AUTHOR
Wade L. Robison

ABSTRACT

Abstract: The most important concern with the integrity of voting machines which use software is the integrity of the software itself — the assurance that it is correctly recording votes and, at the end, tallying them up correctly. We in the United States have had a number of situations in which problems traceable to the software in voting machines has tainted the voting process.

Yet concentration on this problem should not obscure the importance of another that can equally taint the voting process. The design of the Palm Beach paper ballot is now famous, or infamous, for misdirecting voters so that even the most intelligent, well-trained and most highly motivated would make mistakes — like voting for Pat Buchanan instead of Al Gore, a mistake apparently made by upwards to 23,000 voters, more than enough to have changed the outcome of the election — and our subsequent history. That ballot illustrates well what I call an error-provocative design.

Error-provocative designs are those which provoke mistakes on the part of the most intelligent, well-trained, and most highly motivated users. The software in the autopilot in the Columbia airliner that flew into a mountain side in 1996 was error-provocative. The pilot’s job was to key in the initial letter of the beacon for the airport where the plane was to land. The autopilot would then pick the top of the listed five options that would appear and land the plane. The default was that the closest was at the top of the list — unless the pilot keyed in “R,” in which case the software selected Bogota. The plane was to land at Cali. Its beacon began with the letter “R” as did the beacon for Bogota. When the pilot keyed in “R,” the plane turned towards Bogota. The pilots did not figure out that there was a problem until it was too late. 159 people were killed when the plane flew straight into a mountain side near Cali.

Not even the most intelligent, well-trained, and high motivated of pilots is likely always to avoid the error that led to that disaster. Putting two defaults in the autopilot software was a recipe for disaster. But it was a self-contained recipe. Everything occurred on a screen. We often have the same kind of error-provocative design when an image is produced on a screen set within a frame. The frame has buttons to push, for instance, that trigger the next item on the menu. ATMs often work this way, with the software producing choices — “Checking” or “Savings” — for the operator to choose between by pushing a button to the right of the arrows following “Checking” and “Savings.” All too often, the arrows on the screen do not match up directly with the buttons — just as in the Palm Beach ballot, and the operator must guess whether it is the button above or below the arrow that is to be pushed. My bank ATM works this way with a perverse twist: I am always to push the button above the arrow except once — when I am to push the button below the arrow. If I do not then push the button below the arrow, I am shunted out of the system, informed that no transaction has occurred, and, then, curiously enough, thanked for making a transaction. I get a receipt with nothing on it except the date and time and name of the bank.

The operator is given no warning that the next item in the menu requires that the lower button be pushed, and though you can learn how to use the machine, it is easy to forget if you do not use it often — and quite exasperating because if you do not pay very careful attention, you will not remember where in the menu things went wrong.

This example illustrates a general truth for software engineers and those using software in such framed settings — on voting machines, for instance, as well as ATMs or airport kiosks for checking in, to give just two more examples. Software engineers are morally obligated, at a minimum, to avoid error-provocative designs. Such a design would be the weapon of choice for an evil genius of an engineer, determined to create engineering artifacts that would cause great harm. Just imagine such an error-provocative design in the software that runs a nuclear plant, or a subway system, the air traffic control system, or electronic voting machines. Engineers are morally obligated to avoid such designs just because they can cause great harm.

Yet as my bank’s ATM illustrates, software engineers might not think too much about how their software is going to be displayed, particularly when the screen is framed. A design that would not cause undue harm were the menu self-contained on a screen could cause great harm once framed. It is not sufficient for a software engineer to say, “That’s not my problem. I just do software.” The problem is with an inconsistency in the ATM software: the code has an anomalous exception to the standard code that requires pushing the upper button to proceed. But, just as important, software engineers are responsible for ensuring that their software works when in place. That means ensuring it works with other software that may already be there, but also means ensuring that it works if the screen is framed.

AUTHOR
Wade L. Robison

ABSTRACT

Abstract: Alexander Hamilton wrote in the Federalist Papers against adding a Bill of Rights to our Constitution. Besides sending the misleading signal that we need protection from a government to which we have granted only limited powers, some features of a Bill of Rights would be useless, he argued. In particular, regarding freedom of the press, he said in Paper No. 84 that “its security, whatever fine declarations may be inserted in any constitution respecting it, must altogether depend on public opinion, and on the general spirit of the people and of the government.”

We can find no better example of Hamilton’s general point than the way Iranians used twitter to communicate and organize protests regarding the presidential election there and few better examples of how important new modes of communication have become in ensuring that citizens are heard. But there are several different issues to disentangle here.

First, with the technological revolution of the last several decades we have moved far beyond concern about what we now can see is of very limited value. It is not freedom of the press that should be our concern, but freedom of communication, in all its forms, the press being the most prominent when our constitution was created and far less prominent, in its printed format at least, in this era. Technology has produced new ways of communicating that would beggar Hamilton’s imagination. The printed press is such a very small part of our technologically enhanced forms of communication that the phrase “freedom of the press” seems almost quaint if taken to refer to how citizens are now to obtain information relevant to their role as citizens and to communicate with one another about matters of common concern.

Second, as the old saw has it, “An informed citizenry is the bulwark of a democracy.” These new forms of communication give us the potential for far more informed citizens and, as the Iranian protests illustrate, the potential as well for new ways to mobilize and organize citizens — and get a sense of public opinion. The Iranian Constitution provides for freedom of the press except “when it is detrimental to the fundamental principles of Islam or the rights of the public.” The security of this restriction, as Hamilton might put it, clearly depends upon Iranian public opinion. But a large number of Iranians disagreed with the government’s judgment about what is detrimental and voted by twittering.

Third, these new modes of communication are somewhat dependent on a government’s not interfering with them. The Iranian government tried to control twitter communications when it realized that those protesting were using it to coordinate their protests. As long as the “general spirit…of the government” runs counter to the aims of those using these new modes of communication to organize or critique the government, communication by these modes among citizens of a country is at risk.

So, fourth, we have a challenge. Can we develop a mode of communication completely independent of the potential for governmental interference? As Petroski and others have argued at length, engineering proceeds through dissatisfaction with our available artifacts. What the Iranian experience shows is that modes of communication such as twitter can be very effective in allowing citizens to critique and protest their government and its policies, but if a government can control such modes of communication, they are no better than a government-run press. The design problem needs to be expanded, of course. For one thing, among many, there is no vetting of twitter communications. So rumors are as likely to result as useful information, and acting on rumors will not help those protesting a government or its policies.

AUTHOR
Wade L. Robison

ABSTRACT

In Iceland, DNA is being gathered from all citizens with the idea of creating a database of information. There are not that many Icelandic citizens, and they are geographically isolated from neighbors. Those gathering the data do not need to concern themselves as much with strangers wandering in from outside to contaminate the sample, and citizens not in Iceland can be readily identified because there are few ways off the island that do not require passing through passport control. ? One concern is that gathering this information in a database will put at risk individual’s privacy, but that general claim encapsulates different kinds of harm to our privacy. These different harms have developed in tort law since the first privacy law was passed in New York in the early 1900’s. We might think of this as open source development of the concept of privacy by practitioners with great skill in discerning, and creating, distinctions that make a difference to the rights of individuals and corporations. The concept has been honed by a great many good minds with a real interest in getting clear on what the concept means and what it entails. A decision in a case depends upon it. So the distinctions between these different kinds of harms to our privacy are clear: they harm us in different ways, the ways in which we prevent the harms are different, and the remedies when our privacy is invaded in any of these different ways are different.

So when concern is expressed about databases like that in Iceland invading our privacy, we need to sort out which privacy harms such databases ensure or make likely. Otherwise, we may find ourselves in the position of having created software for a database that protects us against one kind of privacy harm, but not against some other. We shall discover that a database like that in Iceland will ensure one kind of privacy harm and that there is no way to protect against it, that the remedies for two that we must protect in the same way are very different, and thus, among other things, there is no single response appropriate to a concern about such databases invading our privacy.

AUTHOR
Mark Ramrattan, Jai Ramrattan, Nandish V Patel and Nabila Hussain

ABSTRACT

Introduction

Web Information System Development Methodologies for today’s critical factors; Internet Speed and Web-based Aesthetics are in need of emergent analytical development tools. This paper proposes insights from an action research investigation into how the adaptation of methodologies from the Information Systems domain is insufficient in terms of meeting today’s Web Information System demands of continuously changing structures, processes and resources.

Information Systems Development Methodologies

The focus of this research paper uses the notion of an Information Systems Development Methodology or ISDM as a tool-kit of ideas, approaches, techniques and tools which web developers use to help them to translate actual organisational needs into appropriate Information Systems.

An ISDM is a: “recommended collection of philosophies, phases, procedures, rules, techniques, tools, documentation, management and training for developers of Information Systems”. (Avison and Fitzgerald, 2003a)

Revolution of Web

When the revolution of Web technology started, small businesses and individuals could also afford to create their own computer applications, including a Website. Google.com, Yahoo.com, Amazon.com are very good examples. They started as unknown companies to become some of the most renowned companies in the world. In fact, they had taken advantage of the Internet and Web technology to drive their business so that the Web now has become a strategic part of the business.

Therefore, Website and Web-based Information Systems development are placed at the forefront of new business systems development. Many companies have tried to have at least a Website and need it within a small number of weeks (time constrained environment). Although there are many Web development methodologies available to practitioners, they are not well-known, or are known but many avoid using them.

Undeniably, there are contrary and supporting statements on both sides of the argument on the benefits of adopting a methodology for web-based development. While it is beyond the scope of this research to study every available methodology, this research paper will focus on Web-based Information Systems Development Methodologies to establish greater understanding which are relevant to the problem.

Web-based Development Specifically Different

Firstly, the original purpose of Web-based development is to build an alternative type of medium that extends a channel of communication to online publishing purpose for internal and external stakeholders. In addition, the purpose of the Information Systems development is to facilitate business transactions and operation of an organisation.

Secondly, the development life cycle of a general Information System is a long term cycle, while a short term life-cycle of web-based development is quite common for many web-based projects.

Thirdly, the web is content intensive, and composed of unstructured information use; while structured information and its flow are the major focus of traditional Information Systems.

Finally, web-based development is a rich graphical approach, although it may be optional to most Information Systems development projects. Consequently, the methodology to development, needs to be discussed separately from the traditional Information System development.

In most cases, Web developers start to create a document on the ‘editor software’ without hesitation in order to make a design and analysis; this ‘ad-hoc’ approach can be problematic (Linden and Cybulski 2004). Similar to word processing applications, modern HTML editors allow Web developers to easily create, edit, update and publish the documents directly to their online sites. As a result, Web developers, who may have little or none technical background in system development, will nevertheless, be able to have an advantage and seamlessly create their own sites without hiring programmers.

Although some contents may appear functional, they may display the contents inefficiently within acceptable response timing. Misunderstanding of the method of usage may lead to suffering as this technique may not always be appropriate. Since the increased demand for Web-based content, there have been some very important issues that have arisen regarding Web-based development. Additionally, increasing volume of image usage and the demand for large scale documents are today’s primary concerns for most Web developers. Adoption of some kind of techniques (i.e. analytical tool) may help Web developers reduce these kinds of problems.

Although Powell (2000) mentions the needs for Web development methodology and also the adoption of Information System development methodology such as the Waterfall Model, Modified Waterfall and Joint Application Development (JAD) to Web-based Information System Development. There is no clear explanation of a procedure and method for doing so. However, there is recommendation of the site-building methodology for Web design and development guidelines for web developers.

Web-based Information Systems Development methodology has derived a concept from hypermedia development methodology. Usually, hypermedia is a combination of rich texts, graphics, audio, video, and so forth by using the concept of a hyperlink in order to provide a cross reference and navigation to other pages or sections of the application. Any hypermedia design and development methodology should be able to adopt the development of a Web-based Information Systems (Coda et al 1998).

Summary

Many methodologies exist for ISD since the 1970s and new ones are being produced. Both practitioners and researchers continue to create and recommend new methodologies to facilitate the development of the Information Systems application using new technology with a current shift to support the emerging areas of Web technologies and applications.

Prior to the revolution of Web technology, there were already existing Information Systems development methodologies available to practioners for web-based development projects. The major players during that period were often large enterprises, which were willing to pay huge sums of money for Information Systems development. The reason is quite simple, this was in order for them to gain a competitive advantage. To achieve this goal, methodologies had been adopted for the efficient development of Information Systems. The competitive advantage has changed with the introduction of the web-based platform, though today’s problem of Internet Speed and Web based aesthetics makes it more problematic.

AUTHOR
Adam Pietrzykowski

ABSTRACT

From its beginning information and communication technologies (ICT) are successively changing the way we are living. The reality of a modern world is filled with technological solutions that shape economic, social, cultural and any other dimension of life. This changes are also present in education. Defined as a process of learning and teaching education obtained new possibilities both in the area of learning environment and creation of learning content.

The role of education in modern societies is indisputably invaluable. From its quality depends the social capital that will constitute economic and cultural living space. Building modern societies where knowledge is a primary production resource require customized education that can follow rapidly changing hi-tech reality. From the perspective of an individual education gives greater chance to realize human potential, which brings more conscious life and an better opportunities in creating one’s own Lebenswelt.

Thanks to possibilities brought by ICT education gain a new perspectives especially in dimensions of knowledge creation and representation. The multimedia effect construct an immerse habitat that gives more complex and rich educational experience than the traditional forms.

But the most important of computer technology is the context of education is the status of information and thus education materials. The digitalization of information enabled creation of infinite amount of lossless and free “copies of knowledge”. Together with communication wonder – Internet – there can be achieved a groundbreaking chance: effective and cheap way of exchanging educational resources and an international community that creates it.

Noticing that chance caused in arising of a world wide Open Education community promoting the idea of sharing and cooperating. Knowledge, ideas, teaching methodology and technological solutions related to eduction are conceived to be open in the sense of availability, changeability and free distribution. Reports made by major organizations, foundations and educational institutions on Open Eduction like OECD’s “Giving knowledge for free”, UNESCO’s “OER: The Way Forward” or MIT’s “Opening Up Education” finds this sort of gift economy crucial for development of Informal Society. In 2007 Cape Town Open Education Declaration came into existence. It points the strategy and the field of activity in scope of promoting and later progress of Open Education idea. Apart from bottom-up initiatives it indicates top-down activities of government institutions whose role is to support Open Education by creating friendly law regulations. Financial models, network infrastructure, software technologies and especially copyright law are the key problems that have to be solved.

The clash of digital era reality with copyright regulations from the industrial, analog era leads to a dissonance between the technological possibility of sharing and present restriction of the law. Open licenses like Creative Commons are fixing this gap by laying the foundations for intellectual property sharing. The license give full control of regulating the proportion between own interest and public domain interest to the author. Although open licenses are well known in Internet gift communities there still remain unknown or questionable for lawmakers. Also the lack of suitable software that constitute a technological base for cooperation can cause a problem. However fast growing open source solutions give hope for overcoming this obstacle. Together with open licenses, open source leads to an open ecosystem that is complementary with the idea of Open Education.

Open Education is nowadays something more then a “honorable idea”. Stying at the institutional model of sharing resources (OER, OpenCourseWare) there appears an issue about the characteristic of the exchange. The standard assume is that there is some kind of unwritten reverse principle. An idealistic assumption that knowledge sharing institution will derive advantages from knowledge shared by another institution. In fact, the decision of sharing can be rather dictated by economical calculation. Sharing is automatically a good advertisement for the institution (MIT case) therefore there is always some kind of surplus at the end. A different characteristic is when the institution is funded from public money. In such case, there is a strong ethical (not economical) imperative that every digitalized work of the educators should be shared freely.

For the drawn above global cooperation of teachers, lecturers and students the possible changes it brings can be located in two spheres. The first focus on quantitative and qualitative perspective that can be related to “knowledge production”, “knowledge up-to-date” and “knowledge fixing”. The second is the impact of global oriented community on the shape of locally education structures and teaching traditions. By observing initiatives that already exist (e.g. Connexions) there can be given an answer on possible range and depth of this potential changes.

Open education is not only about people connected with educational institutions. The Internet itself is a cornucopia of knowledge brought in by creative amateurs. In view of social architecture of present-day Internet (Web 2.0) a question arises whether is there’s a place in education for non-authorized knowledge that is an effect of collective collaboration (wisdom of a crowd) and what should be it’s role in our societies?

The paper main aim is to present the Open Education idea; the changes it can cause on global and local scale and the benefits from its realization. Analyzing technological, social, economical and law situation that determine its success would be the second important issue to be presented.

AUTHOR
MJ Phythian, NB Fairweather and RG Howley

ABSTRACT

This paper deals with how a phenomenon that is frequently called social media can be employed in information systems research. The aim of the paper is to describe the decision to use social media, and to describe the development and employment of a number of social media tools to assist in a research project investigating the use of electronic media in government. The aim of the use of the tools was to gain contact with, and feedback from, the researchers’ practitioner audience.

Social media, also known as Web 2.0 services and tools, can perhaps be best defined by comparing them to their opposites, industrial media such newspapers, radio and television. ‘Social media’ is small-scale self-publishing employing tools such as Internet forums, weblogs, social weblogs, wikis, podcasts, and video.

The researchers developed a model, following a large-scale literature review, to consider the employment of feedback across multiple channels for all services, as a mechanism for local government service improvement. In order to test ongoing developments and any additional reading or events that might ratify or affect the model, it was decided to develop and use a weblog to facilitate discussion of these ideas.

The weblog became a ‘golden thread’ of continuity throughout all phases from when the writing of it was first started, towards the end of the initial literature review; to being a promotional tool for the research, best practice from the academic and practitioner literature; to assisting in the promotion of the surveys; and to the collection of feedback across a range of related topics. Importantly, a hardcopy research diary was also maintained in the background, although the weblog itself became a diary of events and thoughts upon the literature.

Establishing the weblog using standard tools available from WordPress was relatively easy. As with any tool, practice made use easier and the main thing was then to provide interesting content. Sources of material came from reading a range of publications but, in addition, setting up an automated daily Google newsfeed to search for anything e-government-related brought up content both for the weblog and the research. The newsfeed provided a daily email of any additional mentions of ‘e-government’ discovered by the Google search robots as they crawled the Internet, allowing the very latest news across the world to be researched and reported upon, if felt worthy. It also became necessary to subscribe to electronic media sources, such as newsletters from the major consultancy companies with an interest in e-government.

Although with practice, posting and managing the weblog, along with occasional changes to layout became easier, there was still a certain amount of time required for extracting, writing and establishing well-linked posts. After a while it became apparent that averaging ten posts per month maintained an active number of visitors, it also became clear that around two hours were employed drafting, finalising and laying out each weblog entry. In some cases it was possible to extract information from the draft dissertation to be employed as the weblog post, whilst other entries became content in the draft dissertation following posting on the weblog, when their value was realised.

The weblog was also a launch pad for the surveys, enabling supporting materials to be read, and then the survey be reached by those wanting to complete it. This was also convenient when encouraging responses, since each posting was used to promote the survey, in the case of the second survey, along with later posts reporting initial feedback and thus prompting additional responses. Having the weblog as a base for the survey, there was also an opportunity to have the ethical prologue displayed, along with background to the research, and interim feedback.

As the weblog developed additional tools were discovered and introduced including an Really Simple Syndication (RSS) feed, a subscription tool and a tag cloud. The RSS feed was employed by another major public web site to deliver the weblog to a potentially different readership.

This paper describes this in more detail, and includes discussion around:

• the statistics from various sources and how they were employed for monitoring purposes. The researchers maintained spreadsheets of a range of figures from the number of visitors, the number of words written on the weblog, to the numbers subscribing to the weblog and its feeds which were used to try and understand activity with the media
• the benefits of using social media in comparison with traditional tools along with the limitations found. Since it is obviously difficult to get research reported quickly across the conventional mass media, what outcomes were demonstrated by it? The potential societal divisions were not seen as an issue in this particular context of academic research project, particularly when the researchers intended to continue to employ face-to-face communications in the promotion of any outcomes, along with interviewing others who may not have been aware of the other research mechanisms used.
• some of the tools employed, such as the Google newsfeed, the Google Feedburner and employing other social media themselves to promote particular topics on the weblog as they arose
• additional tools that might be used, including a brief exploration of wikis, video sharing and podcasting and if not used in this instance, why that was

The paper presents a summary of the findings around the use of social media as a research tool, and also examines the reasons behind one particular finding, that some government IT managers are guarded about the use of social media.

A primary conclusion to the employment of social media was that it facilitated the delivery of academic research to a wider audience, enabling a much quicker and more responsive feedback loop than purely relying on academic journal publishing, which may be little read outside of academia and takes a substantial time from research to publication.