Pervasive Digital Technologies Research Articles

A study on the attitude towards digital learning of Malda district graduate students

In the era of pervasive digital technology, the educational landscape is undergoing a profound transformation. This study investigates the attitudes of graduate students in Malda District towards digital learning, focusing on how these attitudes vary with gender and locality. The study aims to estimate the attitudes of Malda District graduate students towards digital learning and to compare these attitudes with reference to gender and locality. The null hypothesis (Ho.1) posits no significant mean difference in attitudes towards digital learning based on gender and locality. To achieve this, a proportionate stratified random sampling technique was employed to select 200 college students and 100 university students, further stratified by gender and locality. Data were collected via questionnaires and analyzed using appropriate statistical techniques. The results indicated a moderate attitude towards digital learning among the students. The data distribution was normal, with low standard deviation values and slight differences between mean and median values. The analysis revealed no significant mean difference in attitudes between male and female students. However, a significant mean difference was found between urban and rural students, indicating that locality plays a crucial role in shaping attitudes towards digital learning. Gender does not significantly influence attitudes towards digital learning, while locality does. Urban students show different attitudes compared to their rural counterparts. Interventions to improve digital learning attitudes should consider locality-specific challenges and perceptions to be more effective. This study contributes to the understanding of the opportunities and challenges in digital learning, informing pedagogical practices and policy-making in the digital age.

Pathways to professional digital competence to teach for digital citizenship: social science teacher education in flux

ABSTRACT Increasingly pervasive digital technologies in societies are placing complex demands on the development of young people’s digital citizenship and digital competence. Social science education and teacher education (TE) play important, but poorly understood, roles in this development. Through reflexive thematic analysis of semi-structured interviews, this paper explores 15 Swedish teacher educators’ (TEDs) views of teaching for digital citizenship, particularly social science TE’s role. We also consider organisational and personal conditions that may influence TEDs’ views of professional digital competence (PDC) for such teaching. Their views are examined through a postdigital lens, with a focus on democratic implications in evolving socio-technical environments. The results indicate that TEDs acknowledge the importance of social science TE in teaching for digital citizenship, but find maintaining responsiveness to societal changes challenging. Challenges are also posed by the multidisciplinary character of social science education, including how personal trajectories shape TEDs’ views of their dual-didactic task of teaching to teach for digital citizenship. This paper contributes knowledge of how TEDs, as ‘street-level bureaucrats’ in social science TE, navigate between written and performed education policy in teaching for digital citizenship, with specific attention to the dynamic character of PDC in social science education.

Understanding corporate entrepreneurship in the digital age: a review and research agenda

AbstractIn a digital world increasingly characterized by new business opportunities and challenges driven by the proliferation of pervasive digital technologies, companies are more than ever called to act entrepreneurially. This scenario has raised important questions at the intersection of corporate entrepreneurship (CE) and digital technologies, as we currently lack a comprehensive understanding on the implications of digital technologies in CE strategy, related antecedents, processes, and outcomes. To fill this gap, our study takes stock of the extant literature on CE in the digital age. Through a review of 54 studies, we craft an integrative framework of CE in the digital age, articulated across six building blocks. Building on the proposed framework, we elaborate a research agenda for future research.

Субъектность как основная научная проблема цифрового права: к постановке гипотезы

Digital law is a polysemous phrase widely used in contemporary legal studies. From the point of view of analytical jurisprudence, its central meaning is defined by the “pervasive digital technologies” (artificial intelligence, distributed ledger systems, etc.). Doctrinal understanding of the problems of digital law requires the identification of a universal problem, as which the article proposes as a hypothesis the problem of agency in the broad sense of the word. The approach can be argued deductively and inductively. From the deductive point of view, agency is the central problem of the general filed of the philosophy of law and, as such, it should also be seen in specific fields of knowledge. From the inductive point of view, in the main specific problems of certain “pervasive digital technologies” there is a common feature of their connection with the problem of agency, which is demonstrated in the article on the basis of the technology of artificial intelligence. Confirmation of the hypothesis of subjectivity as the main problem of digital law (or an academic convention regarding such a hypothesis) will mean the existence of a general doctrinal principle to be taken into account in various forms of law-making and lawenforcement activities in cases where the formal-legal method cannot be applied due to objective circumstance.

Traditional spiritual and moral values in the context of digital transformation of society: Aspects of legal theory

Among the main directions of the legal policy of the state can be noted, on the one hand, the support of traditional spiritual and moral values, and on the other — the digital transformation of society. Traditional values are a condition for state sovereignty of the Russian Federation in the information space, and their protection and defense are a guarantee of information security of the Russian Federation. From the point of view of the communicative theory of law, traditional values should be considered in the process of legal communication, which involves the perception (interpretation) of message (text) that includes inter alia the emotional-value aspect. As values, the traditional values are a necessary condition for functioning of legal system. From the formal legal point of view, when the concepts of traditional spiritual and moral values are included in legal texts, what is implied is the possibility of referring to them in “complicated cases” of legal interpretation and developing models of legal argumentation. From the perspective of analytical jurisprudence, traditional spiritual and moral values can act as a legally significant criterion for determining the meaning of a word in a legal text in a “situation of penumbra” — in what aspect a particular disputed object of legal relations has a value nature, and in what it is expressed. Traditional spiritual and moral values set the boundaries for the choice of legal decisions related to the digital transformation of society. For example, the wellknown notion that it is impossible to make legally significant decisions using artificial intelligence systems with the complete exclusion of a person from such a decision-making system would seem to contradict traditional spiritual and moral values, which center on the person in its moral dimension. This approach could be extended to other pervasive digital technologies as well.

Youth as pattern makers for racial justice: How speculative design pedagogy in science can promote restorative futures through radical care practices

ABSTRACT Background We examine the development of youth sociopolitical consciousness and agency in an eighth-grade science classroom as students of color engage in critical speculative design activities, exploring the multi-scalar, racial realities and possibilities of the science and engineering of pervasive digital technologies—specifically involving the entanglement of lightwaves and melanin in computer vision and artificial intelligence (AI) technologies. Methods Through case studies of two girls of color (ES and GS), we analyze the youths’ learning pathways across three instructional phases: threading practices (learners’ sociopolitical interpretation); weaving practices (learners’ coordination of multiple ways of knowing and being in relation to their interpretation); and patternmaking practices (learners’ visions of more just patterns, practices, and politics through speculative design). Findings Our analyses show how youth use their felt, cultural, and community knowledges, as well as their developing scientific knowledge of physics, to confront and analyze manifestations of racial bias in technologies. The findings highlight the significance of teachers’ pedagogical support and providing opportunities for meaningful transdisciplinary science investigations and speculative designing for more just and thriving futures. Contribution The Critical Speculative Design Pedagogy framework developed suggests how such activities in the classroom can cultivate equitable, expansive science learning that is consequential to youth and their communities.

Financial literacy in the digital age—A research agenda

AbstractDigital innovations are transforming financial services and resulting changes in consumer behavior and personal money management. Diffusion of pervasive digital technologies offers individuals quick and easy access to various digital services bringing opportunities and challenges into their personal money management. The study aimed to explore how digitalization affects individuals' financial literacy and financial capability. As a result, we identified three main themes in the intersection of finance and digitalization: Fintech, Financial behavior in digital environments, and Behavioral interventions. We propose directions for measuring digital financial literacy, updates to the financial literacy curriculum, and developments of digital learning tools. Further, we highlight collaboration between the public and private sectors to create a fairer and more inclusive economic landscape. Our study contributes to existing research by proposing a framework for digital financial literacy and financial capability and a research agenda for future studies.

Sectoral structure and the digital era. Conceptual and empirical analysis

• Focus on the following economic processes: pervasiveness of digital technologies; digital products versus processes; specialization processes; externalization versus internalization business strategies. • Analysis of Amazon. • Sectoral analysis of the largest world companies using two key ratios related to assets in Machinery and Equipment; and Property: 2010 and 2019. • Application to the ‘digital’ sector.

Prosecuting the Post-Digital Hyper-War

The ubiquity and pervasiveness of digital technologies in modern societies portend a new type of conflict, a hyper-war of conflicting narratives, concepts and ideas. This multi-dimensional physical, virtual and cognitive battlespace is challenging the Westphalian model of multi-domain but mono-dimensional physical battle: it is moving conflict beyond the digital augmentation of Industrial Age platforms, into a new post-digital era. In this think piece, Martin Crilly reflects on how UK Defence will require imagination, ingenuity and inspiring leaders to successfully navigate this transition. ◼

Barriers to Digital Technology Deployment in Value Management Practice

In the quest to promote constant value for money, value management (VM) has been proposed and adopted within the construction industry of countries across the world. To improve the VM process for a more effective outcome, pervasive digital technologies can be employed throughout a project and in the VM process. However, developing countries like South Africa are still lagging in using these emerging technologies. Therefore, this study assessed the digital technologies that can improve the VM process and the barriers hindering their usage within the construction industry. The study adopted a postpositivism philosophical stance with a questionnaire used to gather quantitative data from construction professionals that have participated in VM exercises within the South African construction industry. The data gathered were analysed using mean item score, standard deviation, the Kruskal-Wallis H-test, multiple linear regression and exploratory factor analysis. The study found with high predictive accuracy that digital technologies such as computer-based software, BIM, mobile devices, electronic meeting tools, cloud computing, augmented and virtual realities will significantly impact the overall success of VM practices. Furthermore, the barriers to the effective deployment of these technologies in the VM process can be categorised into (1) cost and awareness, (2) complexities of the VM and digital tools, (3) the construction industry’s digital culture, and (4) the availability of technology and expertise. This study provides a theoretical backdrop for future studies exploring the use of digital technologies for VM practices—an aspect that has not gained significant attention in VM discourse in the construction industry.

Figurations of Digital Practice, Craft, and Agency in Two Mediterranean Fieldwork Projects

AbstractArchaeological practice is increasingly enacted within pervasive and invisible digital infrastructures, tools, and services that affect how participants engage in learning and fieldwork, and how evidence, knowledge, and expertise are produced. This article discusses the collective imaginings regarding the present and future of digital archaeological practice held by researchers working in two archaeological projects in the Eastern Mediterranean, who have normalized the use of digital tools and the adoption of digital processes in their studies. It is a part of E-CURATORS, a research project investigating how archaeologists in multiple contexts and settings incorporate pervasive digital technologies in their studies. Based on an analysis of qualitative interviews, we interpret the arguments advanced by study participants on aspects of digital work, learning, and expertise. We find that, in their sayings, participants not only characterize digital tools and workflows as having positive instrumental value, but also recognize that they may severely constrain the autonomy and agency of researchers as knowledge workers through the hyper-granularization of data, the erosion of expertise, and the mechanization of work. Participants advance a notion of digital archaeology based on do-it-yourself (DIY) practice and craft to reclaim agency from the algorithmic power of digital technology and to establish fluid, positional distribution of roles and agency, and mutual validation of expertise. Operating within discourses of labour vs efficiency, and technocracy vs agency, sayings, elicited within the archaeological situated practice in the wild, become doings, echoing archaeology’s anxiety in the face of pervasive digital technology.

The thin border between individual and collective ethics: the downside of GDPR

In an era that is characterised by the proliferation of pervasive digital technologies and the illegal use and processing of personal data for profit purposes by businesses, maintaining control over personal data is increasingly difficult. The General Data Protection Regulation 2016/679 (GDPR)1 was created with the important goal of protecting EU citizens from privacy and data breaches.

Digital Technology Adoption Drives Strategic Renewal for Successful Digital Transformation

A large focus of digital transformation has been on embedding digitization across organizational functions, but the most successful transformations are often coupled with strategic renewal. A deeper look at successful digital transformations shows that strategic renewal is facilitated by pervasive digital technology adoption, as those technologies are disruptive in nature and help shift the corporate mindset toward a less defensive posture. We derive and discuss the implications of this result for managers and organizations.

The evolution of meanings: an empirical analysis of the social media industry

PurposeInnovation dynamics have been the object of study of several researchers, focusing in particular on technological innovation and the emergence of a dominant design. However, these models have been challenged by how the pervasiveness of digital technologies is speeding up the pace at which innovation evolves. On the other hand, a growing body of literature in innovation management has started underlining the relevance of new product and service meanings as a source of innovation.Design/methodology/approachThis research aims to study the different innovation dynamics within an industry, investigating not only how companies react to fast-changing functional advancements but rather how their behavior changes as shifts in meaning occur. To properly assess the phenomenon, this longitudinal study analyzes the social media industry, strongly subjected to continuous functional advancements, through a deep dive in the 160 innovations introduced between 2003 and 2017 by the eight leading players in the industry.FindingsOur results illustrate the co-existence of different approaches to innovation within an industry and hint that consequent and fast cycles of innovation in both functionalities and meanings discourage the emergence of a dominant design.Practical implicationsOur results help managers and innovators acknowledge the possibility to leverage not just on the technological dimension of innovation but also the reason why people use a given product or service, innovating its meaning. Furthermore, our results recognize the co-existence of different innovation streams upon which innovators can act.Originality/valueThis research contributes to the extant literature in innovation management, extending the classical models of innovation dynamics by including the evolution of innovations of meaning in relation to technological innovation.

Supporting Preservice Secondary Mathematics Teachers’ Professional Judgment Around Digital Technology Use

The pervasiveness of digital technology creates an imperative for mathematics teacher educators to prepare preservice teachers (PSTs) to select technology to support students’ mathematical development. We report on research conducted on an assignment created for and implemented in secondary mathematics methods courses requiring PSTs to select and evaluate digital mathematics tools. We found that PSTs primarily focused on pedagogical fidelity (ease of use), did not consider mathematical fidelity (accuracy), and at times superficially attended to cognitive fidelity (how well the tool reflects students’ mathematical thinking processes) operationalized as the CCSS for Mathematical Practice and Five Strands of Mathematical Proficiency. We discuss implications for implementing the assignment and suggestions for addressing PSTs’ challenges with identifying the mathematical practices and five strands.

The limits of automatic decision-making based on artificial intelligence in cases that have legal significance

Artificial intelligence technologies represent one of the “pervasive digital technologies” that predetermine the current landscape of society’s technological development. The key problem of applying artificial intelligence technologies from the point of view of law is the limits of making legally significant decisions based on artificial intelligence. Although on the surface this issue may seem quite new, in fact it has been investigated in legal science and interdisciplinary research for decades. These limits can be divided into paradigmatic, axiological and pragmatic ones. Paradigmatic limits are associated with fundamental notions about the meaning of agency in law, and they predetermine the principle of human participation in decisions made with the help of artificial intelligence. Axiological limits presuppose a consistent realization of certain formalized values with respect to new social relations. The most developed system of axiological limits follows from the European concept of human rights. Pragmatic limits are conditioned by peculiarities of both law itself and the technological architecture of artificial intelligence in a social context. Pragmatic limits in this sense include the problem of the “open texture” of legal language and the “semantic limits” of law. The principle of nondiscrimination of legal subjects in machine learning can also be considered as a pragmatic limit. The analysis of the modern regulatory landscape at the level of regulatory practices and self-regulation, focusing on representative international experience, makes it possible to verify the hypothesis of paradigmatic, axiological and pragmatic limits and to suggest their use in the further development of legal regulation of decision-making relations using artificial intelligence systems.

Integrated Fuzzy Based Computational Mechanism for the Selection of Effective Malicious Traffic Detection Approach

A mechanism to effectively detect malicious traffic in the present context where new cyber criminals and threatening actors are emerging every day, has become a compelling need. These invaders use overwhelming tactics that mask the nature of attacks and make bad acts seem innocuous. A growing number of trustworthy electronic systems and facilities have been introduced with the fast development of pervasive digital technologies. However threats to cyber-security continue to grow, posing hindrance in the efficient use of digital services. The detection and classification of malicious traffic due to security threats can be done by an efficacious traffic detection approach. The development of a smart, precise malicious traffic detection system has therefore become a subject of extensive research. Current traffic detection systems are typically employed in conventional network traffic detection. These systems sometimes face failure and cannot recognize many known or modern security threats. This is because they rely on conventional algorithms which focus less on precise selection and classification of functions. As a result, several well-known traffic signatures remain unidentified and latent. Hence, there is a need to evaluate each significant malicious traffic detection system based on the performance of the system. In this research work, the author has used the Fuzzy AHP methodology which is designed to address the issues related to the vagueness, uncertainties and total awareness of languages. In addition, the Technique for Order Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution (TOPSIS) was implemented in order to assess the order of preference. Furthermore, the Multi-Criteria Decision-Making (MCDM) method was used for classifying the impact of the alternatives according to their overall performance. The study’s conclusive evaluations will be a corroborative reference for the practitioners working in the domain of assessing and selecting the most effective traffic detection approach for more reliable, efficient and systematic design.

Digital Fluency – A Facilitator of Digital Work Performance?

The digitalization of the workplace appears to be both a curse and a blessing for organizations as the pervasiveness of digital technologies can have opposite effects on individual work performance. To be successful in the digital age, it is, therefore necessary for organizations to promote and exploit factors that enable digital work performance. However, empirical research on facilitators of digital work performance is scarce. We address this research gap by conceptualizing and testing a resource that enables employees to effectively perform in a digitalized work environment: digital fluency. Drawing on the ability-motivation-opportunity framework, we propose that employees’ digital fluency, which consists of digital knowledge and digital self-efficacy, positively affects employees’ digital work performance. We further argue that leaders’ and coworkers’ digital fluency moderates the relationship between employees’ digital fluency and their digital work performance. We find support for the positive effect of employees’ digital fluency on their digital work performance and the moderating effect of leaders’ digital fluency in a multisource and time-lagged sample of 232 employees and 17 leaders from a medium-sized German technology company.

Performance indicators for measuring the effects of Smart Maintenance

PurposeThe purpose of this study is to ensure productive, robust and sustainable production systems and realise digitalised manufacturing trough implementation of Smart Maintenance – “an organizational design for managing maintenance of manufacturing plants in environments with pervasive digital technologies”. This paper aims to support industry practitioners in selecting performance indicators (PIs) to measure the effects of Smart Maintenance, and thus facilitate its implementation.Design/methodology/approachIntercoder reliability and negotiated agreement were used to analyse 170 maintenance PIs. The PIs were structurally categorised according to the anticipated effects of Smart Maintenance.FindingsCompanies need to revise their set of PIs when changing manufacturing and/or maintenance strategy (e.g. reshape the maintenance organisation towards Smart Maintenance). This paper suggests 13 categories of PIs to facilitate the selection of PIs for Smart Maintenance. The categories are based on 170 PIs, which were analysed according to the anticipated effects of Smart Maintenance.Practical implicationsThe 13 suggested categories bring clarity to the measuring potential of the PIs and their relation to the Smart Maintenance concept. Thereby, this paper serves as a guide for industry practitioners to select PIs for measuring the effects of Smart Maintenance.Originality/valueThis is the first study evaluating how maintenance PIs measure the anticipated effects of maintenance in digitalised manufacturing. The methods intercoder reliability and negotiated agreement were used to ensure the trustworthiness of the categorisation of PIs. Such methods are rare in maintenance research.

Carpenter v. United States: Brief of Scholars of Criminal Procedure and Privacy as Amici Curiae in Support of Petitioner

Amici curiae are forty-two scholars engaged in significant research and/or teaching on criminal procedure and privacy law. This brief addresses issues that are within amici’s particular areas of scholarly expertise. They have a shared interest in clarifying the law of privacy in the digital era, and believe that a review of scholarly literature on the topic is helpful to answering the question in this case. This brief is co-authored by Harry Sandick, Kathrina Szymborski, & Jared Buszin of Patterson Belknap Webb & Tyler LLP. Carpenter v. United States presents an opportunity to reconsider the Fourth Amendment in the digital age. Cell phones are only one of the many new and pervasive digital technologies which automatically collect and reveal intimate personal data, such as Cell Site Location Information (“CSLI”), to third parties. This Amicus brief argues that the Supreme Court should resist extending the reasoning of Smith v. Maryland, 442 U.S. 735 (1979) — a 38-year-old case built on a faulty privacy premise — to the modern, hyper-connected, technology-dependent world. Instead, the Court should recognize that the new realities of this world require new legal doctrines to fit the privacy expectations shared by most Americans. Criminal procedure and privacy scholars are in near-unanimous agreement that an extension of what some have called the “third-party doctrine” could eliminate citizens’ privacy in the modern age. CSLI (and other data transmitted to third parties in the modern age) can reveal an individual’s interests, friendships, activities, travel, associations, beliefs, health concerns, financial problems, employment, and education. Smith is grounded in a pre-digital era, and cannot support future application of the Fourth Amendment. An extension of Smith’s reasoning would give law enforcement ever increasing access to the most private details of individuals’ lives without a warrant or probable cause. As a matter of Fourth Amendment practice, extending the third-party doctrine would curtail digital privacy and encourage arbitrary government intrusions into the lives of American citizens. As a matter of Fourth Amendment theory, applying the third-party doctrine to the digital world would undersell the value of privacy, and contradict the logic of Katz v. United States, 389 U.S. 347, 359 (1967). And, as a matter of precedent, Smith offers an inapposite and inadequate doctrinal foundation to support the future of a digital Fourth Amendment.