Technological Artifacts Research Articles

Learning in the air traffic control tower: Stretching co-presence through interdependent sentience

This paper examines the learning and performance of the air traffic control (ATC) work domain. This domain was chosen because it embodies features that represent future work for many other industries (e.g., information service provision mediated by information technologies; a high reliance on communication skills and collaborative work; increasing complexity and intensity of the work activity), within an organisational context undergoing considerable change. In ATC work learning occurs formally as part of accredited training and informally, as part of everyday practice. In this way learning and experience of ATC work shapes – and is shaped by – the way work is organised, which includes the divisions of labour and technological artefacts. ATC work is experienced temporally, complexly, through affect and socially. Controllers learn to use a variety of socio-material resources which include embodiment and artefacts to undertake the work. In so doing the article demonstrates the ways in which learning and performance is not just a cognitive undertaking, but one that draws on embodiment to achieve what here is called “interdependent sentience”. This involves using all their senses to gain an awareness of problems as they emerge to collectively accomplish a seamless air traffic flow in a complex interdependent socio-technical system.

Control, Extract, Legitimate: COVID-19 and Digital Techno-opportunism across Africa.

ABSTRACTAcross Africa, the deployment of digital solutions such as track and trace apps and vaccine passports to tackle COVID‐19 largely failed in their public health objectives. Yet, in the process, these material interventions revealed and unleashed new potentialities of governance throughout the continent. This article examines these developments and their significance through historical and theoretical lenses. Since colonialism, African states have been built partially through responses to public health emergencies. Such emergencies have enabled authorities to experiment with and enact logics of control, extraction and legitimation. By interrogating the relationship between epidemics, power and technological artefacts, this article argues that COVID‐19 constituted an exceptional event that both unmasked pre‐existing logics of governance but also enabled experiments with novel techniques through digital technology. Digital techno‐opportunist interventions did little to curb the spread of COVID‐19, but such interventions nevertheless have ramifications and implications that extend beyond this moment. While the political outcomes of the rupture caused by COVID‐19 are not yet fully known, and are subject to resistance and reimagination from below, the political opportunity of ‘crisis’ reveals distinctly new ways in which states and corporations are combining to pursue logics of control, extraction and legitimation across Africa in a digital age.

A Model for an Effective Learning Process in Higher Education: An Example from Three User Cases

Knowledge is the most important asset in education. Knowledge Management has been the focus for many years in higher education. Recently, universities have embraced innovative processes that could foster a better learning process. Digital learning platforms such as Canvas or Blackboard has been deployed at the higher education to facilitate the learning process. However, it is still recognized that knowledge might not be fully acquired by students. Adoption of technological artifacts has proven to be a good step forward; however, it seems not sufficient. Lately there has been a focus on how to implement student centric methodologies to foster learning effectiveness. For instance, Project-based learning (Trullàs, Blay, Sarri, & Pujol) approach intends to provide to students the possibility to be engaged in project reflecting similar issues such in real life in order to further develop skills and competences. This paper outlines two approaches based on the leitmotiv “learning by doing” and on the implication of students in defining jointly a use case for their home exams. The paper presents 3 experiences from 3 universities based in Norway and Spain. A model for an effective learning in Higher Education is delineated.

“You can only help them save the patient once they trust you”: Clinician perspectives and theories of use of a pediatric emergency teleconsultation program

While telemedicine applications in low- and middle-income countries are growing rapidly, few studies address the social and organizational factors of implementation essential to sustaining clinician engagement. This study aims to explore clinician experiences and perspectives of a pediatric emergency teleconsultation support program in Sindh, Pakistan, and theories of use behind its implementation in government hospitals. We conducted in-depth interviews with 20 stakeholders of the teleconsultation program, including program administrators (n ​= ​3), teleconsultants (n ​= ​7) and on-site physicians and nurses (n ​= ​10) purposively sampled for maximum variation across perceived fidelity and acceptability on a preliminary questionnaire. Interview questions and probes were designed to elicit rich perspectives on communication structures, enabling and constraining factors, and overall effects of teleconsultation on clinical routines and quality of care. Transcripts were analyzed thematically using combined inductive and deductive coding. We found that, behind the technical adaptation to using telemedicine in the resuscitation room, providers perceived a dynamic reconfiguration of professional roles and routines of consultation according to opportunities and constraints associated with mutual confidence or trust, constructions of distance, subjectivity of information, and the interface of technological artifacts with medical practice. Descriptions of communication patterns revealed an unstable tension between two competing theories of use premised on either inherent contextual differences or presumed asymmetries in expertise. Long-term sustainability of telemedicine applications to pediatric emergency care requires serious consideration of how such conflicting theories of use and their associated assumptions about end-user needs crystallize in practice and affect clinician engagement and perceived benefits to patient care in the future.

Hindu Nationalism Online: Twitter as Discourse and Interface

In this article, I use Critical Technocultural Discourse Analysis (CTDA) to examine the productive associations between Twitter as a technological artifact and the quotidian discourse on Hindu nationalism online. The analysis explores the interplay between (1) Twitter as a technical artifact—examining the interface for its affordances and protocols; (2) Twitter as practice—unpacking the quotidian discourse conventions and strategies used to articulate Hindu nationalism; and (3) Twitter as ideology—examining how Hindutva ideology co-opts the platform’s affordances to promote anti-minority discrimination. My analysis highlights how the online discourse of Hindu nationalism is a constitutive force informing discussions and decisions concerning several vital issues related to governance, policies, citizenship, COVID-19, and other topics. The discourse of Hindu nationalism online has the potential to percolate into the lived realities of people and has material implications for the workings of the state.

Disasters and Society: Comparing the Shang and Mycenaean Response to Natural Phenomena through Text and Archaeology

Disasters do and have happened throughout human existence. Their traces are found in the environmental record, archaeological evidence, and historical chronicles. Societal responses to these events vary and depend on ecological and cultural constraints and opportunities. These elements are being discovered more and more on a global scale. When looking at disasters in antiquity, restoring the environmental and geographical context on both the macro- and microscale is necessary. The relationships between global climatic processes and microgeographical approaches ought to be understood by examining detailed societal strategies conceived in response to threatening natural phenomena. Architectural designs, human geography, political geography, technological artefacts, and textual testimony are linked to a society’s inherited and real sense of natural threats, such as floods, earthquakes, fires, diseases, etc. The Shang and Mycenaean cultures are prime examples, among others, of Bronze Age societies with distinctive geographical, environmental, and cultural features and structures that defined their attitudes and responses to dangerous natural phenomena, such as floods, earthquakes, landslides, and drought. By leaning on two well-documented societies with little to no apparent similarities in environmental and cultural aspects and no credible evidence of contact, diffusion, or exchange, we can examine them free of the onus of diffused intangible and tangible cultural features. Even though some evidence of long-distance networks in the Bronze Age exists, they presumable had no impact on local adaptive strategies. The Aegean Sea and Yellow River cultural landscapes share many similarities and dissimilarities and vast territorial and cultural expansions. They have an apparent contemporaneity, and both recede and collapse at about the same time. Thus, through the microgeography of a few select Shang and Mycenaean sites and their relevant environmental, archaeological, and historical contexts, and through environmental effects on a global scale, we may understand chain events of scattered human societal changes, collapses, and revolutions on a structural level.

AR-Supported Mind Palace for L2 Vocabulary Recall

MnemoRoom4U is an AR (Augmented Reality) tool that uses a memory-palace strategy for foreign-language training. A memory palace helps information recall with the aid of object association in visualizations of familiar spatial surroundings. In MnemoRoom4U, paper or digital flashcards are re-placed with virtual notes containing L1 words and their L2 translations that are placed on top of real physical objects inside a familiar environment, such as one’s room, home, office space, etc. The AR-supported notes aid associative memory by establishing a relationship between the physical objects in the user’s mind and the virtual lexis to be retained in L2. Learners first set up a path through their familiar environment, attaching virtual sticky notes—each containing a target word to be memorized together with its corresponding source-language translation—to real-life objects (e.g. furniture in their homes or offices). They then take the same path again, reviewing all the words, and finally carry out a retention test. MnemoRoom4U is a technological artifact designed for specific didactic purposes in the Unity game engine with the ARCore augmented-reality plug-in for Android. This work takes a Design-Science approach with phenomenological, exploratory underpinnings tracking back to the efficiency of spatial mnemonics previously reported quantitatively and combines it with AR technology to effect L2 vocabulary recall.

디지털전환 시대 비판적 국제개발협력을 위한 이론적 고찰

Purpose: Over the past 40 years, theoretical and empirical studies that investigate the relationship between information and communication technologies and development have accumulated under the name of ‘ICT for Development’. This paper critically reconstructs the historical evolution of this field, summarizes the theoretical debates, and proposes the direction and key conceptual questions to be explored beyond the existing ICT4D paradigm in the era of digital transformation. Originality: ICTs have received spotlight as an innovative tool for providing catch-up and leapfrogging opportunities for developing countries, reducing the transaction cost in development mechanism and increasing individual capability. Despite large investments and high expectations for technologies, its effectiveness for development has been questionable, and the large gap between theories and empirical findings have been criticized. Moreover, the wake of the pandemic has called for digital transformation to become a global agenda, providing a turning point for the ICT4D field. Therefore, it is timely to provide reflections on the major theoretical frameworks and critically review the historical evolution of the fields. Methodology: This study conducts a thematic qualitative analysis based on the proceedings of the IFIP ‘Implications of Information and Digital Technologies for Development’ and ICTD conferences, providing methodological triangulation by diverse primary data sources including participant observation in the program committees. Result: This study provides a historical overview of the ICT4D field broken down into five phases: 1) Emergence, 2) Formation, 3) Expansion, 4) Diffusion and 5) Digital Transformation. It also critically reconstructs conceptual evolution and research contributions of the main studies. This is followed by a discussion of future research agenda, emphasis on multi-disciplinarity and reconceptualization of the field. Conclusions and Implication: Existing research have dominantly been conducted at the micro-level unit of analysis, applying an interpretivist epistemological approach and focusing on system as a technological artefact. In the era of digital transformation, it is inevitable for the mainstream view to incorporate theoretical, methodological, and contextual pluralism. This will also have implications for Korea’s international development cooperation, which lacks critical empirical research and philosophical debate despite high expectations for science, technology and ICT ODA.

Investigating young Finnish CLIL pupils’ perceptions of foreign language use through visual narratives

AbstractThis article explores how pupils in early CLIL (Content and Language Integrated Learning) education perceive language skills and use. The participants were 25 French-medium and 16 English-medium CLIL pupils in Grade 2 (aged 8 years). They had received CLIL education since the 1st Grade. The data were visual narratives drawn by the pupils and some associated open-ended questions they answered in writing. The data were analyzed using visual and content analysis. The results show that the pupils’ perceptions of language were a combination of traditional and modern views of language. The pupils compartmentalized the different languages as separate entities. They mostly saw language being used with native speakers. Technological artefacts were absent even though they are an integral part of children’s life in Finland. Also, the pupils considered language being a vehicle for oral communication outside school. The results bear implications for CLIL education and early language teaching in general.

THE ETHICAL IMPLEMENTATION OF ALGORITHM-BASED DECISION-MAKING: AN ANALYTIC ROADMAP TO EXAMINE ACCOUNTABILITY AND RESPONSIBILITY OF DESIGNING AND IMPLEMENTING AUDIT DATA ANALYTICS

This essay aims to manage the ethical issues of data and analytics in data-driven solutions. The proposed analytic roadmap emphasizes identifying potential root causes throughout the design and implementation process, from data collection to analytics output. The study adopts a futuristic approach to take proactive actions to manage the ethical issues at the beginning of the design. It concerns consequential ethics highly related to the analytical context. The interaction between emerging technology and the business context intensifies the uncertainty of data analytics’ consequences. The study theorizes eleven potential ethical dimensions from the technology level, artifact level, and application level. Then, a four-phase ethics assessment map is developed to evaluate and deal with these moral problems. The four stages include assessing the data source, training data selection, the algorithm’s traceability, and the output’s interpretation. The assessment guides a detailed discussion about handling “ethical laziness” to decrease the evidence’s entropy. One contribution of this study is that it offers a practical roadmap to solve the ethical issue in algorithmic accounting analytics, from raw data through the analytic output deployment.

Responsible cognitive digital clones as decision-makers: a design science research study

ABSTRACT This study uses a design science research methodology to develop and evaluate the Pi-Mind agent, an information technology artefact that acts as a responsible, resilient, ubiquitous cognitive clone – or a digital copy – and an autonomous representative of a human decision-maker. Pi-Mind agents can learn the decision-making capabilities of their “donors” in a specific training environment based on generative adversarial networks. A trained clone can be used by a decision-maker as an additional resource for one’s own cognitive enhancement, as an autonomous representative, or even as a replacement when appropriate. The assumption regarding this approach is as follows: when someone was forced to leave a critical process because of, for example, sickness, or wanted to take care of several simultaneously running processes, then they would be more confident knowing that their autonomous digital representatives were as capable and predictable as their exact personal “copy”. The Pi-Mind agent was evaluated in a Ukrainian higher education environment and a military logistics laboratory. In this paper, in addition to describing the artefact, its expected utility, and its design process within different contexts, we include the corresponding proof of concept, proof of value, and proof of use.

The Dialectics of Action and Technology in the Philosophy of Jean-Paul Sartre

This investigation provides an in-depth exploration of the dialectics of action and technology in the works of French philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre, both in terms of the concrete use contexts of technological artifacts and the entanglement between individual agents and their sociotechnical surroundings. Furthermore, it briefly outlines some potentials of Sartre’s thoughts for debates in contemporary philosophy of technology. Throughout his works, Sartre approaches human action from different yet dialectically interrelated perspectives that are always accompanied by and developed in relation to reflections about technology. Against the background of a complementary conception of human action that is derived from Sartre’s major works, the implementation of matter in the course of action primarily represents an instrumentalization. Things are thus always disclosed as implement things due to the practical character of human existence. Although things do not prescribe action, the material characteristics and properties of these things render them more useful for attaining some and more adverse for attaining other ends. Despite the ontological freedom of human beings, their position in societal forms of organization, to which Sartre refers to as practical ensembles, delimits their choice of means and necessitates them to satisfy their needs and desires with the limited means available. In this way, la force des choses arises, not as a result of the characteristics of technology but as an outcome of sociality and politics.

Kaupapa Māori concept modelling for the creation of Māori IT Artefacts

ABSTRACT This paper introduces a kaupapa Māori model for the creation of Māori Information Technology (IT) artefacts, an alternative Artificial Intelligence (AI) related development to the exciting colonial dominated AI biased systems. In Aotearoa, Māori are over-represented in underachievement in education, poor health, welfare dependency and incarceration rates (New Zealand Department of Corrections. 2007. Over-representation of Māori in the criminal justice system: an exploratory report. Department of Corrections [updated January 2022; accessed]. https://www.corrections.govt.nz/__data/assets/pdf_file/0014/10715/Over-representation-of-Maori-in-the-criminal-justice-system.pdf.; Maclaurin J, Liddicoat J, Gavighan C, Knott A, Zerilli J. 2019. Government use of artificial intelligence in New Zealand. Wellington, New Zealand: The New Zealand Law Foundation). These disparities are now surfacing in imperial algorithms and exacerbating biased stereotypes in AI systems. We theorise that Kaupapa Māori theory is the foundation for the action of a Kaupapa Māori Modelling IT Artefact that provides solutions to solve whānau, hapū and iwi problems. We reflected on a critical review of selected literature on historical and contemporary Māori leadership and governance to identify elements of mātauranga and tikanga Māori that could enshrine the IT Artefacts. Investigations then took place to seek ways to transfer these elements of mātauranga and tikanga Māori into framed IT Artefacts during the problem initiation stage of the artefact. This paper presents a kaupapa Māori model for the creation of Māori IT artefacts. Whilst no discrete testing was undertaken, the Kaupapa Māori model provides an avenue to pursue an ontological paradigm using cause and effect theory for future research. Glossary of Māori terms: Aotearoa: Māori name for New Zealand; Hapū: Subtribe; Iwi: Tribe; Kai: Food; Kākahu: Garments, cloths, cloak, apparel, clothing, costume; Kapahaka: Concert party, haka group, Māori performing group; Kaupapa Māori: Māori principles and ideas which act as a base for action; Kōhanga Reo: Preschool language nests establishments; Kura Kaupapa Māori: Māori language immersion schools; Manaakitanga: Caring and sharing; Māori: Indigenous people of Aotearoa; Mana: Power, authority, ownership or, status; Marae: A sacred and communal place that serves religious and social purposes in Māori societies; Mātauranga Māori: Māori epistemology/knowledge; Niho taniwha: ‘Teeth of the taniwha’, the saw-edged pattern so often seen on tukutuku panels; Pākehā: New Zealander of European descent; Pōwhiri: To welcome, invite, beckon, wave; Raranga: Weaving; Te ao Mārama: Concept relating to wisdom and understanding, and the natural world of life and light; Tā moko: Tattoo; Tāniko: Finger weave, embroider; Te Pō: Night, darkness or place of departed spirits; Te reo Māori: Māori language; Tikanga Māori: Māori ontology/practices or Māori governance and intellectual protocols; Tino rangatiratanga: Self-determination, sovereignty, autonomy, self-government, domination, rule, control, power; Tukutuku: Lattice-work on panels; Wānanga: Māori tertiary institute; Whakapapa: Genealogy; Whakawhanaungatanga: Relationship, kinship, sense of family connection; Whakairo: Carving; Whānau: Family; Whenua: Land; Whiri / whiriwhiri: To deliberate, to consider or to bind together; Whakataukī: Proverb, significant saying, formulaic saying, cryptic saying, aphorism; Kei roto i a koe tōu ake mana: The seed of potential lies within each of us; He waka eke noa: We are all in this canoe together; Nāu te rourou, nāku te rourou, ka ora ai te iwi: With your food basket and my food basket, our people will thrive; Mauri tū, mauri ora: An active soul is a healthy soul; Pinetohu: Labels; Tātai hono: Connections – Make connections; Te anga taunekeneke: Framing – Interactions framework; Ngā piringa: Relationships; Ki te toro: Engagement – To engage.

Mapping the sustainable development goals (SDGs) in science, technology and innovation: application of machine learning in SDG-oriented artefact detection

The sustainable development goals (SDGs) are a blueprint for achieving a better and more sustainable future for all by defining priorities and aspirations for 2030. This paper attempts to expand on the United Nations SDGs definition by leveraging the interrelationship between science and technology. We utilize SDG classification of scientific publications to compile a machine learning (ML) model to classify the SDG relevancy in patent documents, used as a proxy of technology development. The ML model was used to classify a sample of patent families registered in the European Patent Office (EPO). The analysis revealed the extent to which SDGs were addressed in patents. We also performed a case study to identify the offered extension of ML model detection regarding the SDG orientation of patents. In response to global goals and sustainable development initiatives, the findings can advance the identification challenges of science and technology artefacts. Furthermore, we offer input towards the alignment of R&D efforts and patenting strategies as well as measurement and management of their contribution to the realization of SDGs.

Multiverse ethnography: A qualitative method for gaming and technology use research

This article introduces multiverse ethnography as a systematic team-based qualitative method for studying the mechanical, structural and experiential properties of video games and other technological artefacts. Instead of applying the ethnographic method to produce a single in-depth account, multiverse ethnography includes multiple researchers carrying out coordinated synergetic ethnographic work on the same research object, thus producing a multiverse of interpretations and perspectives. To test the method, 41 scholars carried out a multiverse ethnography on two video games, Cyberpunk 2077 and Among Us. Explorative thematic findings regarding both titles are reported and methodological implications of multiverse ethnography are discussed.

Inclusión digital educativa: una cartografía conceptual

The objective of this documentary review was to analyze the notion of educational digital inclusión and establish the boundaries of the concept in relation to other terms. The conceptual mapping method was chosen (Tobón, 2004), wich consists of four phases: 1) search for documents relevant to the research problem, 2) definition of inclusion and exclusion criteria, 3) data analysis based on eight axes, and 4) interpretation of the results. A total of 40 documents were reviewed from the databases Dialnet and SciELO, as well as from the Fundación Ceibal repository. The results obtained make it possible to establish that it is often difficult to relate the term with educational inclusion (higher category) given that the latter is oriented towards equalize the conditions. In this sense, the link between both concepts has permeated a vision focused on the implementation of actions and strategies that, for the most part, do not consider the particularities of the institutions to which they are directed. Likewise, its association with the term innovation has weighed on the figure of the teacher, since it is assumed that the insertion of technological artifacts is enough to achieve innovative uses, without considering that the inclusion of these tools must be accompanied by the corresponding literacy processes.

Generalizing the Information Systems Artifact

Suppose that a successful information systems (IS) artifact is created by a scholar for use in a research study or by a practitioner for use in an organization; how may the IS artifact be replicated in, or generalized to, another setting? The overall utility of the IS artifact depends on a way to generalize it. To provide such a way, we engage in three things. First, we distinguish an information systems artifact from its better-known sibling, the information technology artifact, by noting that the former includes three mutually supportive subsystems: the technology artifact, the social artifact, and the information artifact, where all three need to be designed and developed for the generalized IS artifact to be successful. Second, we devise a procedure to generalize the IS artifact based on a thorough examination of, and analogy to, generalizing scientific theory. Third, we provide a real-world illustration, involving the generalization of an IS artifact from one setting (the “computer on a stick” for educational purposes in Haiti) to another setting (the “continuing medical education on a stick” in Nepal). The generalization procedure can facilitate the production of working design science artifacts in more than just the original setting.

Ambiguous Narratives of World War Technologies in Contemporary Military History Museums

This article provides an analysis of how military history museums in Germany, Britain, Belgium, Poland, and the United States exhibit and contextualize weapon technologies that were developed in the two world wars. The article focuses on technologies (gas warfare, the atomic bomb, tanks, and the V2 long-range rocket) that are directly connected to military success and innovation but also relate to dehumanization and destruction. By employing the analytical concepts of experientiality and of antagonistic, cosmopolitan, and entangled memory, this article demonstrates how museums can create open or closed narratives, steer the visitor toward particular interpretations, enhance or deconstruct the authentic aura of technological artifacts, and stage the symbolic potential of technologies. In addition, it shows how museums can educate visitors and allow them to experience the ambiguities, controversies, and complexities of these technologies.

Introduction

“Revolutionary” technologies or large technological systems are often deemed controversial, risky, or ambivalent. Diverging interpretations clash when technological objects, such as rockets, airplanes, or nuclear reactors, are exhibited in museums or at heritage sites, with profound implications for underlying concepts of historical education. This special issue explores the argument that histories of technology have often upheld a traditional view of modern linear progress but became the focus of controversies when the social, political, and cultural conditions of perceiving and remembering these objects changed. At former “places of progress,” visitors and exhibition makers are confronted with the remains of the Industrial Revolution, colonialism, two World Wars, the Cold War, the Age of Coal, the Space Age, the Atomic Age and the Digital Age. Exhibitions and displays have been used to explain, teach, or make sense of the advents, successes, and failures of high-tech projects. Understanding technological artifacts and corresponding sites such as Chernobyl, Peenemünde, and Hiroshima as well as structures such as factories or bunkers as sites of memory (lieux de mémoire, a term coined by Pierre Nora) shifts our attention to processes of remembering modern technologies and the cases in which established narratives of progress have been supported or challenged. Questions about the ethics of technology use often seem to subvert stories of the “heroes of invention,” leaving visitors with the impression of technological ambivalence. Attempts to teach and learn about history and technology via objects and sites have been complicated, politicized, and contested.

The alegality of blockchain technology

AbstractSimilar to the early days of the Internet, today, the effectiveness and applicability of legal regulations are being challenged by the advent of blockchain technology. Yet, unlike the Internet, which has evolved into an increasingly centralized system that was largely brought within the reach of the law, blockchain technology still resists regulation and is thus described by some as being “alegal”, i.e., situated beyond the boundaries of existing legal orders and, therefore, challenging them. This article investigates whether blockchain technology can indeed be qualified as alegal and the extent to which such technology can be brought back within the boundaries of a legal order by means of targeted policies. First, the article explores the features of blockchain-based systems, which make them hard to regulate, mainly due to their approach to disintermediation. Second, drawing from the notion of alegality in legal philosophy, the article analyzes how blockchain technology enables acts that transgress the temporal, spatial, material, and subjective boundaries of the law, thereby introducing the notion of “alegality by design”—as the design of a technological artifact can provide affordances for alegality. Third, the article discusses how the law could respond to the alegality of blockchain technology through innovative policies encouraging the use of regulatory sandboxes to test for the “functional equivalence” and “regulatory equivalence” of the practices and processes implemented by blockchain initiatives.