Search results
1 – 10 of over 8000R.D. de Swardt and R. Oberholzer
E‐commerce has changed the way in which business is conducted. One instance of this is that it has made the digitisation of products possible. This shift has severe implications…
Abstract
E‐commerce has changed the way in which business is conducted. One instance of this is that it has made the digitisation of products possible. This shift has severe implications for traditional consumption taxes, which were developed under the premise of a physical presence in a tax jurisdiction. A large number of countries in the world that impose Value‐Added Tax (VAT) on the supply of goods and services, including South Africa, are affected by this shift. The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) has suggested a number of principles that should apply to consumption taxes in e‐commerce. These principles are intended to provide fiscal climates in which e‐commerce can flourish and ensure taxation systems that secure individual countries’ tax bases. A comparison between the OECD principles and the rules pertaining to the imposition of VAT in South Africa on the supply of digitised products reveals several discrepancies and uncertainties. A baseline survey among VAT specialists in South Africa, conducted in order to substantiate these findings, confirmed these discrepancies and uncertainties in practice.
Details
Keywords
This study aims to highlight the potential of digitised historic newspapers.
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to highlight the potential of digitised historic newspapers.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper is a review of digitised historic newspapers as a primary source for marketing historians. It provides a survey of what is available internationally free of charge to the user. It also includes examples of the use of digitised historic newspapers drawn from the author’s own research.
Findings
The paper reveals the huge potential for marketing historians of what is now available in a growing number of countries across the world. Much of this material is available free of charge to researchers with a connection to the internet.
Originality/value
To the best of the author’s knowledge, this is the first paper to explore digitised historic newspapers as a primary source for marketing historians.
Details
Keywords
The purpose of this paper is to evaluate current approaches to assessing digitisation activities in memory institutions.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to evaluate current approaches to assessing digitisation activities in memory institutions.
Design/methodology/approach
Qualitative and quantitative analysis of digitisation surveys were performed. Analysis concentrated on several themes: general methodological solutions, digitisation objectives, users and usage of digitised content, budgeting and costs of digitisation, and volume and growth of digitised collections.
Findings
Analysis revealed an absence of sound methodology solutions, issues of constructing a sample, the split between strategic and resource management approaches to digitisation, low visibility of user related evaluation criteria, and problems in developing quantitative measures.
Research limitations/implications
Approaches to evaluating digitisation are not restricted to digitisation surveys and to provide a more comprehensive analysis these should be complemented by other data (e.g. interviews of digitisation experts). The identification of surveys was limited by subjective factors such as knowledge of national experts, visibility of reports on the web, and language of publication.
Practical implications
The paper assists in the development of digitisation surveys by highlighting previous gaps and achievements.
Originality/value
The paper is a first attempt to comprehend approaches to monitoring digitisation internationally. Gaps and issues identified in the research can guide studies on developing indicators and measures for specific digitisation activities.
Details
Keywords
Morteza Ghobakhloo and Masood Fathi
The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate how small manufacturing firms can leverage their Information Technology (IT) resources to develop the lean-digitized manufacturing…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate how small manufacturing firms can leverage their Information Technology (IT) resources to develop the lean-digitized manufacturing system that offers sustained competitiveness in the Industry 4.0 era.
Design/methodology/approach
The study performs an in-depth five years case study of a manufacturing firm, and reports its journey from failure in the implementation of enterprise resource planning to its success in integrating IT-based technology trends of Industry 4.0 with the firm’s core capabilities and competencies while pursuing manufacturing digitization.
Findings
Industry 4.0 transition requires the organizational integration of many IT-based modern technologies and the digitization of entire value chains. However, Industry 4.0 transition for smaller manufacturers can begin with digitization of certain areas of operations in support of organizational core strategies. The development of lean-digitized manufacturing system is a viable business strategy for corporate survivability in the Industry 4.0 setting.
Research limitations/implications
Although the implementation of lean-digitized manufacturing system is costly and challenging, this manufacturing strategy offers superior corporate competitiveness in the long run. Since this finding is rather limited to the present case study, assessing the business value of lean-digitized manufacturing system in a larger scale research context would be an interesting avenue for future research.
Practical implications
Industry 4.0 transition for typical manufacturers should commensurate with their organizational, operational and technical particularities. Digitization of certain operations and processes, when aligned with the firm’s core strategies, capabilities and procedures, can offer superior competitiveness even in Industry 4.0 era, meaning that the strategic plan for successful Industry 4.0 transition is idiosyncratic to each particular manufacturer.
Social implications
Manufacturing digitization can have deep social implications as it alters inter- and intra-organizational relationships, causes unemployment among low-skilled workforce, and raises data security and privacy concerns. Manufacturers should take responsibility for their digitization process and steer it in a direction that simultaneously safeguards economic, social and environmental sustainability.
Originality/value
The strategic roadmap devised and employed by the case company for managing its digitization process can better reveal what manufacturing digitization, mandated by Industry 4.0, might require of typical manufacturers, and further enable them to better facilitate their digital transformation process.
Details
Keywords
The study mainly aims to evaluate factors that impact online accounting education in Vietnamese universities during COVID-19.
Abstract
Purpose
The study mainly aims to evaluate factors that impact online accounting education in Vietnamese universities during COVID-19.
Design/methodology/approach
The study is exploratively conducted with a quantitative sample using purposive data-collecting techniques. The sample focused on teaching staff and students at public and private universities in Vietnam during COVID-19.
Findings
The study shows that infrastructure, working/living conditions during COVID-19 and lecturing time are the top three factors impacting online digitizing accounting education.
Research limitations/implications
This research is not without limitations. The limitations are limited time and resources, which did not allow for examining other factors that impact digitizing education in accounting. The forthcoming study should examine extended factors (not mentioned in the study) such as government sponsorship, lecturers’ soft skills, national culture, qualifications and so on.
Originality/value
This study identifies and states significant factors that impact online digitizing accounting education in Vietnamese higher education during COVID-19.
Details
Keywords
Aims to present issues related to digitization in the context of the historical role and purpose of academic special collections.
Abstract
Purpose
Aims to present issues related to digitization in the context of the historical role and purpose of academic special collections.
Design/methodology/approach
Presents a comparison of current issues related to digitization to historical issues related to the management of traditional print special collections.
Findings
The current issues are not new. Technology has not dramatically altered the role of special collections in academic libraries.
Research limitations/implications
Based on personal observation and experience and an awareness of issues, but essentially a personal viewpoint.
Practical implications
May provide non‐special collections librarians with a better understanding of, or different perspective on, the popular notion of “digitizing special collections” and of special collections historically and generally.
Originality/value
This is the viewpoint of an experienced head of special collections, a trained academic historian, and someone who has been involved in a number of digital projects.
Details
Keywords
The purpose of this paper is to situate the activity of digitisation to increase access to cultural and heritage content alongside the objectives of the Open Access Movement…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to situate the activity of digitisation to increase access to cultural and heritage content alongside the objectives of the Open Access Movement (OAM). It demonstrates that increasingly open licensing of digital cultural heritage content is creating opportunities for researchers in the arts and humanities for both access to and analysis of cultural heritage materials.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper is primarily a literature and scoping review of the current digitisation licensing climate, using and embedding examples from ongoing research projects and recent writings on Open Access (OA) and digitisation to highlight both opportunities and barriers to the creation and use of digital heritage content from galleries, libraries, archives and museums (GLAM).
Findings
The digital information environment in which digitised content is created and delivered has changed phenomenally, allowing the sharing and reuse of digital data and encouraging new advances in research across the sector, although issues of licensing persist. There remain further opportunities for understanding how to: study use and users of openly available cultural and heritage content; disseminate and encourage the uptake of open cultural data; persuade other institutions to contribute their data into the commons in an open and accessible manner; build aggregation and search facilities to link across information sources to allow resource discovery; and how best to use high-performance computing facilities to analyse and process the large amounts of data the author is now seeing being made available throughout the sector.
Research limitations/implications
It is hoped that by pulling together this discussion, the benefits to making material openly available have been made clear, encouraging others in the GLAM sector to consider making their collections openly available for reuse and repurposing.
Practical implications
This paper will encourage others in the GLAM sector to consider licensing their collections in an open and reusable fashion. By spelling out the range of opportunities for researchers in using open cultural and heritage materials it makes a contribution to the discussion in this area.
Social implications
Increasing the quantity of high-quality OA resources in the cultural heritage sector will lead to a richer research environment which will increase the understanding of history, culture and society.
Originality/value
This paper has pulled together, for the first time, an overview of the current state of affairs of digitisation in the cultural and heritage sector seen through the context of the OAM. It has highlighted opportunities for researchers in the arts, humanities and social and historical sciences in the embedding of open cultural data into both their research and teaching, whilst scoping the wave of cultural heritage content which is being created from institutional repositories which are now available for research and use. As such, it is a position paper that encourages the open data agenda within the cultural and heritage sector, showing the potentials that exists for the study of culture and society when data are made open.
Details
Keywords
Kirsten Butcher, Madlyn Runburg and Michelle Hudson
This paper aims to examine the impact of using digitized objects for inquiry with middle-school classrooms. Research analyzed critical thinking processes and student engagement…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to examine the impact of using digitized objects for inquiry with middle-school classrooms. Research analyzed critical thinking processes and student engagement during collaborative investigations with 3D models of authentic objects.
Design/methodology/approach
Digitized objects were 3D scans of fossils from the paleontology collection at the Natural History Museum of Utah implemented as 3D prints and 3D virtual models. Verbal protocol analysis examined critical thinking processes during collaborative student learning. Engagement was assessed via student feedback and a classroom observation protocol.
Findings
The findings demonstrated that digitized objects facilitated key critical thinking processes, particularly observation, problem finding, elaboration and evaluation. Student feedback was very positive and focused on strong interest in 3D technologies and the ability to engage in authentic exploration. Observations showed very high levels of on-task engagement.
Research limitations/implications
Additional research is necessary to determine if findings generalize across varied learner populations, including broader age ranges and socioeconomic samples, to activities implemented as fully online experiences and to digitized objects from varied domains.
Originality/value
Findings demonstrate digitized objects are effective methods to engage students in critical thinking and to promote engagement with authentic objects during classroom learning. Results demonstrate strong potential of new technologies to leverage the educational impact of digitized objects from local collections, setting the stage for expanded educational outreach by museums and libraries.
Details
Keywords
Donald J. Calista and James Melitski
The purpose of this paper is to examine best practices of worldwide country web sites, evaluated in 2003, 2005 and 2008 by the United Nations (UN).
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to examine best practices of worldwide country web sites, evaluated in 2003, 2005 and 2008 by the United Nations (UN).
Design/methodology/approach
The paper employs statistical analysis to determine whether the electronic innovation (digitized government) exhibits linear (unitary) or curvilinear (S‐type) processes in relation to four theories of information technology (IT) and social change.
Findings
The findings are bifurcated between 2003 and 2008. In the aggregate (highest scores), worldwide countries are responding to the value‐added qualities of digitized government, defined as the transactions of e‐government and the interactions of e‐governance. Yet, the disaggregate (first adopter) best practices data reveal significant downward trends between those survey years, especially, among Organization for Economic Cooperation (OECD) countries. The findings indicate that neither electronic dimension predicts the other's course. They also suggest that dual curvilinear processes explain e‐government and e‐governance.
Research limitations/implications
It is customary to employ random samples to verify the integrity of significance tests. In this research, however, the study population is a given (all UN members). The study universe (the whole subset) – that represents countries with the largest number of electronic offerings – and the study sample (the best practices subset) are virtually the same. It is not possible to attribute any of the outcomes to a sampling error (miscalculation). Nor is it likely to confuse conflating (mistaking) sample size and effect size (relationship strength) of the distributions.
Originality/value
Longitudinal (over time) studies of country web site best practices are almost non‐existent. Support for a dual curvilinear relationship between e‐government (transactions) and e‐governance (interactions) opens the way for a fuller treatment of digitized government best practices. Questioning the premise that a sustained electronic (democratizing) transformation is underway, notably, among first adopters is a compelling and critical outcome.
Details
Keywords
The amount of library material available online is staggering, but still at very early stages in terms of discovery tools. Without a centralized source to search digitized…
Abstract
Purpose
The amount of library material available online is staggering, but still at very early stages in terms of discovery tools. Without a centralized source to search digitized collections from these projects, it is important to understand their goals and distinctions between the services they provide. This paper aims to describe the complex landscape of mass digitization projects and their impact on interlending and document supply.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper analyzes the history, goals and achievements of the mass digitization projects. It also looks at the sites that aggregate digitized materials from these projects and their interfaces for providing access.
Findings
The number of library collections now digitized has reached numbers unimaginable even just a few years ago. The impact on interlending and document supply will likely be limited in the near term, since much of interlibrary borrowing is for materials published in the past decade, and much of the digitized content from this period is restricted in Google Book Search, the only mass digitization project to undertake digital conversion of copyrighted material. End users will be able to discover materials of interest in new ways, but are likely to need or want to see the print source for recent publications.
Practical implications
Library staff members need to understand these projects and how they differ from one another in order to provide optimal service to their readers.
Originality/value
The paper is a guide to negotiating the landscape of mass digitization, with an overview of the projects and their goals and accomplishments, with analysis of the impact on interlending and document supply.
Details