Rapid Changes In Information Technology Research Articles

Changing trend in reading habits of teenagers in Delhi

Purpose – The purpose of this study was to attempt to answer some plausible questions like what do teenagers prefer to read at leisure, how do they read and why do they read? With the rapid changes in information technology, there is tremendous change in means of communication. Today, much more information is available from electronic and digital media as compared to traditional books. A paradigm shift in information delivery from just information to infotainment has also affected the preferences of the information seekers. Teenagers are a demographic group under transition and they are not untouched by these rapid changes in technology and their impact on their reading preferences. Design/methodology/approach – For this purpose, a survey among 223 school-going (public/convent and government-/aided) teenagers aged between 12 and 18 years was done using a semi-structured questionnaire. Findings – The findings revealed a decline in sports and outdoor recreational activities during leisure, and only 20.6 per cent teenagers preferred reading during leisure. However, self-perception as an avid reader was expressed by majority (53.8 per cent). Fictions were liked by > 75 per cent teenagers; however, non-fictions were also liked by majority (61.8 per cent). The reading preferences of the children were found to be affected by their age, their gender and the type of schools they attended. A significant inverse relationship of television watching and movie-going was observed with reading time. Research limitations/implications – The biggest limitation was inability to directly interact with the students and inability to gather data from more schools. Practical implications – By knowing the current reading trends, leisure time habits and exposure to different means of information technology, the choice of medium for knowledge dispersal could be done. The study would help in providing a basis for a strategic change in the ratio of conventional books and other information media in the library. Social implications – By identifying the media exposure time and popularity, proper steps may be taken in order to enrich the particular media and to ensure that quality of information available on the media can be directed for social benefit in large. Originality/value – The impact of demographic and environmental variables on reading habits of teenagers has not been evaluated in this part of the world, especially in view of the paradigm shift in information technology and the growing influence of electronic media and social networking. An understanding of this mutual relationship would help in modifying the reading behaviour of the teenagers.

Facilitating consumer access to health information.

The lead paper from Zelmer and Hagens details the substantive evolution occurring in health information technologies that has the potential to transform the relationship between consumers, health practitioners and health systems. In this commentary, the authors suggest that Canada is experiencing a shift in consumer behaviour toward a desire to actively manage one's health and wellness that is being facilitated through the advent of health applications on mobile and online technologies platforms. The result is that Canadians are now able to create personalized health solutions based on their individual health values and goals. However, before Canadians are able to derive a personal health benefit from these rapid changes in information technology, they require and are increasingly demanding greater real-time access to their own health information to better inform decision-making, as well as interoperability between their personal health tracking systems and those of their health practitioner team.

국내 대학 디지털도서관 e-서비스의 민첩성 역량과 이용자 만족도에 관한 연구

급속한 정보환경의 변화는 여러 산업에 걸쳐 비즈니스 패러다임을 급격하게 바꾸고 있으며 전 세계적으로 그 확산 속도는 기하급수적으로 증가하고 있다. 이에 도서관에서도 예측 불가능한 변화에 대처하기 위해서 신속하게 반응할 수 있는 능력인 민첩성 역량을 이용하여 정보서비스를 제공해야할 필요가 있다. 특히 원활한 연구 및 교육 활동을 돕기 위해 최신 정보와 방대한 범위의 정보 제공을 하고 있는 대학 디지털도서관에서의 민첩성 역량은 더욱 중요한 요인으로 판단된다. 따라서 본 연구는 민첩성 역량에 대해서 살펴본 뒤 대학 디지털도서관 e-서비스 측정 평가 요인과 민첩성 요인들과의 관계에 대해 알아보고, 또한 민첩성 역량이 이용자의 만족도에 미치는 영향에 대해 분석하였다. 이를 바탕으로 대학 디지털도서관 운영 및 경영에 있어 고려해야할 사안들을 제안하였다. Rapid changes in information technologies are forcing dramatic shifts in how business are conducted in various industry sectors. This pace of change is increasing all around the world. Accordingly, there is a need for the libraries to provide the information services with agility, which emphasizes on the prompt reaction to the changes, which are almost impossible to predict. Especially, the digital libraries higher education institutions require more agility as their main mission is providing a wide range of cutting edge information for the research and education activities. In this study, the notion of 'agility' is examined then the relationship between the digital library's e-service measure evaluation factors and the capability, which is defined as agility, is explored. In addition, the impact of agility in user satisfaction is analyzed. Based on these analyses, the factors to consider in managing digital libraries in higher education institution, are suggested.

An Integrative View of Knowledge Sharing Impact on E-Learning Quality

The era in which learning was limited to a special class of people has long since reached its end. Rapid changes in information technology, which affect all aspects of modern life, make continuous learning an inevitable requirement of prosperity and development. Knowledge sharing plays a significant role in the process of learning. E-learning is the latest process of knowledge sharing in which people intentionally share what they have learned and receive the latest knowledge from the provider of e-learning. In this regard, knowledge sharing has a major impact on e-learning quality as the sharing of knowledge comprises the core process of e-learning. In this paper, the authors propose utilizing influential knowledge sharing indicators for e-learning quality assessment that can provide an informative basis for further studies on quality measurement of e-learning processes.

Coping with rapid information technology change in different national cultures

Coping with rapid information technology change challenges IT organizations throughout the world. National culture theory based on the GLOBE study suggests that culture affects the coping with such change in China and the United States, but does not cogently suggest that coping mechanisms differ in effectiveness across the two cultures. Analysis of data from 71 IT executives and managers in China and 246 in the United States suggests that Chinese IT organizations employ coping mechanisms of vendor support, education and training, and internal procedures more extensively than do U.S. IT organizations. IT organizations in both countries apply education and training as well as internal procedures to successfully deal with the problems of rapid IT change. Vendor support additionally predicted success in Chinese but not U.S. organizations, whereas in both U.S. and Chinese organizations endurance predicted lack of success. The research thus extends national culture theory by proposing that culture affects successful coping. Implications for research suggest the identification of actions to overcome the impact of cultural differences. Implications for practice suggest that multinational corporations deal with rapid IT change differently in divisions in different cultures, regardless of whether in China, the United States, Europe, or elsewhere.

Analyzing the Usage of IT in SMEs

Nowadays, rapid changes in information technology (IT) force enterprises to adapt new developments. IT is critical to the success of most businesses especially small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs). In recent years, the information technologies are started to be used frequently by SMEs in Turkey but unfortunately the usage has not reached to desired levels yet. The aim of this study is to investigate the purposes of the IT usage in SMEs and put forward the key factors affecting the level of their IT usage. To be able to evaluate the IT usage, a survey questionnaire was prepared and conducted to 112 SMEs in Istanbul. Data were analyzed by Descriptive, Independent T-Test, One-Way ANOVA and Multiple Regression Analyses. Findings are almost consistent with the previous researches. The study states that most of SMEs uses IT for their basic needs but they show the tendency to use it for more advanced activities. Moreover, there are significant differences in the IT usage of the companies operating in different sectors. The study also highlights that strong IT infrastructure, higher number of workers, giving importance to IT training, finding more purposes to use IT, and functioning in IT sector are important factors that positively affect IT usage.

Balancing Opportunities and Risks in Component-Based Software Development

The increasingly rapid change in information technology makes it essential for software development projects to continuously monitor and adapt to new sources of opportunity and risk. Software projects and organizations can increase their success rates in software development by better assessing and balancing their opportunities and risks. The authors summarize the incremental commitment model (ICM), a process framework for improved project monitoring and decision making based on balancing opportunities and risks. They give an example of how the ICM framework can improve component-based development choices based on assessment of opportunities and risks. They show how different opportunistic solutions result from different stakeholder value propositions. They elaborate on the risks involved in architectural mismatches among components, present a tool called the Integration Studio (iStudio) that enables projects to assess the most common sources of architectural mismatch between components. Finally, they present representative examples of its use.

Introduction: archiving research data

This article is a general introduction into the special issue of Archival Science on “archiving research data”. It summarizes the different contributions and gives an overview of the main issues in this special field of archiving. One of the leading questions is how and why research data archives differ from public record offices. In the past, the developments in these two worlds have been rather separate. There are however signs that they are converging in the digital world. In particular, this can be seen in the areas of metadata and Internet dissemination as these are strongly influenced by the rapid changes in information technology. These changes have also led to important new developments in the infrastructure of research data to which special attention is paid. New concepts such as collaboratories, data curation, Open Access and the Open Archives Initiative are discussed.

Designing for Uncertainty: Three Approaches

Higher education wishes to get long life and good returns on its investment in learning spaces. Doing this has become difficult because rapid changes in information technology have created fundamental uncertainties about the future in which capital investments must deliver value. Three approaches to designing for this uncertainty are described using data from recent surveys. Many of these data are related to the National Survey of Student Engagement; for another essay that employs NSSE data, see the author's “First Questions for Designing Higher Education Learning Spaces” in the January 2007 issue of the Journal of Academic Librarianship.

Enterprise Application System Reengineering

Due to the rapid changes in information technology (IT), the life cycle to develop an information system has become significantly shorter. Furthermore, companies worldwide have invested much time and effort in developing their existing enterprise application systems in order to maintain their own competitive advantages. Specifically, they are facing a similar problem of preserving the investment. Information system reengineering technology (ISRT) is one way to solve this problem. However, most of the systems reengineered by using traditional ISRT may lack flexibility and reusability and also have some quality concerns. The component-based software engineering can provide some remedy by providing a flexible and reusable enterprise application system. Many companies could benefit from thinking more in terms of building their own business components for their information system areas. This article considers a reengineering approach in order to migrate legacy systems to component-based information systems with a quality control mechanism. Companies can build their own business component libraries in the reengineering process. One additional benefit is to build information systems from business components rather than reinventing the wheel in the future. This study proposed a system architecture and also implemented the prototype system to validate that our mechanism is technically practical. Additionally, we used an example to evaluate that our approach is effective and practicable in the real world.

Nursing librarian: an educator of future nurses

The importance of “information literacy” in the education of nursing students continues to increase. In response, partnerships between nursing faculty and librarians are developing. The shortage of nurses and the rapid changes in information technology have created opportunities for librarians to educate nursing faculty and students about locating information, evaluating resources, and managing information. The type of instruction and support needed varies, depending on the level of the nursing student. Become a partner with the nursing faculty by attending meetings, having an office in the college of nursing, participating in social networking, and exploring ways in which a librarian can provide assistance. These partnerships provide benefits to nursing programs, nursing faculty and librarians.

Management, organisational and policy issues related to electronic data reporting in the Statistical Office of the Republic of Slovenia

Electronic data reporting (EDR) together with information communication technology (ICT) offers many possibilities to collect cheaper, timely and better quality data. At the same time it lowers the burden to the data respondent. But in order to achieve efficient EDR some needs are to be satisfied. In the following article projects running in the Statistical Office of the Republic of Slovenia (SORS) and experiences gained are presented. The article concentrates on the strategies used to migrate research results into the production environment; it also deals with testing while maintaining the regular production, and coping with rapid changes in information technology. Three projects from the SORS are presented, also discussing problems and solutions. The first project (EDI-FIN) is from the field of electronic data collection, where data are taken directly from the enterprises’ financial records using experiences and tools from the Eurostat TELER project. QUESTOR is the second project related to the subject of maintaining the process of data management in the input division of SORS. The third project is related to the integrated approach of the Ministry of Education, Science and Sport and SORS in building the integrated web-based collection of data on upper secondary education. The abovementioned projects have exposed several management, organisational and policy issues. Some of them are: integration of the needs of several public institutions and possible future arrangements, problems of outsourcing the electronic data reporting (EDR) of NSIs, promotion of EDR and education of data respondents and internal staff, coping with transition period, challenges and possible obstacles for NSIs when understanding and using the current and future possibility of accessing data from electronic networks, data protection issues, etc. The outline of the article is as follows. First, EDR and its influence on the regular work is presented, and the background of implementing EDR in SORS is introduced. The overall production process and infrastructure as groundwork for introducing EDR for statistical purposes is shown. Then three projects related to EDR in SORS are presented with some details. At the end experiences – good and bad – gained during these projects, are presented, and also some questions that need to be answered in the future are emphasized.

구조적 또는 정보공학 소프트웨어 개발 방법론 개선 절차

The software development methodology has not caught up with the rapid change of information technology. Most of the software development projects use structural methodology or information engineering methodology. If established software development methodologies don`t reflect technologies applied to the project, the project may be performed ineffectively. This paper describes a model in which we can apply a new information technology to an already existed structural methodology or information engineering methodology. This model uses the technique of the divide and conquer that software development life cycle is divided into phases, each phase is divided into viewpoint- areas and the software development processes of a new information technology are applied to each small area. By using the design phase this paper shows application example, in which I applied web-based development processes to CS@RoadMap Methodology of KCC Information & Communication, a system provider in Korea. The CS@RoadMap Methodology reflecting the Web technology, Web@RoadMap Methodology, has been applied to the public-domain projects.

A Study on the Indian Information Sector: An Experiment with Input-Output Techniques

It is widely recognized that rapid changes in information technology (IT) are bringing about major structural changes in the economies of the world. Information flexibility, product quality and fast response are the key factors for global competition and IT plays a critical role in these areas. Policy-makers in industrialized and developing countries view IT as a critical infrastructure to enhance their access to global knowledge, markets and capital. These views--of IT as infrastructure and as core capability for development--resonate with India's aspirations to modernize its infrastructure, transform its industry and join the global economy. Realizing the huge potential of the Indian IT industry, we make an attempt in this paper to study the extent of informatization in the Indian economy during the period 1983-84 to 1989-90 and try to identify the information intensive sectors. This paper also studies the sources of growth of the information sectors of India during 1983-84 to 1989-90 with the help of a structural decomposition analysis (SDA).

Jurisdictional Disputes and the Unauthorized Practice of Law

ABSTRACT Andrew Abbott's sociological theory of the professions is applied to the field of law by taking the organized bar's enforcement of “unauthorized practice of law” rules as an example of a jurisdictional dispute. In contrast to traditional “trait-theory,” which defines professions according to whether they meet a defined set of criteria, Abbott argues that professional practice is constituted by a series of jurisdictional disputes that takes place between occupational groups for control over particular tasks. These disputes may re-erupt when the circumstances of the environment change. Rapid changes in information technology are examples of such disturbances that may trigger a renegotiation of previously settled jurisdictional boundaries between groups. The history of unauthorized practice enforcement is reviewed with an emphasis on the recent controversy between the Texas enforcement authorities and Nolo Press, a publisher of self-help legal materials. The dispute was triggered by the interactive nature of a software product, not a traditional stand-alone print publication, and this is consistent with Abbott's theory. The question of how unauthorized practice enforcement might impact the work of the reference librarian is then considered. While the line between good reference work and a potential unauthorized practice of law violation is often ambiguous, it is concluded that the resolution of this issue should be left to librarians, not imposed by external enforcement authorities.

Rapid Information Technology Change, Coping Mechanisms, and the Emerging Technologies Group

Information technology (IT) changes rapidly, seriously challenging IT management. In response, many organizations create a formal group of IT professionals to evaluate emerging IT so they can bette...

How IT organizations handle rapid IT change: five coping mechanisms

Information technology (IT) has become a strategic resource in many organizations. As a result, the management of IT has dramatically increased in importance. However, IT is changing at a rapid rate. This change is increasing the complexity of the challenges facing IT managers. In fact, previous research has hypothesized that IT managers deliberately use specific coping mechanisms to deal with these challenges. The results from that research were used to construct a survey sent to a nationwide sample of 1,000 IT organizations. Two hundred forty-six respondents provided data to confirm the existence of and refine the definitions for coping mechanisms that IT managers apply to handle changing IT. The research contributes knowledge about how IT organizations cope with rapid IT change and about the relationship of various coping mechanisms to the reduction of the problems of rapidly changing IT. Five categories of coping mechanism – Education and Training, Vendor Support, Endurance, Internal Procedures, and Consultant Support – emerged. An overall model proposing that the use of those categories predicts the reduction in problems from new IT was significant. Moreover, Education and Training and Internal Procedures presaged problem reduction, whereas Endurance and Consultant Support presaged increased problems.

Evaluating Information Strategic Planning: An Evaluation System and Its Application

Information technology (IT) plays an obviously important role in gaining opportunities and taking the competitiveness advantages, and information strategy planning (ISP) becomes the major concern for the effective implementation of information system (IS) among researchers and practitioners. Most companies have difficulties in developing ISP due to its complexity and diversity. Thus, numerous studies have been done on ISP and the methodology for its effective devising process. However, traditional methodologies do not reflect the rapid change of IT markets and business environments. We identify the critical factor for ISP methodology, and develop the new methodology, so-called information strategy planning methodology (ISPM). Also, based on ISPM an evaluation system of ISP is proposed to enhance the quality and practicality of ISP. The evaluation system is composed of two domains, evaluation of ISP procedure and evaluation of ISP supporting systems. The evaluation system is applied to seventeen major Korean companies' ISPs to reveal its value.

Requirements that handle IKIWISI, COTS, and rapid change

In the good old days, dealing with software requirements was relatively easy. Software requirements were the first order of business and took place before design, cost estimation, planning, or programming. Of course, it wasn't simple. Certain straightforward criteria required satisfaction: completeness; consistency; traceability; and testability. The recent developments of IKIWISI (I'll know it when I see it), COTS (commercial-off-the-shelf) software, and the increasingly rapid change in information technology have combined to unsettle the foundations of the old airtight requirements approach. These complicating factors are examined.

Coping with rapidly changing information technology: challenges facing Africa's less-developed countries

Information technology (IT) is changing rapidly and is bringing radical changes and opportunities to our economic, social and political spheres of life. However, along with these opportunities are a few challenges for information systems users and managers everywhere. In Africa's less-developed countries, these challenges are similar to those encountered in the industrialised world, and maybe more difficult to cope with. Successful coping requires capital, technical know-how, and a modern telecommunications infrastructure, all of which are deficient in many parts of Africa. IT applications can significantly impact competitive advantages in trade and development, and are deemed critical to the success of any organisation. This paper examines the problems that can be encountered with rapid changes in IT, and how organisations in the less-developed countries in Africa can cope.