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The competition in the academe has always been tough, but today, the academe seems to be more like an industry than an academic community as academics are evaluated through quantified and economic means.

This article leans on Heidegger’s thoughts on the essence of technology and his ontological view on being to show the dangers that lie in this quantification of researchers and research.

Despite the benefits that information systems (ISs) offer to people and research, it seems that technology has made it possible to objectify researchers and research. This has a negative impact on the academe and should thus be looked into especially by the IS field, which should note the problems that exist in its core. This phenomenon of quantified academics is clearly visible at academic quantification sites, where academics are evaluated using metrics that count their output. It seems that the essence of technology has disturbed the way research is valued by emphasising its quantifiable aspects. The study claims that it is important to look for other ways to evaluate researchers rather than trying to maximise research production, which has led to the flooding of articles that few have the time or interest to read.

This paper offers new insights into the current phenomenon of quantification of academics and underlines the need for critical changes if in order to achieve the academic culture that is desirable for future academics.

We lead increasingly electronic lives, in which a significant part of our existence takes place online. The concepts of eGovernment, eCommerce, eHealth and eLiving are an indication of this development. Against this background, there is an ever growing urgency of thinking through the problem of building trust in an online context. This paper examines the contextual conditions which affect building trust online. It will be argued that different combinations of the contextual conditions of trust building will result in different views of the trust by the customer. Some of these combinations are better than others, and while a holistic approach would likely result in the best solution, it is not necessarily always within reach. Online trust building could be defined as a successful combination of four basic elements: reputation, technology, expertise and relationship. Unlike previous research, this study attempts to take all of these four key elements and the dynamics of their interconnections into account.

The purpose of this paper is to analyse the broad phases of web development: the read-only Web 1.0, the read-write Web 2.0, and the collaborative and Internet of Things Web 3.0, are examined for the theoretical lenses through which they have been understood and critiqued.

This is a conceptual piece, in the tradition of drawing on theorising from outside the Information Systems field, to shed light on developments in information communication technologies (ICTs).

Along with a summary of approaches to Webs 1.0 and 2.0, the authors contend that a more complex and poststructuralist theoretical approach to the notion of, and the phenomenon of Web 3.0, offers a more interesting and appropriate theoretical grounding for understanding its particularities.

The discussion presages five further papers engaged with ICTs in a changing society, each of which similarly addresses novel theoretical understandings.

The purpose of this paper is to show that most, if not all RFID/biometric passports have clear technical and social problems in their intended use and that there are clear problems with the databases into which biometric data are being collected, due to use of this data for other (publicly), non‐intended uses.

The approach of this paper is both a meta‐study of the flaws in the technological specifications as well as the social implementation of RFID/biometric passports. Finland is used as a case, but the results extend beyond Finland in most, if not all the topics presented – not necessarily all results to all implementations, but all to some others.

The current implementations of RFID/biometric passports are lacking in both technical and social implementations and pose clear risks to their use, both due to lax implementation of the technology itself but specifically due to the social changes brought about. These problems cause both erosion of privacy and trust.

Further research into other potential social implications on a national level is required. The authors fear that the cases presented do not necessarily reflect all the potential problems, but just the most evident ones.

The problems with the technological implications can be averted by using the best technological solutions, and thus the best technological solutions should be used instead of the ones proven to be lacking.

The social implications should at least be brought forth for public discourse and acknowledged, which currently does not seem to happen.

The paper contributes to the understanding of problems with current RFID/biometric passport implementations as well as inherent social problems that are hard, if not impossible to avoid. The problems belong under the category of critical eGovernment applications, and similar issues are visible in other eGovernment applications.

The purpose of this paper is to analyse the current status of ownership of patient information from a Lockean perspective and then present Datenherrschaft (German for “mastery over information”) as a new model for patient ownership of patient information.

This paper is theoretical in approach. It is based on arguments derived from Locke’s Two Treatises of Government. Legal examples of the current situation are derived from Finnish, UK and Swedish legislation.

Current legislation concerning patient information is not clearly formulated and so recognising a new right on the part of the patient, Datenherrschaft, would be an ethically justifiable way of remedying the issue.

The legal analysis was limited to Finland, the UK and Sweden, and so other legislation should be looked at in future research. Datenherrschaft is used as an example of an ethically justified way of regulating patient information ownership and should be analysed further.

Patient information ownership is an issue that is not unambiguously solved in many countries, nor has it, in our view, been ethically justified. The potential solution presented in this paper is clear and has strong ethical justifications.

It is widely acknowledged that the computer has caused great societal changes over recent years, but the purpose of this paper is to relate specifically to those due to the use of computers in education and teaching about computing. The adoption and use of computers in education was very much a socio-technical process with influence from people, organisations, processes and technologies: of a variety of human and non-human actors.

This paper makes use of actor-network theory to analyse these events and their educational and societal impact. Data were collected from published sources, interviews with those involved at the time, discussions and from personal experience and observations.

Computers have, of course, had a huge impact on society, but particularly in relation to the use of computers in school education there was a different societal impact. Some of this related directly to education, some to school administration and some to student attitudes, experiences and knowledge.

The paper investigates the development of early courses in computing in universities and schools in Victoria, Australia. The paper does not, however, consider the use of computers in university research, only in education.

The paper describes the significant educational events of the era from punch-card tabulating machines in the 1930s to micro-computers in the late 1980s, and investigates the relationship between the development of courses in the Universities and those in the more vocationally oriented Colleges of Advanced Education. It examines whether one followed from the other. It also investigates the extent of the influence of the universities and CAEs on school computing.

The advent of the computer made a significant impact on university and school education even before the internet, Google, Wikipedia and smart phones in the late 1990s and 2000s. Computers in schools cause a rethink of how teaching should be handled and of the role of the teacher.

This paper investigates the history of computers and education in both universities and schools in Victoria, Australia over the period from the 1930s to the early 1990s. It considers how and why this technological adoption occurred, and the nature of the resulting educational and societal change this produced. Primary and High School use of computers did not commence until the 1970s but prior to this there is a considerable and interesting history associated with the development of Higher Education courses relating to computing.

The purpose of this paper is to present a brief history of the information society and a research framework addressing the challenges of ensuring that information and communication technologies (ICTs) are applied in ways that are enabling and responsive to the varied contexts in which people live their lives.

Examination of why insights arising from research that is critical of the mainstream vision of the information society are rarely influential in debates on ICT policies, of the outstanding research questions around the promotion of investment in ICTs in support of sustainable development goals, and of the components of an alternative research framework that could be pursued by those concerned with social and technological innovation.

The analysis of policy discussion in this area indicates that there may now be an opportunity to re‐enter some of these debates, particularly those in which it is clear that there are many important issues that are reappearing on the ICT policy agenda. Some of the most difficult issues are highlighted including the need to give greater attention to measures supporting more differentiated information or knowledge societies.

The paper demonstrates that there are signs of learning and an awareness of unequal power relationships among stakeholders in ICT policy debates that may contribute to a shift in priorities towards a more context sensitive research framework that would be of value to those who are preoccupied by efforts to improve the material conditions of people's lives.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the emancipatory promises and realities of information and communication technology (ICT) in Egypt.

The combination of Habermasian and Foucauldian ideas implemented by a critical discourse analysis of the Egyptian Information Society Policy and interviews with employees of local decision support systems employees. Promises and rhetoric are contrasted with findings and questioned with regards to their validity.

On the policy level, analysis shows that the emancipating rhetoric of ICT is not followed through. ICT is mostly seen as a means of attracting foreign direct investment. Neither political participation nor educational benefits are promoted seriously. On the local level, culture and organisational realities prevent individuals from exploiting the emancipatory potential of the technology.

The combination of the Habermasian and Foucauldian approach exposes the problems of ICT use in developing countries. It shows that emancipation is used to legitimise ICT policies but is not taken seriously on a policy level in Egypt. Local implementations also fail to deliver on their promise. In order to have emancipatory effects, ICT policy and use will need to be reconsidered.