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The current predominant delivery format resulting from digitization is PDF, which is not appropriate for the blind, partially sighted and people who read on mobile devices. To meet the needs of both communities, as well as broader ones, alternative file formats are required. With the findings of the eBooks-On-Demand-Network Opening Publications for European Netizens project research, this study aims to improve access to digitized content for these communities.

In 2022, the authors conducted research on the digitization experiences of 13 EODOPEN partners at their organizations. The authors distributed the same sample of scans in English with different characteristics, and in accordance with Web content accessibility guidelines, the authors created 24 criteria to analyze their digitization workflows, output formats and optical character recognition (OCR) quality.

In this contribution, the authors present the results of a trial implementation among EODOPEN partners regarding their digitization workflows, used delivery file formats and the resulting quality of OCR results, depending on the type of digitization output file format. It was shown that partners using the OCR tool ABBYY FineReader Professional and producing scanning outputs in tagged PDF and PDF/UA formats achieved better results according to set criteria.

The trial implementations were limited to 13 project partners’ organizations only.

This research paper can be a valuable contribution to the field of massive digitization practices, particularly in terms of improving the accessibility of the output delivery file formats.

This paper explores the Adoption of Technological Innovation (ATI) in the healthcare industry. It investigates how the literature has evolved, and what are the emerging innovation dimensions in the healthcare industry adoption studies.

We followed a mixed-method approach combining bibliometric methods and topic modeling, with 57 papers being deeply analyzed.

Our results identify three latent topics. The first one is related to the digitalization in healthcare with a specific focus on the COVID-19 pandemic. The second one groups up the word combinations dealing with the research models and their constructs. The third one refers to the healthcare systems/professionals and their resistance to ATI.

The study’s sample selection focused on scientific journals included in the Academic Journal Guide and in the FT Research Rank. However, the paper identifies trends that offer managerial insights for stakeholders in the healthcare industry.

ATI has the potential to revolutionize the health service delivery system and to decentralize services traditionally provided in hospitals or medical centers. All this would contribute to a reduction in waiting lists and the provision of proximity services.

The originality of the paper lies in the combination of two methods: bibliometric analysis and topic modeling. This approach allowed us to understand the ATI evolutions in the healthcare industry.

This paper presents the features and relevance of open distance learning in the context of the socio-economic conditions of people living in the Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) in India. Although the primary purpose of the present study was to ascertain the effectiveness of the learner support services (LSSs) and different facilities offered by the open distance learning (ODL) institutions in that specific region. On the basis of these findings, few suggestions are made for the improvement in the support services, in order to make the ODL system more responsive to the area-specific needs of the learners, especially those residing in inaccessible areas such as J&K.

A survey-based descriptive methodology was applied to conduct this study. The data extracted from primary and secondary sources were analysed to reach certain conclusions. In total, 1,200 distance learners constituted the sample of the research. A semi-structured questionnaire was designed and distributed amongst learners and academics in the region to obtain their feedback and opinion on different aspects of support services and facilities offered to ODL learners.

Results of the study revealed that overall, the LSSs were satisfactory on different parameters, although they slightly varied from institution to institution. However, there was still scope for improvement in certain areas, where institutions further need to make serious efforts to address the identified gaps for improving the LSS and make teaching-learning more learner-centric in view of their specific requirements and local circumstances of J&K.

The present study focusses on presenting an overview of the only major components of LSS offered by ODL institutions and covers six distance education institutions (DEIs) located in different geographical locations within the limited jurisdiction of J&K. There is still scope to make focused (institution-wise) studies in a more specific situation and context to ascertain the problems in a more realistic way.

Although the study has been conducted in a specific territory of J&K, the findings reported in the paper may be equally useful for the other ODL institutions with similar characteristics or located in similar geographical locations, as support services are essential common components of institutions offering distance education programmes or courses.

The study is original research work conducted in the specific context of J&K, and its findings are based on the primary and secondary data collected from learners and other stakeholders of the selected ODL institutions. This work may be significant for the DEIs of J&K to get familiar with the essential components of LSS and develop a mechanism to further improve the academic and administrative support services for distance learners.

In this article, we reflect on how smart technology is transforming service research discourses about service innovation and value co-creation. We adopt the concept of technology smartness’ to refer to the ability of technology to sense, adapt and learn from interactions. Accordingly, we seek to address how smart technologies (i.e. cognitive and distributed technology) can be powerful resources, capable of innovating in relation to actors’ agency, the structure of the service ecosystem and value co-creation practices.

This conceptual article integrates evidence from the existing theories with illustrative examples to advance research on service innovation and value co-creation.

Through the performative utterances of new tech words, such as onlife and materiality, this article identifies the emergence of innovative forms of agency and structure. Onlife agency entails automated, relational and performative forms, which provide for new decision-making capabilities and expanded opportunities to co-create value. Phygital materiality pertains to new structural features, comprised of new resources and contexts that have distinctive intelligence, autonomy and performativity. The dialectic between onlife agency and phygital materiality (structure) lies in the agencement of smart tech–enabled value co-creation practices based on the notion of becoming that involves not only resources but also actors and contexts.

This paper proposes a novel conceptual framework that advances a tech-based ecology for service ecosystems, in which value co-creation is enacted by the smartness of technology, which emerges through systemic and performative intra-actions between actors (onlife agency), resources and contexts (phygital materiality and structure).

This study investigated demographic factors, attitude and knowledge of persons with special needs towards COVID-19 in Nigeria between 12 May and 25 May 2020. This cross-sectional online survey was conducted among 72 persons with special needs purposively selected from the six geo-political zones in Nigeria. A questionnaire comprising questions on demographic information (three), knowledge (24) and attitude (28) towards COVID-19 was completed via Google forms by the participants (r=0.78). There were more males (51, 70.8%) than females (21, 29.2%) and the most common age group was 34-44 years (37.5%). The number of participants with a hearing impairment was 34 (47.2%) and the number with a visual impairment was 26 (36.1%). The results indicate adequate knowledge about the characteristics of COVID-19. It was found that 98.6% of the participants had heard about COVID-19; 94.4% were aware that COVID-19 is a contagious disease, 91.7% stated that COVID-19 is a virus and 88.9% reported correctly that the incubation period is 3-14 days. The knowledge about symptoms of COVID-19 among participants was high (x=2.63; participants obtained 87.8% of the total achievable score for these questions). The knowledge about prevention and control of COVID-19 among participants needs was very high (x=2.77; participants obtained 92.3% of the total achievable score for these questions). Attitude of participants towards the COVID-19 outbreak was positive and above average (x=2.84). However, participants reported that it is hard to get palliatives or financial support from others during COVID-19 lockdown (52.8%) and that they feel frustrated by the uncaring attitude of the government towards them during COVID-19 lockdown (55.6%). On this basis, counselling and social policy implications were suggested including the provision of palliatives by the government and the need for widespread enlightenment among individuals with special needs on prevention of COVID-19.

In March 2020 the United Nations published an open brief for the creative community to propose interventions to the unfolding COVID-19 pandemic. However, when faced with unprecedented wicked problems such as these, the rigour of design and creative processes can tested. COVID-19 has demonstrated how important human centred design responses are in understanding the worldviews and ecosystems of users. Ad hoc design responses or design hacks have demonstrated that they have a role to play in how we create our future individual, community and societal ecosystems.

In terms of age friendly design, this pandemic makes us envision what should be, furthermore, how we could create better products and services through technology. For our ageing communities “Cocooning” and other social restriction measures have exposed technological deficiencies for the needs of older people and opens up questions of our future preparedness for a growing ageing society. Now more than ever, designers need to understand the behavioural mind-set of older people in their own ecosystem and understand existing mental models.

In this opinion piece we posit what acts of design hacking can lead us to greater understanding of users mental models and therefore better understanding of technology needs for both older and younger adults. While presenting various examples of how design hacking is conducted by citizens and participants alike, it shows that it offers designers differing perspectives, experiences and inspiration for technology.

This chapter contextualises and provides an overview of the development and current state of the profession of research management and administration in the English-speaking Caribbean. In addition, the chapter shows that Research Management and Administration is an emerging profession that is beginning to take root in CARICOM countries, especially as demonstrated by the leading HEIs in which it is recognised that research administration functions are important in supporting and adding value to the research agendas of these institutions and their larger mission of contributing to the sustainable development of the region.

Following the imperative for human-centric digital innovation brought by the paradigm of Industry 5.0, the article aims to integrate the dispersed and multi-disciplinary literature on individual risks for workers to define, explain and predict individual risks related to Industry 4.0 technologies.

The paper follows the question, “What is the current knowledge and evidence base concerning risks related to Industry 4.0 technologies, and how can this inform digital innovation management in the manufacturing sector through the lens of the Industry 5.0 paradigm?” and uses the method of systematic literature review to identify and discuss potential risks for individuals associated with digital innovation. N = 51 contributions met the inclusion criteria.

The literature review indicates dominant trends and significant gaps in understanding risks from a human-centric perspective. The paper identifies individual risks, their interplay with different technologies and their antecedents at the social, organizational and individual levels. Despite this, the paper shows how the literature concentrates in studying risks on only a limited number of categories and/or concepts. Moreover, there is a lack of consensus in the theoretical and conceptual frameworks. The paper concludes by illustrating an initial understanding of digital innovation via a human-centered perspective on psychological risks.

Findings yield practical implications. In investing in the adoption, generation or recombination of new digital technologies in organizations, the paper recommends managers ensure to prevent risks at the individual level. Accordingly, the study’s findings can be used as a common starting point for extending the repertoire of managerial practices and interventions and realizing human-centric innovation.

Following the paradigm of Industry 5.0, the paper offers a holistic view of risks that incorporates the central role of the worker as crucial to the success of digital innovation. This human-centric perspective serves to inform the managerial field about important factors in risk management that can result in more effective targeted interventions in risk mitigation approaches. Lastly, it can serve to reinterpret digital innovation management and propose future avenues of research on risk.

Technologies are ubiquitous in modern Britain, gradually infiltrating many areas of our working and personal lives. But what role can technology play in the current COVID-19 pandemic? At a time when our usual face to face social interactions are temporarily suspended, many of us have reached out to technology (e.g. Skype, WhatsApp, Facebook, Zoom) to help maintain a sense of closeness and connection to friends, family and vital services.

One largely unsung technology is the virtual assistant (VA), a cost-efficient technology enabling users to access the Internet of Things using little more than voice. Deploying an ecological framework, in the context of smart age-friendly cities, this paper explores how VA technology can function as an emergency response system, providing citizens with systems to connect with friends, family, vital services and offering assistance in the diagnosis of COVID-19.

We provide an illustration of the potentials and challenges VAs present, concluding stricter regulation and controls should be implemented before VAs can be safely integrated into smart age-friendly cities across the globe.

Customer value perception of Internet of Things (IoT)-based services has not been studied in the context of a company’s readiness to adopt IoT technology. The purpose of this paper is to address this gap by indicating a research framing that combines insights from the IoT business model literature and customer perception of the value of such models and their drivers.

The interplay between a company’s IoT readiness and its perception of the value of IoT services is tested using a sample of 90 Eastern European business customers in a competitive business field. The conceptual framework described also examines relationships among constructs that refer to relationship quality. This study evaluates its quantitative sample using partial least squares path modeling.

Customers’ perceived value of IoT business models strongly relates to their digitalization capabilities and their own company’s innovativeness. When referring to disruptive technical offerings, existing trustful and satisfactory relationships cannot enhance the customer’s value perception.

The sample of Eastern European buyers is not representative of the majority of manufacturing companies. A randomized sample using other sources such as large industry databases could be useful. In addition, a replication of the study in other countries would allow for a cross-border validation of this study’s results.

This study suggests a detailed process that is based on a careful preselection of test customers working for innovative companies. A marketing communication approach must state clearly the benefits the buyers get in return for their sacrifice of sharing data.

Technology readiness refers to the user’s propensity to embrace and use new technologies. The results indicate that IoT readiness influences the successful launch of IoT-related business models. For managers, this study proposes a process to implement IoT-related business models.