Hype Cycle Research Articles

Evaluation of a Gamified Learning Experience: Analysis of the impact of gamification on learning outcomes in education

Gamification has gone through a faddish cycle. It first gained prominence around 2012 and was quickly abandoned, as practitioners did not achieve the outcomes they expected. According to Gartner’s Hype Cycle, Gamification is at a point at which one might expect wide scale adoption. However, if history is not to repeat itself and results are to be achieved as theoretically predicted, a deeper understanding of the concept is essential. In the current study, the researchers attempt to evaluate a gamified learning experience. The participants were students of a Master in Business Administration course. The students were asked to participate in a gamified module and relevant data was collected, before and after the intervention. Based on a review of literature, the researchers identified the exogenous variables of Valence, Attitude towards use of Technology and Experience with Technology. The endogenous variables identified included Reaction and Learning. The findings of the study suggest that the gamified module resulted in increase in knowledge and that Attitude, Experience and Valence significantly predicted the Learner’s reaction to the experience. The findings of the study provide support to key theories in the area of gamification and insights for practitioners, on the factors to be considered before using a gamified learning intervention.

Conducting hidden populations research: A reflective case study on researching the biohacking community

Futures studies aim to capture emerging social phenomena and to aid long-term decision making, important in critical social sectors such as healthcare and crime prevention. Despite a growing interest, research on emerging social groups or hidden populations, and the development of rigorous research products continue to be challenging due to the logistical difficulty in collecting accurate information about group dynamics. Early-career researchers embarking on hidden populations research may experience a steep learning curve when in the process of collecting data or conducting fieldwork. Here, we reflect on this learning process and on the challenges which researchers may encounter. Using the first author’s own research on the biohacking community as a case study, we parallel our reflections in terms of Gartner’s Hype Cycle, a methodology used by businesses to represent the maturity of new products. We discuss overcoming challenges, such as gaining trust and establishing rapport with participants, while navigating the demands of institutional ethics requirements, placing the researcher in a better position to conduct further research. We aim to offer practical and relatable insight for readers conducting their own research, to encourage them as they approach hidden communities and plan their investigations.

Using Blockchain-Enabled Solutions as SDG Accelerators in the International Development Space

As the world is striving to recover from the shockwaves triggered by the COVID-19 crisis, all hands are needed on deck to transition towards green recovery and make peace with nature as prerequisites of a global sustainable development pathway. In this paper, we examine the blockchain hype, the gaps in the knowledge, and the tools needed to build promising use cases for blockchain technology to accelerate global efforts in this decade of action towards achieving the SDGs. We attempt to break the “hype cycle” portraying blockchain’s superiority by navigating a rational blockchain use case development approach. By prototyping an SDG Acceleration Scorecard to use blockchain-enabled solutions as SDG accelerators, we aim to provide useful insights towards developing an integrated approach that is fit-for-purpose to guide organizations and practitioners in their quest to make informed decisions to design and implement blockchain-backed solutions as SDG accelerators. Acknowledging the limitations in prototyping such tools, we believe these are minimally viable products and should be considered as living tools that can further evolve as the blockchain technology matures, its pace of adoption increases, lessons are learned, and good practices and standards are widely shared and internalized by teams and organizations working on innovation for development.

Blockchain is dead! Long live Blockchain!

A decade on since Satoshi’s Bitcoin paper, Blockchain is now considered to be sliding into the trough of Gartner’s hype cycle. Claims in regards to Blockchain and Cryptocurrencies being dead are on the rise, whilst at the same time many claim the contrary. The vague statement encapsulates many different aspects and perspectives of a myriad of use cases, technology and platforms including both the technique as a whole as well as individual instantiations. In this paper, we unpack the statement, break it down, and investigate objectively concrete factors which provide indication in regards to whether Blockchain is dead. We examine metrics including budgets and investment; public company registries and data; community engagement, projects, and source code repositories; academic research and programmes; social media posts; and public interest. We demonstrate metrics individually that indicate the respective measures’ healthy activity and come to the conclusion that the collective statement “Blockchain is dead” does not hold. A clear message extracted from the work proposed herein is that success is achieved where the community comes together rather than works in isolation.

Can We Connect? Benefits and Barriers to Adoption of Transformative Technology in Global Supply Chains

Can We Connect? Benefits and Barriers to Adoption of Transformative Technology in Global Supply Chains

A history of technological hype

Education leaders frequently turn to technological solutions to improve schools, often without evidence of their effectiveness. According to Victoria Cain and Adam Laats, this pattern of leaders pouring money into new technological systems and then being disappointed in the results goes back centuries. They describe how, in the early 1800s, Lancastrian schoolrooms captured the public imagination and how, in the 1950s and ‘60s, were seen as a solution to current educational ills. These examples provide a warning to those who see online education as a silver bullet.

Ancient human DNA: A history of hype (then and now)

In this article on the history of ancient DNA research, we argue that the innovation of next-generation sequencing (NGS) of the early 2000s has ushered in a second hype cycle much like the first hype cycle the field experienced in the 1990s with the advent of the polymerase chain reaction (PCR). While the first hype cycle centered around the search for the oldest DNA, the field’s current optimism today promotes the rhetoric of revolution surrounding the study of ancient human gnomes. This is evidenced from written sources and personal interviews with researchers who feel the vast amount of data, the conclusions being made from this data, and the ever-increasing celebrity status of the field are perhaps moving too fast for their own good. Here, we use the concept of contamination, in both a literal and figurative understanding of the term, to explore the field’s continuities and disparities. We also argue that a number of additional, figurative interpretations of “contamination” are useful for navigating the current debate between geneticists and archaeologists regarding the origin, evolution, and migration of ancient humans across space and time. Our historical outlook on aDNA’s disciplinary development, we suggest, is necessary to accurately appreciate the state of the field, how it came to be, and where it might go in the future.

Opinion formation dynamics — Swift collective disillusionment triggered by unmet expectations

We propose a microscopic model to describe how individual opinions shared between interacting agents initiate excessive collective expectations about a new idea or an innovation, followed by a swift collapse towards a dramatic collective disillusionment. The basic assumption which underlies the dynamics is that the information gathering process is not instantaneous but requires maturation. Agents steadily refine and update their personal opinion via a recurrent consultation of a public pool which stores information tokens (ITs). The expectation for the innovative idea is monitored in real-time by counting the number of stored ITs. The flow dynamics of ITs is assimilated to a single node queuing system (QS) with feedback loop. It incorporates the information pool (the waiting room), an IT inflow, and a service outflow that stylizes the information gathering process. Contrary to basic queuing theory, here the ITs roaming the QS are endowed with time-dependent internal variables. This additional dynamic information is used to construct the information maturation process. Such a maturation of the information introduces response delays into the dynamics, which ultimately generates the collective disillusionment trough. We illustrate the introduced generic modeling framework by considering in details the hype cycle dynamics, a key managerial topic when dealing with diffusion of innovation. In a second part of the paper, we introduce a stylized framework to detect, as soon as possible, the onset of the collective disillusionment phase, while minimizing the frequency of false alarms.

Editors' Note

Editors' Note

Open Science and the Hype Cycle

The introduction of a new technology or innovation is often accompanied by “ups and downs” in its fortunes. Gartner Inc. defined a so-called hype cycle to describe a general pattern that many innovations experience: technology trigger, peak of inflated expectations, trough of disillusionment, slope of enlightenment, and plateau of productivity. This article will compare the ongoing introduction of Open Science (OS) with the hype cycle model and speculate on the relevance of that model to OS. Lest the title of this article mislead the reader, be assured that the author believes that OS should happen and that it will happen. However, I also believe that the path to OS will be longer than many of us had hoped. I will give a brief history of the today's “semi-open” science, define what I mean by OS, define the hype cycle and where OS is now on that cycle, and finally speculate what it will take to traverse the cycle and rise to its plateau of productivity (as described by Gartner).

組織と個人の間の新技術に対する事業機会認識の差異 －Hype cycle モデルのブロックチェーン技術分野での検証－

組織と個人の間の新技術に対する事業機会認識の差異 －Hype cycle モデルのブロックチェーン技術分野での検証－

‘Lex Cryptographia,’ ‘Cloud Crypto Land’ or What? – Blockchain Technology on the Legal Hype Cycle

Based on an analysis of the literature on the interaction of law and DLT/blockchain, the paper argues that hype cycle dynamics apply in legal discourse. Thinking in hype cycle categories provides a structured way for analysing the potential legal implications of a particular innovation. This critical engagement with enthusiasts, sceptics and pragmatists throughout the different stages may help to present a more realistic picture of DLT/Blockchain’s potential from a legal perspective in the short and medium term. Consequently, the paper discusses the potential for disruption to the legal system envisaged by enthusiasts at the height of inflated expectations, attempts to deconstruct the arguments levelled at the technology by its detractors during the trough of disillusionment, charts the emerging legal landscape that seeks to accommodate and harness the potential of DLT/blockchain on the slope of enlightenment, and concludes by risking a glimpse towards the plateau of productivity.

Hype Cycles: Dynamic Information Design with Two Audiences

Hype Cycles: Dynamic Information Design with Two Audiences

BIM Adoption around the World

Adoption of Building Information Modelling (BIM) has increased significantly over the last few years, This paper explain the worldwide status of building information modeling (BIM) adoption from the perspectives of the engagement level, the Hype Cycle model, the technology diffusion model, and BIM services. An online questionnaire was published, and 157 engineers from many continents responded. Total, North America was the first among the continents. Countries in Asia perceived their stage mainly as slope of enlightenment (realize) in the Hype Cycle model. In the technology diffusion model, the main BIM-users worldwide were “early majority” (third stage), but those in the Middle East/Africa and South America were “early adopters” (second stage). In addition, the more advanced the country, the more number of BIM services employed. In summary, North America, Europe, Oceania, and Asia were advancing quickly toward the realize stage of BIM.

Framing governance for a contested emerging technology:insights from AI policy

ABSTRACT This paper examines how the governance in AI policy documents have been framed as way to resolve public controversies surrounding AI. It draws on the studies of governance of emerging technologies, the concept of policy framing, and analysis of 49 recent policy documents dedicated to AI which have been prepared in the context of technological hype expecting fast advances of AI that will fundamentally change economy and society. The hype about AI is accompanied by major public controversy about positive and negative effects of AI. Against the backdrop of this policy controversy, governance emerges as one of the frames that diagnoses the problems and offers prescriptions. Accordingly, the current governance characterized by oligopoly of a small number of large companies is indicated as one of the reasons for problems such as lack of consideration of societal needs and concerns. To address these problems, governance frame in AI policy documents assigns more active and collaborative roles to the state and society. Amid public controversies, the state is assigned the roles of promoting and facilitating AI development while at the same time being a guarantor of risk mitigation and enabler of societal engagement. High expectations are assigned to public engagement with multiple publics as a way to increase diversity, representation and equality in AI development and use. While this governance frame might have a normative appeal, it is not specific about addressing some well-known challenges of the proposed governance mode such as risks of capture by vested interests or difficulties to achieve consensus.

Journalism that tells the future: possibilities and journalistic scenarios for augmented reality

The Gartner Hype Cycle for Emerging Technologies highlights “augmented human technologies” as one of their emerging trends, while the Future Today Institute alludes to the potential of extended reality (digitally manipulated environments encompassing virtual and augmented reality) for the development of new applications with great informative value. Based on this, the current study brings together in-depth interviews with experts who analyze the possibilities of augmented reality (AR) in journalism, including its weaknesses and some proposals for new journalistic scenarios. The study concludes that, according to experts, the use of AR in daily systems and applications is key to establishing this technology. In addition, experts stress the need to carry out sociological and ethical studies of its impact, as well as experimental research on the use of augmented senses in humans, including both visual and haptic augmentation and hearing. Resumen El Gartner hype cycle for emerging technologies destaca las “tecnologías humanas aumentadas” como una de las tendencias emergentes; mientras que el Future Today Institute alude al potencial de la realidad extendida (entornos manipulados digitalmente que abarca la realidad virtual y aumentada) para el desarrollo de nuevas aplicaciones de gran valor informativo. Partiendo de ello, el estudio reúne entrevistas en profundidad a expertos que analizan las posibilidades de la realidad aumentada (RA) en el periodismo y sus debilidades, y propone nuevos escenarios a nivel periodístico. Según los expertos, el uso de RA en sistemas y aplicaciones de uso diario es el punto clave para asentar esta tecnología. Además, inciden en la necesidad de realizar estudios sociológicos y éticos de su impacto, así como investigaciones experimentales sobre el uso de sentidos aumentados en humanos, tanto el aumento visual como la háptica y la audición.

Artificial intelligence in orthopaedics: false hope or not? A narrative review along the line of Gartner's hype cycle.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) in general, and Machine Learning (ML)-based applications in particular, have the potential to change the scope of healthcare, including orthopaedic surgery.The greatest benefit of ML is in its ability to learn from real-world clinical use and experience, and thereby its capability to improve its own performance.Many successful applications are known in orthopaedics, but have yet to be adopted and evaluated for accuracy and efficacy in patients’ care and doctors’ workflows.The recent hype around AI triggered hope for development of better risk stratification tools to personalize orthopaedics in all subsequent steps of care, from diagnosis to treatment.Computer vision applications for fracture recognition show promising results to support decision-making, overcome bias, process high-volume workloads without fatigue, and hold the promise of even outperforming doctors in certain tasks.In the near future, AI-derived applications are very likely to assist orthopaedic surgeons rather than replace us. ‘If the computer takes over the simple stuff, doctors will have more time again to practice the art of medicine’.76Cite this article: EFORT Open Rev 2020;5:593-603. DOI: 10.1302/2058-5241.5.190092

The Next Pharmaceutical Path: Determining Technology Evolution in Drug Delivery Products Fabricated with Additive Manufacturing

Additive manufacturing (AM) is increasingly gaining a presence in the pharmaceutical industry, specifically in the reconfiguration of drug delivery systems wherein new products are being developed for administering pharmaceuticals inside the body, and drug testing systems wherein complex tissues are created to analyze medical treatments. This paper proposes a novel methodology of Competitive Technology Intelligence (CTI) to uncover the evolution of new drug delivery products where additive manufacturing is present. Using the multiple linear regression analysis and hype cycle model as a conceptual basis, we processed data from scientific papers and patents indexed by Scopus and PatSnap for the period of 2004-2019. The outcomes of this study can create a relevant knowledge base for decision-making on introducing novel technologies such as AM. Industrial and academic communities are devoting important efforts toward the advancement of AM in the health industry, especially pharmaceuticals. It is expected that this technology will bring new solutions to address fundamental global health problems. However, this technology is still in its very early stage. Therefore, investments should focus on research and development (R&D) to build a solid foundation for commercialization in the next decade.

Blockchain, artificial intelligence and knowledge graphs: What does it mean for the business?

In this paper, we look at a number of new technologies that are making their way through the well-known ‘hype cycle’, along with a cold hard look at the hype cycle itself. The items explored include blockchain and artificial intelligence, with a detailed look at various manifestations of these. We learn to think of each new thing not in terms of the claims or even the vocabulary of its proponents, but through the lens of something called ‘ontology’. We explain what ontology is in the simplest sense of the word, this being a formal representation of real things. We consider how to use this as a governance framework with the organisation, including its application to business strategy. In a curious twist, we find that there is also a technology related to ontology that is making its own way up the hype curve, with promising applications for finding out things that are hidden in data. Of course, this is also called ‘ontology’. Finally, we pull this together to set out some points of departure for readers to think about how to manage meaning across the organisation and how to thereby understand and manage these and other new technologies as they come along.

Game-based language teaching is vaporware (Part 2 of 2): It’s time to ship or shut down

These papers explore the idea of academic research as an “industry” that can create useful knowledge and “products” for teachers. This paper (Part 2) contextualizes game-based language teaching “vaporware” reports in educational technology “hype cycles,” as problems for both novice and expert teachers, and in relation to certain prior constraints of academic research and publishing. I argue that researchers have created an academic niche; we have not created a field based on real differences for students and teachers in real classrooms. It’s “crunch time,” and researchers have two options. (1) We can acknowledge and wrestle with our failings and foundations. Researchers can re-focus on teaching-heavy praxis that results in shipping our product: a mature field with numerous reports of normalized uses of games that result in consistent learning outcomes. A simple model and other resources are shared to help with this path. I will argue that our field needs people with many different roles to want to and learn to play well together. (2) Or, we can give up. Researchers can write a group postmortem report, shut down, go our separate ways, and stop contributing to the hype about games in language education.