AUTHOR

Pedro Calderia
Universidade do Algarve

ABSTRACT

The use of technology in educational settings is largely non-theoretical regarding to education theories and models, to educational psychology (namely individual differences on learning and information processing styles) and to didactics (in general, or science and literature, for instance).

The introduction of computers in schools and classes is almost totally dependent on teachers’ technological knowledge and interest, without regard to the consequences on learning performance of subjects with different study approaches and orientations, different learning conceptualizations and outcomes.

Therefore, the main goal of this study is to understand the impact of hypermedia information presentation on surface and deep learning and on satisfaction in subjects with different study orientations.

Three subject groups were selected. Each subject was classified within a contrasting study orientation (to the meaning, to reproduction and disorganized study orientations) and studied one of the three different versions of the same information (three versions on computer: sequential without image, sequential with image and non-sequential with image – the last one is an hypermedia version). After studying the information, subject’s performance was evaluated regarding surface and deep learning and satisfaction.

This study analyses the combined effect of three different constructs and three information presentation systems on surface and deep learning and on satisfaction. These constructs are the following:

• Study orientation – referring to subjects’ elected studying orientation. Each study orientation is associated with different learning conceptualizations and outcomes:
• Meaning study orientation is associated with high learning outcomes and a conceptualization of learning as to obtain the deep understanding of school materials;
• Reproduction study orientation is associated with learning outcomes average and a conceptualization of learning as a mere accumulation of knowledge;
• Disorganized study orientation is associated with poor learning outcomes and a conceptualization of learning as a dull and uninteresting task;
• Dynamics information – referring to the absence or presence of images on the presentation version of information;
• Sequence of the information presentation – referring to the sequential or non-linear structure of the information presentation.

Kintsh and van Dijk (1978) comprehension of texts model, and their evolutions (namely Kintsh & Kintsh, 1996) was used to analyses the impact of these constructs on surface and deep learning. Several satisfaction dimensions were used to analyses the impact of the same constructs on satisfaction. Surface and deep learning and satisfaction were operational in the following way:

• Surface learning was evaluated by dichotomous and multiple choice questions;
• Deep learning was evaluated by open questions;
• A 5-item scale evaluated satisfaction.

189 subjects have participated in this study. They were assigned to one of the different study orientation and information presentation system groups. Group comparisons were made using either Analysis of Variance or Kruskal-Wallis non-parametric test (Post-hoc tests, Least Square Differences or Mann-Whitney, respectively).

The main hypothesis in this study were that: dynamic and non linearity information have a negative impact on surface and deep learning and provide higher levels of satisfaction on subjects with a disorganized study orientation. Both information characteristics have also a negative impact on deep learning on subjects with a reproducing study orientation and provide lower levels of satisfaction on subjects with a meaning study orientation.

Globally, the main hypotheses of this study were confirmed. The dynamics and sequence of information have a paradoxical effect on subjects with a disorganized study orientation. For these subjects, more the information presentation is dynamic and non-linear, more interesting the information becomes (providing higher levels of satisfaction) but also more negatively it interferes on performance in both surface and deep learning.

Learning conceptualizations of subjects with a disorganized study orientation (as entertainment without effort, for instance) probably hinder them to understand the information. Moreover the distracting effect of information dynamics and structure restrained the process of superficial and deep learning.

On the other hand, subjects with a meaning orientation feel less satisfied when interacting with hypermedia information, comparatively with sequential information of all types (with or without images).

Learning conceptualizations of these subjects (relating ideas, for instance) probably allow them to understand that to reach the same results level demanded more effort when studying with the aid of information presentation systems more dynamic and non-linear (hypermedia)

An unexpected result in this study was the impact of the information segmentation on deep learning results in all subject groups. A higher level of segmentation seems to facilitate surface learning for all study orientation groups. However, the excess of segmentation hinders deep learning results as it blocks the process of meaning construction.

The main conclusion of this study is that the students with higher difficulties in studying and learning school materials (students with a disorganized study orientation – with a learning conceptualization as a dull task, without interest) are completely defeated by the information systems attractiveness (dynamics information and interactivity), while their more school oriented colleagues (those students with a meaning study orientation – with a conceptualization of learning as grasping the deep understanding of school materials) comprehend quite quickly that the attractiveness of information technology hinders the learning process (their main goal when interacting with the educational technology).

Therefore, if the design of educational technologies (and the design of technology usage on educational settings) doesn’t weigh up the differences on study orientation (learning conceptualization and outcomes) of learners then that technology can become the new tool of social selection and discrimination, as the students more aloof from school goals and processes (perhaps today’s main segregation source) have more difficulties to interact effectively with the hypermedia technology (perhaps tomorrow’s social discrimination tool).

In order to avoid such technological usage outcomes (discriminating in the future those students more discriminated today by the school system) we must fully understand the interplay between education model, individual studying orientation, educational software quality and usability and teacher’s training.

AUTHOR
Anna Bobkowska

ABSTRACT

Goal of the paper is to provide reflection of deeper aspects of the quality systems. It means to look at things behind quality system rules and structures, human roles and activities. In this extended abstract, an approach, which is based on the ethics of values is briefly discussed in context of the quality culture and general ethics issues. One can argue that real values point to the long-term achievements. Then, a skeleton for analysis of TQM (Total Quality Management) and external audit based systems (like ISO and CMM) according to selected values is presented, and finally some results taken from the author’s work on quality prediction are provided as a point in discussion.

The values of quality systems are proposed as key issue in ethical considerations about accurate, efficient and fair methods of quality assurance. Evolution of the quality culture idea indicates that strict structures and inflexible rules are not sufficient for satisfactory quality system. The culture (according to Schein [1]) has three levels. At the most visible level there are artefacts, art, technology and patterns of behaviour, middle level is reserved for values and can be seen with higher level of awareness, and the last invisible level consists of common assumptions, dependencies on the environment, kinds of human activities and attitudes to reality and truth. Values are ideas determining what is significant and worth working or even fighting for[4]. They are part of personal attitudes, but they are also influenced by the community of which persons are part. In this sense it is possible to speak about values of the system. In the diversity of needs and existing quality systems, analysis of values which form deeper level of culture seem to be a promising approach.

Research in psychology has shown the role of subconscious processing of information. Real motivations and values not always are visible. There is a problem how to reach this internal level that indicates what is really important. The method proposed consists of the analysis of goals and activities in the quality systems, especially priorities, attitude to problems, dilemmas and situations of limited resources. The following values are going to be considered:

• Satisfaction of customers in aspect of involvement in the development, delivery and support of the quality product,
• Satisfaction of employees in aspects of the human values like satisfying human needs, solidarity, justice, freedom-responsibility and other social values,
• Internal coherency as a way of realisation of the quality policy,
• Product quality values in aspect of quality criteria, number of satisfied customers, price, time-to market, etc.,
• Quality system values with criteria of accuracy, flexibility, effectiveness, and efficiency.

Author’s work on quality assurance with quality prediction in early phases of software development has shown the need of flexible system which allows for continuous improvements and quick reaction to the changes in technology or in the market. In software engineering there is still no parameterised model that allows for precise predictions. It is important to integrate complementary work of competent individuals with use of appropriate techniques to obtain good results. Also humanistic approach, giving priorities to persons rather then things or ideas, makes author’s conclusions more similar to TQM philosophy then formulation of the strict rules for all the diversity of projects, goals and needs.

The paper is going to represent analytical approach to ethics in software quality management [3]. Key issue in this analysis is the system of values, which constitute internal level of the culture. In the era of postmodernism, people avoid indicating general systems of values (in fact, values differ depending on the community). However, analysis of them can support searching for the needed solution. Audit-based systems assure trust between developers and customers by the means of external body audits according to the standards that usually are concerned with the development process. TQM is difficult to audit, but it assumes customer and employee satisfaction, continuous development and total involvement. This is a very humanistic approach and it facilitates progress. Maybe that is the reason why ISO-based systems evolve to the TQM direction [2].

REFERENCES

1. Dahlgaard J. J., Kristensen K., Kanji G. K. – Fundamentals of Total Quality Management, Polish edition by PWN, 2000.
2. Grudowski P., Kolman R., Meller A., Preihs J. – Zarzadzanie jakoscia (Quality Management), Wydawnictwo Politechniki Gdanskiej, 1996.
3. Papkin R. H., Stroll A.- Philosophy made simple, Polish edition by Zysk i s-ka, 1994.
4. Siemianowski A. – Szkice z etyki wartosci (Towards the ethics of values), Gaudentinum, 1995.

AUTHOR

Andy Bissett,
School of Computing & Management Sciences,
Sheffield Hallam University,
England
S1 1WB

ABSTRACT

The UK Government has placed a great emphasis upon streamlining government processes and making government more open by the use of information technology. In fact, the UK Prime Minister has stated that all 457 individual government services are to be delivered electronically by 2005, two years behind a similar commitment by the US government (Cross, 2000). No doubt behind the rhetoric of modernisation and transparency there also lies a more traditional concern to save money. However, this far-reaching strategy is having effects beyond the explicit and implicit aims. Beyond the ‘simple’ technical causes of project failure (Hinde, 2000) it is possible to identify emergent effects that were unintended. The case of the UK’s Social Fund is presented in this work in detail, as the ethical consequences of the project to computerise its assessment procedures are immediate.

The UK’s Social Fund is administered by the Government’s Benefit Agency. Its purpose is to provide discretionary, interest free loans of up to œ1000 to the poorest families to assist in the purchase of necessities such as shoes, clothing, cookers and beds. Before the system was computerised in April 1999, approximately 11,000 applications per year were rejected by human assessors. The number of rejections following computerisation has soared to 362,000 (Hartley-Brewer, 2000). It seems that disabled people and those with special needs have been especially affected by the new automated system (CAB, 2000).

The annual government report for the Social Fund notes that the trend to reject applications was rising before computerisation (BA, 2000). However, the enormous increase appears to be an unintended consequence of automating the assessment system which previously allowed human discretion some room for manoeuvre. A Government spokesperson defended the new system, saying that it had helped to end “intrusive and paternalistic” questioning by Benefits Agency staff (Hartley-Brewer, 2000). The Government’s position is that total loans to families in poverty rose by 15% from œ344m in 19989-99 to œ396m in 1999-2000. The same statement claimed that the number of rejections had risen in line with the number of applications (Hartley-Brewer, 2000).

In this work we trace the recent history of the Social Fund and of the steps taken to automate the assessment procedure. We follow the dialectical interplay between this initiative and the various stakeholder reactions. An attempt is made to disentangle the figures and trends from political presentation and ‘spin’, and to explain what has been happening.

We hypothesise that the case of the UK’s Social Fund primarily represents an instance of technological determinism (Davies, 1996; Davies, 1997). The somewhat predictable phenomenon of technological determinism can give rise to locally unpredictable consequences. We draw out the ethical implications of technological determinism and present some advice and guidelines for the future avoidance of unintended consequences. We propose that, by analogy with safety-critical computer systems, an ‘ethical audit’ for such ‘welfare-critical’ systems should be a standard part of the case for such systems at inception. In particular, ethical dimensions and effects must be considered at project inception time, parameterised, and baselined, in order to avoid harmful unintended consequences. This is consistent with, and builds upon, the concept of ethical issues in IT systems being considered at design time (Feng, 1998).

As a secondary dimension, we investigate the difficulty that organisations such as governments often have in recognising and learning from such errors. ‘… designed error and its cover-up are the foundations for producing unethical behaviours in ways that seem reasonable, if not necessary’ (Argyris, 1990, pxiii). Using Argyris’ concept of learning organisations, we try to generalise from the case of the UK Social Fund so that more widely applicable ethical lessons may be learned.

REFERENCES

• Argyris, C. (1990) Overcoming Organisational Defenses, Englewood Cliffs NJ: Prentice Hall.
• CAB (2000) Computerising the Social Fund, Citizens’ Advice Bureau, London, England.
• Cross, M. (2000) Lives online, The Guardian (Society Section), 15th November, 2000, 2-3.
• Davies, P. (1996) Technology: the missing factor in understanding the relationship between culture and business ethics theory, in Barroso, P., Ward BynumT., Rogerson S., and Joyanes L. (eds.) Proceedings ETHICOMP 96, Vol. 1, Complutense University of Madrid, 122-140.
• Davies, P. (1997) Technology and business ethics theory, Business Ethics: A European Review, April (6), 2, 76-80
• BA (2000), Benefits Agency Annual Report and Account for the Social Fund 1999-2000. House of Commons Paper HC618. London: Stationery Office.
• Feng, P. (1998) rethinking technology, revitalising ethics: overcoming barriers to ethical design, in J. van den Hoven, S. Rogerson, T. Ward Bynum, D. Gotterbarn (eds.) Proceedings ETHICOMP 98, Erasmus University Rotterdam, March 1998. 97-108
• Hartley-Brewer, J. (2000), Benefit loans refusals rocket to 362,000, The Guardian 15th August, 2000, 10.
• Hinde, S. (2000) New millennium, old failures, Computers and Security, 19 (2) 119-127.

AUTHOR
Bogdan Bereza-Jarocinski

ABSTRACT

The situation today: opinions on methods, their merits and quality in SW Engineering are based on instinct and seldom backed by any evidence: “OO makes programming easier”, “XP is the solution for the future”, “modelling requirements with Use Cases is easy for customers”, “testing requires discipline and independence”, “rigorous inspections are best method of QA” etc.

It is impossible to prove the correctness of any method-related claim in SW Engineering by other means than statistical. Rational reasoning, mathematical proofs do not apply to human and organisational processes. Experiments like used in physics or chemistry, that are fully repeatable, do not apply, as the relationships observed are only statistical, not permanent.

Therefore, only experimental and observational methods as used in social sciences or medicine are applicable.

The requirements of scientific observation and experimentation – how to apply them to SW Engineering? Correlational and causal relationships. Operational definitions of measured variables. Defining dependent and independent variables. Experimental and control group. Group equivalence. Reactivity. Techniques for finding representative groups. Statistical significance and correlation.

Social and Psychological Aspects of Quality Definitions and Requirements Modelling
Defining quality goals for products is a social science. Finding utility functions for different quality attributes. The comparison of utility functions for different groups of stake holders for SW products. Modelling and prioritising requirements.

Psychology and Ethics of Usability
Non-functional requirements: the growing importance and awareness of usability. Psychological, ethical and social aspects of usability. Modelling usability requirements and testing usability require using scientific observation and experimentation like used in sociology and psychology.

AUTHOR

Barbara Begier
Department of Control,
Robotics and Computer Science
Poznan University of Technology
Pl. Sklodowskiej-Curie 5,
60-965 Poznan,
Poland

Instead of an introduction
A statement, that the computing technology changes more and more forms of work, teaching, and every-day-life, has become the truism. But computers may share ups and downs of previous technical inventions, which are to be just useful tools, like vehicles, vacuum cleaners or even factory robots.

The exhibition entitled “Planet of vision” on the EXPO 2000, Hanover pointed out some social utopias in 20th century (a large city as a promised land, jobs for everybody, a hope that a technical progress would result in a decrease of work). Following this idea, from my personal point of view, a new utopia was born at the beginning of the computing era. The essentials of it are as following: information technology should satisfy everybody, IT products may improve everything, multiculturalism is within one’s grasp, face-to-face relations may be replaced by electronic media, sitting in front of a computer screen all day long causes no health problems, etc.

Strong points of IT solutions are well known. A progress in the computing technology continues to accelerate but at the same time people realize social threats of it. So it is time to start talking about the post-computer era like we often say about the post-industrial era although the industry does not disappear, of course.

Negative social and ethical impact of IT products
The growing dependency on the computing technology may even cause a disaster in a technical sense, the same as an electrical power blackout, for example. Taking into considerations only social impacts one may form a long list of possible wrong effects:

• Next great step of society towards so called McDonaldization [7] caused by a constant focus on effectiveness, standardization, repeatability, and fastness – all of them refer to any sort of activity
• Progressive loneliness of society members, each of them well-equipped with a computer
• Lowering creativity of passive screen-watchers; a reproductive type of work does not result in producing public intellectuals
• Incompetence and thoughtlessness in an informational supermarket
• Replacing the face-to-face relations, including teaching, by the e-commerce and e-learning [2], and losing a chance to follow good personal patterns
• Farther development of bureaucracy supported by IT generating a lot of documents
• Replacing a joy of being a citizen of a global village by a fear that each step in the Internet is possibly monitored and tracked
• Deepening gap between the rich and the poor part of society (the same in a scale of the world, in general) because of a high cost of IT products<\li>
• Ignoring ethical principle [5] in a context of growing competitiveness.

To recapitulate, the professional and ethical responsibility has to be strengthened [3].

Human aspects in an international context
All the history shows that the mankind changes its surrounding, including infrastructure and environment, but people do not change themselves in the same degree.

Societies are constantly under the pressure of mass media, which strongly depend on the number of commercials. Also conferences are supported by companies of the IT profile. So everything concerning computers must be OK and the reliable critics has rather small chance to appear.

Computer applications exceed a barrier, below which a person uses a computer system to do something. Instead of it citizens are forced to behave in a way, which the authors of computer applications have designed often ignoring human predisposition and habits, their likes and dislikes, and so on. According to the computer-centered approach a person is supposed not only to learn how to use computer systems but she/he should adapt himself to the mode provided by the new technology.

Software designers verbally declare their efforts to protect multiculturalism against the domination of the western culture. But this care is usually reduced to the language translation only [3].

The basic and general question is – should we expect that people have to adapt to IT products or to adjust products to human beings.

Concern for quality as a way to respect an individualization of needs and taste
Software engineering adapts many techniques and procedures applied in other technical disciplines. Nowadays a concern for quality has become a standard approach useful for software developers [1, 4, 6]. The process is still far from satisfactory.

The new proposal is not to limit quality features to those basic six goals, specified in the standard ISO 9126, which still mostly refer to technical aspects of a software product. We should specify quality criteria, including functionality, in much wider meaning than it’s been practiced so far.

To secure human objectives – a challenge for software engineering
When Henry Ford invented the assembly line and applied it in his motorcar factories it was found as a great achievement and worldwide progress in technology. But later people stop marveling at it and didn’t want to perform the same activities at their work, year by year.

Using bombastic words, it is necessary to define and to respect human goals and objectives in a general sense. It is far not enough to specify only requirements for a given software product. Maybe it would be better not to build this product and use it at all. The words ‘effective’ and ‘fast’ cannot always be synonyms of the good and valuable. It’s time to formulate human objectives in general. Quality criteria should refer to goals not just results.

An interdisciplinary research is needed to solve some social noticed problems, like poor ability to communicate and cooperate with other people, superficial interests, a lack of responsibility, weak personality, tendency to imitate someone else’s idea rather than to show own creativity, etc.

Some conclusions and critical remarks have born in my mind after due consideration of software process and results of several students’ team projects. I would like to share these experiences with people, who are able to look at things from outside, remembering the well-known Pavlov’s effect. Maybe cooperation of software designers with sociologists, psychologists and even philosophers, should become an every day practice in the future.

REFERENCES

1. Begier B., Software engineering – quality issues (in Polish), Wydawnictwo Politechniki Poznanskiej, Poznan 1999.
2. Begier B., Quality of Web-Based Applications for Educational Purposes, EDICT 2000, Proceedings of the International Conference on Information and Communication Technologies in Education (E. Riedling, G. Davis, eds.), Vienna, 6-9th December 2000, pp. 201-208.
3. Chroust Gerhard, Internationalization is more than language translation, in: IDIMT-2000 proceedings, 8th Interdisciplinary Information management Talks, September 20-22, 2000 Zadov, pp. 431-440.
4. Krawczyk H., Sikorski M., Szejko S., Wiszniewski B., An assessment of the essentials of software quality characteristics (in Polish), in the proceedings of the 2nd National Conference on Software Engineering, Zakopane, Poland, 18-20 October 2000.
5. MacIntyre A., A Short History of Ethics, 2nd edition of Polish translation: PWN Warszawa 2000, (originally: The Macmillan Publishing Company 1966).
6. Pressman R. S., Software engineering. A practitioner’s approach (4th edition), McGraw-Hill, New York 1997.
7. Ritzer G., The McDonaldization of Society, Pine Forge Press, A Sage Publications Company, 1996.

AUTHOR

Mohamed Begg
PhD. Researcher/Lecturer
De Montfort University
The Gateway
LEICESTER.

Prof. Simon Rogerson
Director, Centre for Computing & Social Responsibility,
De Montfort University
LEICESTER.

Dr. Ben Fairweather
De Montfort University
LEICESTER.

ABSTRACT

This research paper has been initiated as a result of discussions with several Muslim parents in the city of Leicester, United Kingdom as part of PhD. research undertaken at the Centre for Computing and Social Responsibility, De Monfort University, Leicester. While some aspects of this paper refer to specific issues raised by Muslim parents, this research equally takes into account concerns raised by all parents regardless of their religious beliefs, country of origin and cultural diversity.

We are constantly and increasingly being made aware of the process of assimilation of communication technologies into mainstream society. Advertising billboards give details of web addresses: television programmes invite viewers to engage interactively with the actors via email or web sites on the internet. The huge push to integrate computers into the schools’ curriculum has been carefully planned within the National Grid for Learning and it is proceeding at a very rapid pace.

The onward march of increasing technical sophistication confronts parents and particularly Muslim parents, majority of whom are not ICT literate, with a situation where their children are utilising computer mediated communication in school – and in many cases in their own homes – often without parental supervision or guidance. Because parents (including Muslim Parents) have not been informed about exactly what it is that they are supposed to supervise, or how to respond to their children’s questions about on-line safety, parents instead appear to have been consigned to the peripheries of this onward rush. Many parents in effect find themselves disconnected or set adrift from the process. Others who do not have computer skills also feel ill-prepared to embark on the process of educating their children about on-line suitability and safety.

The dilemma is even worse for Muslim parents as mentioned earlier, as majority of them do not have computer skills themselves, and they also carry the additional obligation to ensure that all the main moral codes according to the Islamic faith are being upheld within the family and development of children. They have to ensure that education of children (which is a paramount requirement according to Islamic faith) is not being corrupted by some of the morally questionable applications of the new technologies like pornography, hate web sites or chat lines leading to deteriorating standard of language being exchanged or contact with paedophiles on the Internet and violent computer games some of which can be down loaded. Human images particularly uncovered, are strictly prohibited in Islam and there are very strict guidelines on man – woman relationships clearly outlined in Al- Qur’an and Hadith – Sayings and practices of Prophet Muhammad (s.w.s). Naked displays and relationships outside marriage carry a heavy penalty according to Islamic laws and their punishment in the hereafter is mentioned in Al-Qur’an as much more severe.

Parents and especially Muslim parents concern about how parents can protect their children from such exposures has been an important reason behind the reluctance of the Saudi Arabian government to allow free access to the Internet to the general public in the Saudi Kingdom. Indeed a limited access since November, 1998 that is being provided, is filtered through a main filter program in the capital Riyadh. Most of the resistance against the Internet has been from the Imams and Islamic scholars whose influence spreads to Muslim communities across the world.

Muslims and Muslim parents have, however, not shown a totally negative response to the technological developments. Indeed some see it as a great opportunity that so much Islamic information is now available to children and adults through the internet to the extent that some people across the globe have actually embraced Islam as their faith purely through information they found on the Islamic web sites on the internet. In addition to this there are several computer programs now available through which children can teach themselves Arabic, Islamic studies and other relevant Islamic rituals.

The responsibilities of the parent in the Information Society have therefore been multiplied in the last ten years when guiding children and young people had already been an uphill task for many parents. While filtering information on the Internet may be one way to tackle the problem, this by itself is not enough. The concerns and demands of parents including Muslim parents go much further than simple filtering programs. Some sociologists and researchers are beginning to provide some guide lines to parents and children. This research is still in its early stages and is always likely to trail behind the actual speed with which technology is advancing.

This paper will highlight some of the main issues surrounding children and parents in the use of new technologies and provide solutions where possible to both Muslim and non-Muslim parents. The following main areas will be covered:

• Recommended Islamic approach to safe use of ICT at home.
• Recognising and avoiding the internet’s hidden dangers.
• Supervising your child’s Internet access when you are not there.
• Spot dangerous junk mail, scams, and inappropriate chat rooms
• Use filters, bookmarks and other technologies to screen content.
• Set up rules for Internet behaviour for both you and your child.
• Handle any serious problems, particularly if your child is the culprit.

It is expected that this paper will go some way in easing the anxieties of both Muslim and Non-Muslim parents in the new Information Society.