for the purpose of academic assessment for the Information Systems program. The student performance is assessed on a 5-point scale (1 being low and 5 being high) for the synchronous and the asynchronous tasks related to the course. The authors compared the student performance during the pandemic to the pre-pandemic semester.
Findings
This study revealed that the technical module of an information systems course can be successfully delivered during a pandemic in a remote session. However, the authors found that there is a decline in the student performance in synchronous tasks and asynchronous tasks. But the decline of the student performance in the synchronous tasks is greater than that of the asynchronous tasks. The result of this study helps the Information Systems program with their assessment and to improve their course delivery during a pandemic.
Originality/value
In this paper, the authors examine the delivery of a technical module in the field of information systems via online learning models. The authors particularly examine the synchronous and asynchronous online learning models in the delivery of the technical module. The lessons learned from transitioning to the online modality can help universities better prepare for the future during unprecedented times.
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Khatereh Ghasemzadeh, Octavio Escobar, Zornitsa Yordanova and Manuel Villasalero
The study examines the amplifying role of users in the e-healthcare sector and holistically show its current state and potential. The paper aims at contributing to the scientific…
Abstract
Purpose
The study examines the amplifying role of users in the e-healthcare sector and holistically show its current state and potential. The paper aims at contributing to the scientific literature with a comprehensive review of the current state of the art on the application of user innovation (UI) in the e-healthcare sector, as a solid step for discussing the potential, trends, managerial gaps and future research avenues in this field. Despite the crucial importance of the topic and increasing attention toward it in the last few years, there is a lack of comprehensive scrutiny on different angles of involving users in health technology innovations so far.
Design/methodology/approach
This study combines two methods of bibliometric analysis and extensive content analysis of 169 journal articles on Scopus and Web of Science to unfold five research questions regarding the mechanisms of involving users, innovations characteristics and the role of users throughout the innovation process.
Findings
A clear result of the applied methodology is the profiling of users involved in e-health innovations in seven categories. The results of this study shed light on the current practice of not involving users in all the stages of the innovation process of m-health, telemedicine, self-managing technologies, which is contrary to the best practices of the UI application.
Research limitations/implications
Collection of relevant studies due to lack of comprehensibility of the keywords.
Practical implications
The offered propositions can act as a roadmap to potential research opportunities as well as to organize such innovations from a managerial perspective in particular healthcare organization managers and the middle managers operating at R&D sectors and policymakers.
Originality/value
This study is the first of its kind that digs out the application of UI strategies such as user-centered design in the context of e-healthcare and provides a bibliometric and extensive content analysis of the studies conducted in this theme over the years.
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Clarice Vepo do Nascimento Welter, Jorge Oneide Sausen and Carlos Ricardo Rossetto
To identify the instruments and organizational mechanisms that provide the development of the innovative capacities of companies that (i) no longer work with technology-based…
Abstract
Purpose
To identify the instruments and organizational mechanisms that provide the development of the innovative capacities of companies that (i) no longer work with technology-based incubators, and (ii) are associated with the community universities of the state of Rio Grande do Sul.
Design/methodology/approach
Empirical research, qualitative approach and descriptive nature, conducted through multiple case studies in 21 companies from IEBTs in the state of Rio Grande do Sul. Data were organized and analyzed through content analysis.
Findings
Results show that the development of IC occurred through behaviors and skills, routines and processes and mechanisms of learning and knowledge governance that support the development of product, process and behavioral dimensions. It became evident that the companies that are emerging from IEBTs need innovation capacity to survive in the market. These innovations are related to product, process and behavioral innovations.
Research limitations/implications
The study cannot be generalized to other segments, since it was restricted to a set of IEBT egress companies, with specific realities and based on the perception of the managers of these companies.
Practical implications
The mechanisms and instruments for the development of innovative capacity can be used by companies from different sectors to make them more competitive before the current economic scenario.
Originality/value
It is justified by the scarcity of studies related to the dynamic capacity component (DC) elements, constituting a theoretical gap regarding the innovative capacity.
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Qamar Naith and Fabio Ciravegna
This paper aims to gauge developers’ perspectives regarding the participation of the public and anonymous crowd testers worldwide, with a range of varied experiences. It also aims…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to gauge developers’ perspectives regarding the participation of the public and anonymous crowd testers worldwide, with a range of varied experiences. It also aims to gather their needs that could reduce their concerns of dealing with the public crowd testers and increase the opportunity of using the crowdtesting platforms.
Design/methodology/approach
An online exploratory survey was conducted to gather information from the participants, which included 50 mobile application developers from various countries with diverse experiences across Android and iOS mobile platforms.
Findings
The findings revealed that a significant proportion (90%) of developers is potentially willing to perform testing via the public crowd testers worldwide. This on condition that several fundamental features were available, which enable them to achieve more realistic tests without artificial environments on large numbers of devices. The results also demonstrated that a group of developers does not consider testing as a serious job that they have to pay for, which can affect the gig-economy and global market.
Originality/value
This paper provides new insights for future research in the study of how acceptable it is to work with public and anonymous crowd workers, with varying levels of experience, to perform tasks in different domains and not only in software testing. In addition, it will assist individual or small development teams who have limited resources or who do not have thousands of testers in their private testing community, to perform large-scale testing of their products.
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Qamar Naith and Fabio Ciravegna
This paper aims to support small mobile application development teams or companies performing testing on a large variety of operating systems versions and mobile devices to ensure…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to support small mobile application development teams or companies performing testing on a large variety of operating systems versions and mobile devices to ensure their seamless working.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper proposes a “hybrid crowdsourcing” method that leverages the power of public crowd testers. This leads to generating a novel crowdtesting workflow Developer/Tester- Crowdtesting (DT-CT) that focuses on developers and crowd testers as key elements in the testing process without the need for intermediate as managers or leaders. This workflow has been used in a novel crowdtesting platform (AskCrowd2Test). This platform enables testing the compatibility of mobile devices and applications at two different levels, high-level (device characteristics) or low-level (code). Additionally, a “crowd-powered knowledge base” has been developed that stores testing results, relevant issues and their solutions.
Findings
The comparison of the presented DT-CT workflow with the common and most recent crowdtesting workflows showed that DT-CT may positively impact the testing process by reducing time-consuming and budget spend because of the direct interaction of developers and crowd testers.
Originality/value
To authors’ knowledge, this paper is the first to propose crowdtesting workflow based on developers and public crowd testers without crowd managers or leaders, which light the beacon for the future research in this field. Additionally, this work is the first that authorizes crowd testers with a limited level of experience to participate in the testing process, which helps in studying the behaviors and interaction of end-users with apps and obtains more concrete results.
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Victoria Gosling, Garry Crawford, Gaynor Bagnall and Ben Light
The purpose of this paper is to consider the key findings of a yearlong collaborative research project focusing on the London Symphony Orchestra’s development, implementation and…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to consider the key findings of a yearlong collaborative research project focusing on the London Symphony Orchestra’s development, implementation and testing of a branded smartphone app. This app was designed to primarily sell discounted tickets, engage and inform a student audience.
Design/methodology/approach
A mixed-method approach including an analysis of the technology, focus groups and interviews was used.
Findings
Though the aims of app developers and marketers are often to provide customers with more choice and interactivity, this research suggests that though the app proved a useful mechanism for selling discounted tickets, it indicates that existing customers were mostly enroled and mobilised via a limited and focused functionality for the app.
Originality/value
This paper is significant as mobile phone use remains comparatively under-researched, in particular there is still a relatively small literature on the growing phenomena of apps, and even less on their use in brand marketing. Also importantly, though this paper offers a consideration of one case, the app has since been expanded to include the ticketing for ten major orchestras in London, and moreover, many of the lessons learnt from this study will be of relevance to other arts organisations.
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