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Big data are changing the way we work. This book conveys a theoretical understanding of big data and the related interactions on a socio-technological level as well as on the organizational level. Big data challenge the human resource department to take a new role. An organization’s new competitive advantage is its employees augmented by big data.
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This book sheds new light on a selection of big data scenarios from an interdisciplinary perspective. It features legal, sociological and economic approaches to fundamental big data topics such as privacy, data quality and the ECJ’s Safe Harbor decision on the one hand, and practical applications such as smart cars, wearables and web tracking on the other. Addressing the interests of researchers and practitioners alike, it provides a comprehensive overview of and introduction to the emerging challenges regarding big data.All contributions are based on papers submitted in connection with ABIDA (Assessing Big Data), an interdisciplinary research project exploring the societal aspects of big data and funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research.This volume was produced as a part of the ABIDA project (Assessing Big Data, 01IS15016A-F). ABIDA is a four-year collaborative project funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research. However the views and opinions expressed in this book reflect only the authors’ point of view and not necessarily those of all members of the ABIDA project or the Federal Ministry of Education and Research.
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This Open Access book offers a synthetic reflection on the authors’ fieldwork experiences in seven countries within the framework of ‘Authoritarianism in a Global Age’, a major comparative research project. It responds to the demand for increased attention to methodological rigor and transparency in qualitative research, and seeks to advance and practically support field research in authoritarian contexts. Without reducing the conundrums of authoritarian field research to a simple how-to guide, the book systematically reflects and reports on the authors’ combined experiences in (i) getting access to the field, (ii) assessing risk, (iii) navigating ‘red lines’, (iv) building relations with local collaborators and respondents, (v) handling the psychological pressures on field researchers, and (vi) balancing transparency and prudence in publishing research. It offers unique insights into this particularly challenging area of field research, makes explicit how the authors handled methodological challenges and ethical dilemmas, and offers recommendations where appropriate.
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This book is open access under a CC BY license. Selfies, blogs and lifelogging devices help us understand ourselves, building on long histories of written, visual and quantitative modes of self-representations. This book uses examples to explore the balance between using technology to see ourselves and allowing our machines to tell us who we are.
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Ability to use information and communication technologies (ICT) is an imperative for effective participation in today’s digital age. Schools worldwide are responding to the need to provide young people with that ability. But how effective are they in this regard? The IEA International Computer and Information Literacy Study (ICILS) responded to this question by studying the extent to which young people have developed computer and information literacy (CIL), which is defined as the ability to use computers to investigate, create, and communicate with others at home, school, the workplace and in society.
The study was conducted under the auspices of the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement (IEA) and builds on a series of earlier IEA studies focusing on ICT in education.
Data were gathered from almost 60,000 Grade 8 students in more than 3,300 schools from 21 education systems. This information was augmented by data from almost 35,000 teachers in those schools and by contextual data collected from school ICT-coordinators, school principals, and the ICILS national research centers.
The IEA ICILS team systematically investigated differences among the participating countries in students’ CIL outcomes, how participating countries were providing CIL-related education, and how confident teachers were in using ICT in their pedagogical practice. The team also explored differences within and across countries with respect to relationships between CIL education outcomes and student characteristics and school contexts.
In general, the study findings presented in this international report challenge the notion of young people as “digital natives” with a self-developed capacity to use digital technology. The large variations in CIL proficiency within and across the ICILS countries suggest it is naive to expect young people to develop CIL in the absence of coherent learning programs. Findings also indicate that system- and school-level planning needs to focus on increasing teacher expertise in using ICT for pedagogical purposes if such programs are to have the desired effect.
The report furthermore presents an empirically derived scale and description of CIL learning that educational stakeholders can reference when deliberating about CIL education and use to monitor change in CIL over time.
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This book explores the development, trends and research of library and information sciences (LIS) in the digital age. Inside, readers will find research and case studies written by LIS experts, educators and theorists, most of whom have visited China, delivered presentations there and drafted their articles based on feedback they received. As a result, readers will discover the LIS issues and concerns that China and the international community have in common.
The book first introduces the opportunities and challenges faced by the library and information literacy profession and discusses the key role of librarians in the future of information literacy education. Next, it covers trends in LIS education by examining the vision of the iSchool movement and detailing its practice in Syracuse University.
The book then covers issues in information seeking and retrieval by showing how visual data mining technology can be used to detect the relationship and pattern between terms on the Q&A of a social media site. It also includes a case study regarding tracing information seeking behavior and usage on a multimedia website.
Next, the book stresses the importance of building an academic accreditation framework for scientific datasets, explores the relationship between bibliometrics and university rankings, and details the birth and development of East Asian Libraries in North America.
Overall, the book offers readers insight into the changing nature of LIS, including the electronic dissemination of information, the impact of the Internet on libraries, the changing responsibilities of library professionals, the new paradigm for evaluating information, and characteristics and functions of today's library personnel.
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Archives in Liquid Times aims to broaden and deepen the thinking about archives in today’s digital environment. It is a book that tries to fuel the debate about archives in different fields of research. It shows that in these liquid times, archives need and deserve to be considered from different angles. Archives in Liquid Times is a publication in which archival science is linked to philosophy (of information) and data science. Not only do the contributors try to open windows to new concepts and perspectives, but also to new uses of existing concepts concerning archives. The articles in this book contain philosophical reflections, speculative essays and presentations of new models and concepts alongside well-known topics in archival theory. Among the contributors are scholars from different fields of research, like Anne Gilliland, Wolfgang Ernst, Geoffrey Yeo, Martijn van Otterlo, Charles Jeurgens and Geert-Jan van Bussel. This book includes interviews with Luciano Floridi and Eric Ketelaar, in which they reflect on key issues arising from the contributions. The editors are Frans Smit, Arnoud Glaudemans and Rienk Jonker.
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This collection examines how higher education responds to the demands of the automation economy and the fourth industrial revolution. Considering significant trends in how people are learning, coupled with the ways in which different higher education institutions and education stakeholders are implementing adaptations, it looks at new programs and technological advances that are changing how and why we teach and learn. The book addresses trends in liberal arts integration of STEM innovations, the changing role of libraries in the digital age, global trends in youth mobility, and the development of lifelong learning programs. This is coupled with case study assessments of the various ways China, Singapore, South Africa and Costa Rica are preparing their populations for significant shifts in labour market demands – shifts that are already underway. Offering examples of new frameworks in which collaboration between government, industry, and higher education institutions can prevent lagging behind in this fast changing environment, this book is a key read for anyone wanting to understand how the world should respond to the radical technological shifts underway on the frontline of higher education.
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In the light of better and more detailed administrative databases, this open access book provides statistical tools for evaluating the effects of public policies advocated by governments and public institutions. Experts from academia, national statistics offices and various research centers present modern econometric methods for an efficient data-driven policy evaluation and monitoring, assess the causal effects of policy measures and report on best practices of successful data management and usage. Topics include data confidentiality, data linkage, and national practices in policy areas such as public health, education and employment. It offers scholars as well as practitioners from public administrations, consultancy firms and nongovernmental organizations insights into counterfactual impact evaluation methods and the potential of data-based policy and program evaluation.
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This open access book begins with an algorithm–a set of IF…THEN rules used in the development of a new, ethical, video surveillance architecture for transport hubs. Readers are invited to follow the algorithm over three years, charting its everyday life. Questions of ethics, transparency, accountability and market value must be grasped by the algorithm in a series of ever more demanding forms of experimentation. Here the algorithm must prove its ability to get a grip on everyday life if it is to become an ordinary feature of the settings where it is being put to work. Through investigating the everyday life of the algorithm, the book opens a conversation with existing social science research that tends to focus on the power and opacity of algorithms. In this book we have unique access to the algorithm’s design, development and testing, but can also bear witness to its fragility and dependency on others.
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This open access book comprehensively covers the fundamentals of clinical data science, focusing on data collection, modelling and clinical applications. Topics covered in the first section on data collection include: data sources, data at scale (big data), data stewardship (FAIR data) and related privacy concerns. Aspects of predictive modelling using techniques such as classification, regression or clustering, and prediction model validation will be covered in the second section. The third section covers aspects of (mobile) clinical decision support systems, operational excellence and value-based healthcare.
Fundamentals of Clinical Data Science is an essential resource for healthcare professionals and IT consultants intending to develop and refine their skills in personalized medicine, using solutions based on large datasets from electronic health records or telemonitoring programmes. The book’s promise is “no math, no code”and will explain the topics in a style that is optimized for a healthcare audience.
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This book offers a concise guide for librarians, helping them understand the challenges, processes and technologies involved in managing access to online resources. After an introduction the book presents cases of general authentication and authorisation. It helps readers understand web based authentication and provides the fundamentals of IP address recognition in an easy to understand manner. A special chapter is dedicated to Security Assertion Markup Language (SAML), followed by an overview of the key concepts of OpenID Connect. The book concludes with basic troubleshooting guidelines and recommendations for further assistance.
Librarians will benefit from this quick and easy read, which demystifies the technologies used, features real-life scenarios, and explains how to competently employ authentication and access management.
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Nanna Verhoeff’s new book is a must for anybody interested in visual culture and media theory. It offers a rich and stimulating theoretical account of the central dimension of our contemporary existence – interfacing and navigating both data and physical world through a variety of screens (game consoles, mobile phones, car interfaces, GPS devices, etc.) In the process of exploring these new screen practices, Verhoeff offers fresh perspectives on many of the key questions in media and new media studies as well as a number of new original theoretical concepts. As the first theoretical manual for the society of mobile screens, this book will become an essential reference for all future investigations of our mobile screen condition. – Lev Manovich
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Linked Open Data (LOD) is a pragmatic approach for realizing the Semantic Web vision of making the Web a global, distributed, semantics-based information system. This book presents an overview on the results of the research project “LOD2 -- Creating Knowledge out of Interlinked Data”. LOD2 is a large-scale integrating project co-funded by the European Commission within the FP7 Information and Communication Technologies Work Program. Commencing in September 2010, this 4-year project comprised leading Linked Open Data research groups, companies, and service providers from across 11 European countries and South Korea. The aim of this project was to advance the state-of-the-art in research and development in four key areas relevant for Linked Data, namely 1. RDF data management; 2. the extraction, creation, and enrichment of structured RDF data; 3. the interlinking and fusion of Linked Data from different sources and 4. the authoring, exploration and visualization of Linked Data.
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This book reviews Internet research and political theory seeking theoretically "cool-headed" perspectives on the current public political spaces in advanced societies. Aspects of the political theories of Rawls and Habermas are discussed and contrasted with contestation-oriented theories. In light of how the Internet takes part in structurally transforming the public sphere, the book draws on sociological and realist insights in order to encircle a more realist view. It briefly reconsiders such strange bedfellows as sociological systems theory (Niklas Luhmann) and political realism (eg. Bernard Williams). The purpose is not to construct a realist theory of the internet-based public sphere, but to point out central insights on which such a theory can be built.
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Knowledge in the Age of Digital Capitalism proposes a new critical theory concerning the functioning of capitalism and how we consider knowledge and information.
This ambitious book systematically and lucidly introduces contemporary phenomena into the framework of cognitive materialism to address some of the great themes of the social sciences: knowledge, exploitation and social class in an account of capitalism's totality in the present day. Author Mariano Zukerfeld reinvigorates materialist study of communications, presenting a typology of knowledge to explain the underlying material forms of information, intellectual property and cognitive work in contemporary societies. Using current examples the book also examines concerns such as free labour and the pivotal role of intellectual property.
The book offers nothing less than an introduction to the theory of cognitive materialism and an account of the entirety of the digital (or knowledge) capitalism of our time.
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Increasingly, young people live online, with the vast majority of their social and cultural interactions conducted through means other than face-to-face conversation. How does this transition impact the ways in which young migrants understand, negotiate, and perform identity? That's the question taken up by Digital Passages: Migrant Youth 2.0, a ground-breaking analysis of the ways that youth culture online interacts with issues of diaspora, gender, and belonging. Drawing on surveys, in-depth interviews, and ethnography, Koen Leurs builds an interdisciplinary portrait of online youth culture and the spaces it opens up for migrant youth to negotiate power relations and to promote intercultural understanding.
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There is no doubt that we live in exciting times: Ours is the age of many ‘silent revolutions’ triggered by startups and research labs of big IT companies; revolutions that quietly and profoundly alter the world we live in. Another ten or five years, and self-tracking will be as normal and inevitable as having a Facebook account or a mobile phone. Our bodies, hooked to wearable devices sitting directly at or beneath the skin, will constantly transmit data to the big aggregation in the cloud. Permanent recording and automatic sharing will provide unabridged memory, both shareable and analyzable. The digitization of everything will allow for comprehensive quantification; predictive analytics and algorithmic regulation will prove themselves effective and indispensable ways to govern modern mass society. Given such prospects, it is neither too early to speculate on the possible futures of digital media nor too soon to remember how we expected it to develop ten, or twenty years ago.
The observations shared in this book take the form of conversations about digital media and culture centered around four distinct thematic fields: politics and government, algorithm and censorship, art and aesthetics, as well as media literacy and education. Among the keywords discussed are: data mining, algorithmic regulation, sharing culture, filter bubble, distant reading, power browsing, deep attention, transparent reader, interactive art, participatory culture. The interviewees (mostly from the US, but also from France, Brazil, and Denmark) were given a set of common questions as well specific inquiries tailored to their individual areas of interest and expertise. As a result, the book both identifies different takes on the same issues and enables a diversity of perspectives when it comes to the interviewees’ particular concerns.
Among the questions offered to everybody were: What is your favored neologism of digital media culture? If you could go back in history of new media and digital culture in order to prevent something from happening or somebody from doing something, what or who would it be? If you were a minister of education, what would you do about media literacy? What is the economic and political force of personalization and transparency in digital media and what is its personal and cultural cost? Other recurrent questions address the relationship between cyberspace and government, the Googlization, quantification and customization of everything, and the culture of sharing and transparency. The section on art and aesthetics evaluates the former hopes for hypertext and hyperfiction, the political facet of digital art, the transition from the “passive” to “active” and from “social” to “transparent reading”; the section on media literacy discusses the loss of deep reading, the prospect of “distant reading” and “algorithmic criticism” as well as the response of the university to the upheaval of new media and the expectations or misgivings towards the rise of the Digital Humanities.
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The digital turn might as well be marked as an Asian turn. From flash-mobs in Taiwan to feminist mobilisations in India, from hybrid media strategies of Syrian activists to cultural protests in Thailand, we see the emergence of political acts that transform the citizen from being a beneficiary of change to becoming an agent of change. In co-shaping these changes, what the digital shall be used for, and what its consequences will be, are both up for speculation and negotiation.
Digital Activism in Asia marks a particular shift where these questions are no longer being refracted through the ICT4D logic, or the West’s attempts to save Asia from itself, but shaped by multiplicity, unevenness, and urgencies of digital sites and users in Asia.
This reader crowd-sources critical tools, concepts, analyses, and annotations, self-identified by a network of change makers in Asia as important in their own practices within their own contexts.
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This book highlights that the capacity for gathering, analysing, and utilising vast amounts of digital (user) data raises significant ethical issues. Annika Richterich provides a systematic contemporary overview of the field of critical data studies that reflects on practices of digital data collection and analysis. The book assesses in detail one big data research area: biomedical studies, focused on epidemiological surveillance. Specific case studies explore how big data have been used in academic work.
The Big Data Agenda concludes that the use of big data in research urgently needs to be considered from the vantage point of ethics and social justice. Drawing upon discourse ethics and critical data studies, Richterich argues that entanglements between big data research and technology/internet corporations have emerged. In consequence, more opportunities for discussing and negotiating emerging research practices and their implications for societal values are needed.
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Media, Society, Culture, and You is an approachable introductory Mass Communication text that covers major mass communication terms and concepts including "digital culture." It discusses various media platforms and how they are evolving as Information and Communication Technologies change.
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