ARIN1000 History and Theory of Informatics

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ARIN1000History and Theory of Informatics

• Week 2
• The Information Society

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Aims

• In this lecture we will look at the following key
  concepts and content areas
• The role of technology convergence in the growth
  and pervasiveness of the information revolution
• The social, cultural, political and economic
  changes that have resulted from the information
  revolution

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Aims

• What is information?
• The difference between an industrial good and
  an information good
• the importance of a human-centred systems
  thinking approach to the study of informatics
  recognising the complementary strengths and
  weaknesses of humans and machines

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Technology Convergence
Audio-visualtechnologies
Computingtechnologies
Telecommunicationtechnologies
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The Information Society

• The Information Society is typified by the
  pervasive impact of information and communication
  technologies (ICTs) on all aspects of our lives
  including how we
• live
• work
• communicate
• entertain ourselves

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The Information Society

• Acceleration in the speed of communication and
  the pace of technological change
• Global impact of ICT(McLuhans global village)
• Local and global disparities in access and equity

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Changes in workforce

• Growth in jobs in the service (tertiary) and
  information (quaternary) sectors
• Diminishing jobs in primary (agriculture) and
  secondary sectors (manufacturing)
• IT now plays an important role in nearly all
  sectors of the economy
• Global flow of jobs - outsourcing

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Changes in education

• Online learning and flexible delivery of content
• Huge growth in availability of online resources
  for research
• Collaborative scholarship and sharing of
  information on a local and global level
• Computers used to create and present assignments
  (cf. The handwritten assignments in your parents
  generation)

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The impact on privacy

• Who has your personal information?
• Banks, government agencies, medical centres,
  educational institutions, retailers, the list
  goes on
• personal information is stored on computers
  computers are connected to the internet
• Privacy is dead. Get over it. (variously
  attributed to Larry Ellison - CEO of Oracle and
  to Scott McNealy CEO of Sun Microsystems)

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Other impacts

• Communication
• Politics
• Entertainment
• Other?

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What is information?
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Information - quantity v. quality
Wisdom
Amount ofHumanprocessing
Data
Chaos
Amount of data organisation
Source Lelia Green, 2002, Technoculture p.82
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Information v. industrial goods

• Masuda (cited in Green 2002, p. 80) identifies
  four properties of information that distinguish
  it from industrial goods and which are
  responsible for the dramatic growth in the
  quantity of information. Information is
• inconsumable
• untransferable
• indivisible
• accumulative

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Information processes

• Information can be
• created
• stored
• retrieved
• processed
• transmitted
• used
• How do humans and computers deal with these
  processes?

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Computers

• Do computers create information?
• Good at processing information
• number crunching
• recombining information in new ways (e.g.
  databases)
• copying information
• transforming information (e.g. numbers --gt graphs
  and charts)

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Computers

• Good at storage and retrieval
• stored and retrieved from hard drive
• can store large quantities of information
• efficient and accurate at retrieving information
• Good at transmitting information
• How do computers use information?

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Humans

• Good at creating information
• Stores and retrieves information in brain/memory
• Limits to the capacity of the brain to store
  information
• Retrieval process not always efficient and not
  always accurate
• Good at transmitting information in a variety of
  modes
• Good at using information (meaning/context)

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Information - quantity v. quality

• Classical information theory deals with
  information as a quantity and is concerned with
  maximising the amount of information, measured in
  bits (binary digits), that can be transmitted
  across a communication channel

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Information - quantity v. quality

• Shannon and Weavers 1947 communication model
  Source http//www.cultsock.ndirect.co.uk/MUHome/
  cshtml/index.html

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Information - quantity

• The technological side of information quantity
• Classical information theory is concerned with
  efficient transmission of information (measured
  as a quantity)
• Optimising hardware, software and infrastructure
  are the key issues

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Information - quality

• The human side of information quality
• Humans are adept at understanding the context,
  meaning and significance to information building
  it into knowledge which can be used productively

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Information - quantity v. quality
Wisdom
Amount ofHumanprocessing
Data
Chaos
Amount of data organisation
Source Lelia Green, 2002, Technoculture p.82
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Information - quantity v. quality

• The information revolution can be seen as an
  explosion of information at the lower levels of
  the chaos-wisdom progression (Lelia Green, 2002,
  p.82)
• We now need to work on the upper levels of the
  chaos-wisdom progression requiring human skills
  of selection, analysis, evaluation and synthesis
  to create new forms of knowledge and wisdom

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Humans and machines

• As we have seen, humans and machines have
  different strengths and weaknesses
• video interlude
• Charlie Chaplin - Modern Times

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Modern Times

• The film Modern Times shows us that treating
  humans like they are machines or making humans
  adapt to technology is a dysfunctional approach
• In todays society where technology plays such a
  large role in our lives, we need to develop a
  human-centred approach to technology

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Systems Thinking

• Systems thinking gives us a conceptual framework
  within which to look at models for a productive
  relationship between humans and technology
• Technological systems, including information
  systems, have to be understood and analysed in
  terms of the human social systems, and the
  attendant human values, of which they form a part.

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What is a system?

• A system comprises
• interconnecting parts functioning as a whole.
• something that maintains its existence and
  functions as a whole through the interaction of
  its parts.
• a number of parts acting as a single entity.
• (Reference O'Connor, J McDermott, I 1997, The
  art of systems thinking essential skills for
  creativity and problem solving, Thorsons, London.)

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Information System

• Information systems are made up of
• People
• Technology
• Processes

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Information systems people

• Skill sets
• Knowledge
• Attitudes
• Beliefs
• Cultural background
• Motivations
• Personal networks

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Information systems technology

• Hardware
• Software
• Network infrastructure support

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Information systems processes

• Social systems and processes
• Laws, regulations or protocols for how the system
  will be used

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Information Systems

• All three aspects of an information system need
  to be understood and considered in relationship
  to each other.
• Rather than being about the development and
  enhancement of the performance of computers, the
  study of information systems is about making
  computer information systems work for people to
  satisfy individual and organisational needs.

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Example the Help-desk

• What are the components of the help-desk
  information system?
• People
• Technology
• Processes

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Example the Help-desk

• Think of some examples of when the help-desk
  system fails to work optimally (usually evidenced
  by customer complaints!)
• Where in the system are the problems occuring?

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References

• Readings in ARIN 1000 Reader
• Castells, M. (2000) The Rise of the Network
  Society (2nd Edition) Oxford Blackwell. Excerpt
  from Chapter 1 - The Information Technology
  Revolution
• McLuhan, M. and Fiore, Q. (1967) The Medium is
  the Massage, London Penguin. Short excerpts.
• Green, L. (2002) Technoculture from alphabet to
  cybersex, Crows Nest, NSW Allen and Unwin.
  Chapter 5 Information Policy in the
  Information Society
• Online
• Communication, Cultural and Media Studies website
  - search for Shannon and Weaver
  Modelhttp//www.cultsock.ndirect.co.uk/MUHome/cs
  html/index.html

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References

• Readings in Fisher Reserve
• Negroponte, N. (1995) Being Digital, Rydalmere,
  NSW, Hodder and Stoughton.
• O'Connor, J McDermott, I 1997, The art of
  systems thinking essential skills for
  creativity and problem solving, Thorsons,
  London.)