COMP6044   Just another ECS Blogs weblog

The question I hope to approach (unless I get that “Are you sure?” email from Les) is “How can we design a better user interface?”. In case you’re not sure of the terminology, I take “user interface” to mean any way in which people interact with a computer, from graphical user interfaces (GUIs) to physical hardware like mice and touchscreens, text-to-speech for visually impaired people, and even gesture based interfaces like Kinect and LeapMotion.

I like this as a topic because for 95% of computer scientists and programmers (like me) in the real world it’s not even a consideration; of course the website will be good, just look how well the server processes data. After all, what’s the point of building something great if only people with a computing degree can understand what the obscure symbols on the tiny buttons are supposed do?

The two subject areas I chose to analyse my question are Geography and Biology. They may seem obscure for this kind of problem, but they’re not totally off the wall, and here’s why:

Biology, the study of life

The systems we design are for people, so the study of people has a lot to offer this problem. It could be from a purely physical standpoint looking at the size and shape of people (Biological Anthropology), like whether they can actually reach the top of a touchscreen (thanks Galaxy Note, you don’t really work here). It could also be the application of biological principles like natural selection to interface designs; if I get 1000 people to trial several designs then we take the best ones forward to the second round of testing.

Geography, the study of the world around us

This one’s a bit more obscure and possibly harder to apply, however geography has some of the oldest methods of representing and simplifying data to make it more accessible to people. Cartography (Physical Geography) has been making it possible for people to get around for hundreds of years, and the census (Human Geography) takes information about the entire population and presents it in easy to read statistics.

Hopefully there’s a lot of potential for both of these and over the next few weeks I’ll be digging further to find out exactly what can be applied and how. If anyone has any thoughts then please add a comment or come over and find me.

Having promised a blog post on management’s perspective of global issues, I still haven’t found the right articles to help me. Unable to clearly articulate how management as a discipline would approach a global issue, I thought it was mainly because management deals with organisations – therefore actors in its ontology are well defined and my issue of the global digital divide to a certain extent involves the non-existence of organisations, and a system that transcends other organisations. Having done a bit more thinking I now believe that management as a discipline would not directly tackle the issue of the global digital divide, but focus on the actors who were actively involved in trying to achieve something to do with the global digital divide.

This is where the idea of strategy comes into play. And to find more information on that I looked at chapter 8 in Boddy’s introduction to management.

Boddy defines strategic management as that which ‘enables companies to be clear about how they will add value to resources, even though much is changing in their world. Strategy links the organisation to the outside world, where changes in the competitive (micro) and wider (macro) environments bring opportunities and threats.’ There are two main aspects of strategy – its process and its content, and both exist in a context. Boddy states that ‘whatever their context, strategists hope that their work will enhance performance by clarifying and unifying purpose, reducing uncertainty, linking short-term actions to long-term goals and providing control – since setting goals provides standards again which to measure performance’.

There are three perspectives on the strategy process – planning, learning and political. The planning view involves a formal process based on a vast amount of information. It is based on the assumptions that events and facts can be observed objectively and that people respond rationally to information.

The learning view sees strategy as an emergent or adaptive process, more suited for businesses in rapidly changing sectors or environments which require a more flexible approach.

In the political view, the notion of power, conflict and ambiguity are introduced, where strategic management is ‘not a scientific, comprehensive or rational process, but an iterative, incremental process, characterised by restricted analysis and bargaining between the players’.

After finding various organisations that actually work on addressing the global digital divide, I believe I will be able to provide a sound discussion on how the discipline of management would approach such a topic, the results of which will be found in my report in January 2013.

References

Boddy D. (2010) Management: An Introduction, 5^th edition, Harlow: Financial Times Prentice Hall

Last week I wrote about an introduction to the basic concepts and perspectives in the discipline of management promising a review of some management models this week. This is a summary of Boddy’s second chapter ‘Models of Management’.

Boddy defines a model as aiming to ‘identify the main variables in a situation, and the relationships between them: the more accurately they do so, the more accurate they are.’ A model furthermore provides a ‘mental toolkit to deal consciously with a situation’. Boddy emphasise that managers can draw upon different models according to the varied situations they face – what is important is understanding the values embodied in the model or theory and act accordingly. That is also known as thinking critically about a situation, an essential skill in management.

Boddy and others identify four key types of models of management according to their underlying philosophies:

1. rational goal
2. internal process
3. human relations
4. open systems

Rational goal models

Some of the first kinds of models to have been developed, their origins are found in the formation of the modern firm, during the Industrial Revolution, where managers were face with the need to manage new organisational structure profitably. It evolved from the tradition of scientific management and operational research. The model emphasise the aim of maximising output/profit through enhanced control and quantitative information as a basis for decision-making.

Internal process models

These come from the Weberian bureaucratic management ideas and from Henri Fayol’s notion of ‘administrative management’ which emphasise rules and regulations over personal preferences, division of labour and hierarchical structure. While the concept of bureaucracy has been widely criticised (notably for stifling creativity) it has been supported when it allows employees to master their tasks therefore enhancing security and stability and is still widely used today, notably in the public sector.

Human relations models

These theories were developed when experiments on working conditions (lighting or other material factors) produced unexpected results. It was shown that altering the environment positively or negatively, output from the experimental team still increased. Elton Mayo, invited to comment on the results, asserted that output growth was the result of the new social relations established in the team. Individuals felt special, they were asked for their opinion, and as part of the experiment fully collaborated with one another. This led theorists to emphasise the importance of social processes at work, including the well-being of employees.

Open systems

Finally open systems models where the organisation is seen ‘not as a system but as an open system’, which interacts with its environment. Resources are imported, undergo transformations and turned into output that generate profit. Information about the performance of the system goes back as a feedback loop into the inputs. Important variants include socio-technical systems where outcome depends on the interaction of technical and social subsystems. Another is the notion of contingency management which emphasises the need for adaptability to the external environment. And finally complexity theory which focuses on the complex systems, their dynamics and feedback loops where agents within the system interact autonomously through emergent rules. These emphasise the non-linearity of change in organisations.

The table below provides a summary of the four models (from Boddy 2010, p. 61).

In fact management theorists Quinn et. al. (2003) believe that the four successive models of managements complement rather than contradict each other, and they provide a framework that integrates these various model – the ‘competing values framework

Next week I will look to read about management and global issues to get a better grasp of the discipline’s approach to an issue that transcends its main ontological actor – the organisation.

References

Boddy D. (2010) Management: An Introduction, 5^th edition, Harlow: Financial Times Prentice Hall

Quinn, R.E., Faerman, S.R., Thompson, M.P. amd McGrath, M.R. (2003) Becoming a Master Manager: A Competency Framework, 3^rd ed., Hoboken: John Wiley & Sons

Having taken some time out to consult my current notes and research I came to the conclusion that there are three areas  that still need more development before I will begin writing out my Interdisciplinary Review. I need to; gain an understanding of globalisation, find a stronger core-text discussing Politics and find a more comprehensive examination of Facebook. For this week’s post I will discuss my readings on globalisation and the remaining topics will be discussed in the order above in the subsequent weeks to come.

The No-Nonsense Guide to Globalization – Wayne Ellwood

This book provides a great overview of the basic notions involved in globalisation and global politics. Though the book does take a somewhat biased view (the author clearly has some anti-globalisation sentiments) the text is easily understandable and details much of the impact and direction of globalisation through recent history. It is written essentially as an American counterpart to the “Very Short Introductions” discussed previously.

Two notions in particular struck me as applicable to discussions of social networking. Firstly, Ellwood notes that the process of globalisation has changed over time. Means of travel, trade, and interaction (languages) have changed dramatically even in recent years and this has greatly modified the way in which globalisation takes place. There are some parallels between this idea and how social networking has integrated with peoples lives. Where previously computers were the terminal of access to your social network now phones, games consoles and various other extraneous devices such as cameras all provide similar or alternative means to access this network. Just as we see the process of globalisation changed by the advances in communication we may expect similar implication for the rates and direction of expansion seen in social networks as our interactions with these networks change. Before discussing the second point I will introduce the second book I have consulted on the topic of globalisation:

Globalization- A Basic Text – George Ritzer

This book provides a significantly more detailed approach to globalisation however, one recurring theme becomes apparent that is seen in both Ellwood and Ritzer’s books and across the topics of discussion within the context of globalisation: control.

Globalisation can be argued to be a positive tool of expansion but this also often results in restrictions being imposed on those that live beneath its shadow. Examples such as the “Tobin Tax”, a tariff charge used to impose restrictions on the flow of wealth between globalised and globalising peoples. Though originally intended to protect the interest of citizens this can also have negative effects by impinging on people ability to interact freely or restricting the ways in which they interact to only those interactions deemed “acceptable”. This theme is seen throughout discussions of globalisation particularly involving issues like imperialism. To what extent do emerging global powers control the restrict the development of global culture by imposing their own norms upon others? Does such a trend exist in social networks with popular networks buying up smaller ventures before they can compete or by forcing users to become dependant on their structure by tying multiple online identities to a single social network user account? Are these kinds of effects deliberate or the natural outcome of expansion? Do networks impose restrictions on each others use just as nations states do on their citizens?

Whilst globalisation provides one useful area of discussion within the context of politics I still feel that I need a stronger political text to support my discussion of the topic. The next post to come will be a discussion of this text.

This week I have been researching around the current topic of political hacking movements regarding the, recently introduced, government legislation on the web. The political movements have been ‘clubbing together’ to battle the right to a free and open internet. This appears to be something that governmental bodies and political parties are worried about, but however does not seem to stop the hackers themselves crashing, changing or damaging government websites. Furthermore, it seems that word-of-mouth through social sites is something that is a huge battle for governmental bodies to win. If the voice of the ‘everyman’ were to get censored then this would indeed question the level of democracy in our country.

A recent film, found here, inspired me to review this topic in my interdisciplinary study, as it is a current topic that will effect all internet users across the world, and indeed leads me to question whether the grouping together of hackers and hacktivists worldwide will make any difference in the political and legal legislation that has been put forward. I will be following this film over the next few months and hopefully will be able to view the finished film early next year.

I have found it reasonably difficult to find books regarding the SOPA, ACTA and PIPA legislation, as Google and Yahoo appear to be restricting a lot of the content due to these acts (perhaps a minor dictatorship in itself). So far, it has only been possible to find a few books regarding these topics that are not backed by governmental or political bodies and/or are not legislative papers. Also, I believe that books of this nature would indeed be ‘content-controlled’, and so not the full opinion of the author.

However, I did a deeper search and found a book that recognises criticisms of the government-led legislative policies. The book notes that although these policies have been implemented over the past few years worldwide, they are not being enforced in developing countries (Ayoob, 2010). This enables us to question the power of such acts in relation to political state powers of certain countries and furthermore why such countries are being ‘allowed leniency’. Furthermore, acts such as the DMCA have been potentially provided to allow ‘content creators’ to charge for the use of such content on third party sites, potentially damaging and restricting the content on the likes of ‘free’ or non-profit sites such as Wikipedia.

With the Arab Spring appearing towards the end of 2010, many political hacker groups have started to ascend to contribute to state security and governmental systems. These hackers are collaborating with european and american hackers in a fight for digital democracy. The aforementioned film collaborates with these hackers in an appeal to stand-up against political dictatorships and restricting legislative bodies.

In my next post I hope to research the arab spring and hacking in relation to moral philosophy and whether these legislative acts are in motion to restore ‘fairness’ to content creators or whether this is simply an act of restricting freedom of information over the internet.

Ayoob, E. (2010). Recent Development: The Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement. In The Cardozo Arts and Entertainment. LJ.

This week I have begun looking at the discipline of management by reading David Boddy’s Management: An Introduction. This book is recommended as a sound introduction to the discipline by many universities, including Southampton and the LSE. In it Boddy (p. 3) outlines the existence of ‘management’ as both a general human activity and as a ‘specialist occupation’. Our focus is on the specialist occupation, which aims to ‘create wealth by adding value to resources, which managers to by influencing others’ (p. 3). Management occurs in organisations, which are defined as ‘social arrangement[s] for achieving controlled performance towards goals to create value’, recognising that the idea of adding value is both subjective as well as relative (pp. 7-8). With the development of such organisation, in historical as well as social terms, the element of ‘management’ is separated from the ‘work’. That is the moment management emerges as a distinct role (p. 10).

Managers influence others in three main ways:

–          Through the process of management

–          Through the tasks of management

–          Through shaping the context

The process:

There are many different aspects of the management role in an organisation. Mintzberg’s research from 1973 shows ten, Boddy highlights more, broadly classified in three categories: informational, interpersonal and decisional, as described in more detail in figure 1. These roles operate simultaneously and are more or less important depending on the level of management and the type of organisation (pp. 15-19).

Fig. 1: Management roles

The tasks:

Figure 2 below is a representation that summarises the four main management tasks of: (pp. 19-22)

–          Planning – setting out the overall direction of the work

–          Organising – actions the plans by allocating time and resources

–          Leading – generate effort and commitment

–          Controlling – monitoring progress and reactive accordingly

Fig. 2: Management tasks

The context:

Managers can also influence their contexts (internal and external) to achieve their objectives. Figure 3 provides a good illustration.

Fig. 3: Management – internal and external contexts

Here we come to a bit of an epistemological discussion within the discipline of management because there are broadly speaking three schools of thought regarding the relationship between context and actions:

–          Determinism – performance depends on external context

–          Choice – people are able to influence even shape their context

–          Interaction – people are influenced by and in turn influence their context

Boddy concludes this introductory chapter by emphasising the importance of ‘critical thinking’ as a basic skill for managers. He defines as a way of thinking which ‘identifies the assumptions behind ideas, relates them to their context, imagines alternatives and recognises limitations’ (p. 26).

So the discipline is concerned with a specific type of human activity, management. But not the universal activity of managing one’s life, family, etc. but rather a specific role within a specific kind of socio-economic arrangement: the organisation. This has strong implication for the management epistemology and ontology, which I will explore further next week after presenting a number of theoretical models of management.

References

Boddy D. (2010) Management: An Introduction, 5^th edition, Harlow: Financial Times Prentice Hall

In the second post it was stated that theory of computer science draws great attention to the boundaries of algorithms, to the problems than can or cannot be solved with computational methods. This led me to search for an introductory book on the limits of computation, finding Computation and its Limits by Paul Coockshott (2010).
The book provides a clear explanation of what computation is in its second chapter, along with a succinct historical overview of computational machines (more developed in the third chapter). In this definition, the author raises the question of what is evolutionary and what is cultural when carrying out computing operations. It also illustrates with practical examples how, as humans, we are equipped with physical and mental features to perform certain tasks such as counting, adding, or creating aides for calculation. These two first chapters highlight the importance of mathematics as an underlying element of all sciences, therefore including social sciences, although not explicitly. And this is the core conception that can be extracted from this book in order to find out the epistemological processes of computer science: Complex systems can be broken down into simpler ones, and ultimately understood thanks to the simplicity of maths.
The fourth chapter introduces propositional logic, set theory, and predicate logic. Being familiar to their core concepts may be helpful to social scientists who intend maintain a fluid communication with computer scientists, as logic and set theory seems to be the foundations on which computer science is built.
Although the book is somewhat introductory, some solid background in maths and computer science is required in order to understand what is meant with the limits of computation. However, the reading was not in vain, as it made me come to the realisation that perhaps exploring the boundaries of computation for creating an ‘uncrackable’ voting scheme may be an exclusive task for computer scientists, and perhaps interdisciplinary discussions should take place from different starting points.

Geographic knowledge skills can be applied to the resolution of social, economic and environmental problems and can be viewed as a socially relevant approach to the study of the relationships between people and their environments.  Applied geography is an approach whose reasoning is based on a philosophy of social knowledge and focuses on the application of geographical skills.

There are three principal kinds of science as described by Habermas (1974) and which can also be seen as underpinning the epistemology’s of applied geography.

1. Empirical- analytical.  The aim of this type of science is to predict he empirical world using scientific positivism.
2. Historical-hermeneutic.  Interpreting the meaning of the world by examining the thoughts behind the actions that produce the world of experience.
3. Realist-emancipatory.  Here the aim is to uncover the real explanations governing society and encourage the members of society to seek a superior formation.

These three different types of science all have different goals.

1. A positivist scientific explanation is the principal route to knowledge.  Its primary goal is to understand, predict and eventually control environmental events.  However, complexity has made this impossible to achieve.  Such an approach ignores human agency and social structures in decision making.  The desire to predict and control events is similar to social engineering, and can be considered ineffective and socially unacceptable.
2. The aim is to raise self and mutual awareness.  This approach is especially relevant in areas where stereotyping of certain groups and places can lead to social tension, isolation and conflict.
3. Realist science seeks to promote real understanding by people of their position within their socio-political structure and of the factors that condition their lifestyles and living environment.

This three fold typology of science as described by Habermas characterises applied geographers as agents for social change.  The goal is to enhance human well being through a shared philosophy pursing knowledge in order to resolve social, economic and environmental problems.

From Applied geography : principles and practice : an introduction to useful research in physical, environmental and human geography by  Michael Pacione.

Bernard Gert makes the claim that an analysis of morality as a general term can be made, rather than describing the morality of specific societies. ‘From Plato on, moral philosophers have attempted to provide an account of morality. The widespread disbelief in morality is partly due to the fact that no moral philosopher has as yet provided an account of it…The main problem is that morality has not been adequately distinguished from other guides of conduct.’ He suggests that most people make the mistake of thinking that morality is the code of conduct of a specific organisation or society, ‘…that Nazi morality is the code of conduct adopted by true Nazis. Christian morality is the code of conduct adopted by all true Christians.’. However according to Gert this is not what morality is, other factors than morals come in to play when establishing codes of conduct for specific organisations or societies such as political/economic factors, according to Gert morality has a definite content, ‘Morality is a public system applying to all rational persons governing behaviour which affects others and which has the minimilisation of evil as its end, and includes what are commonly known as the moral rules at its core’. He hypothesises that core moral rules exist such as “Don’t lie,””Don’t steal” and “Don’t kill”. Gert’s viewpoint opposes that of the moral relativism approach. However this view aligns well with Kant’s theory of morality as being equated to rationality.

The centrality of the concept of humans as ‘rational agents’ to Gert’s and Kant’s theories fit in well with economic theories that view people in the same way (as rational agents). The assumption of rationality is key in building economic theories (e.g.supply and demand curves), as the underlying assumption in economics is that ‘people want more of a good thing’- they want to maximise gain. Once the assumption is made that people are motivated to obtain more of a thing then it is possible to start measuring the expected value of certain decisions. Weighing up decisions where multiple actions are possible by choosing the one that maximises the expected gain. In the same way moral decisions could be made by measuring which one brings the most amount of good to humanity. The key point being that in an economic decision the goal is to maximise expected gain to one’s self, whereas when making a moral decision the goal is to maximise gain to humanity, and it could be argued to nature as well.

So, I’ve been having go at getting started with the coursework, and having a read of a few law textbooks and one philosophy book in particular, Luciano Floridi Philosophy and Computing 1999.

Harris, P. (2007) An Introduction to Law, 7^th edition, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge =

This is an extremely decent intro to the subject, and realy the first good book of its kind that I’ve come across. He starts by just talking about law generally, and doesn’t make lots of assumptions about what country or what part of history or what kind of area we’re talking about, which is pretty much what all the other books seem to do. Anyways, he talks about law as being at an absolute basic level a set of rules. That might seem pretty standard, but actually it is highly controversial it seems to me in the literature as to what law actually on a very fundamental level. It seems that some people don’t really like to define law as being mostly about rules, because that sounds rather prescriptive rather than descriptive. Waldman (1990) talks about the differences in the nature of the relationship between law and legislation in different countries, while Bix discusses the nature of ‘standards’ in law, especially in regards to constitutions. In some countries, it is the constitution that sets the rules of how law works, but even this isn’t always necessarily true. For example, in the USA the supreme court technically does have the power to amend the constitution – that’s why you the 27 amendments after the intitial 14 articles. There are some authors (Godwin 2003) who think that law is mostly not about rules but rights. This view is that the absolute basic ‘unit’ out of which all of law is created is the idea of the rights of the individual. This line of thinking is very much inspired by the philosopher Tom Paine. Paine says in his book The Rights of Man, “It is a perversion of terms to say that a charter gives rights. It operates by a contrary effect — that of taking rights away. Rights are inherently in all the inhabitants; but charters, by annulling those rights, in the majority, leave the right, by exclusion, in the hands of a few… They… consequently are instruments of injustice … The fact, therefore, must be that the individuals, themselves, each, in his own personal and sovereign right, entered into a compact with each other to produce a government: and this is the only mode in which governments have a right to arise, and the only principle on which they have a right to exist.” This is a really famous quote. The argument is that the absolute basic starting position of law is that all individual human beings are born with inherent rights, simply because they are human beings. They don’t have to do anything to gain these rights – they don’t have to become a citizen, for example, or whatever. Also, the government does not have any inherent rights beyond the rights given to it by the individuals who construct it. For Paine, this should be all individuals, and not just a select few. I personally very strongly agree with Paine here. However, I can see that all of this might be rather problematic when it comes to the web. If there are charters, laws, then these charters presumably will take certain rights away from individuals. However would it be worth it to have this if it protected us in some way – from hackers, say, or from criminals or id fraud or whatever.

Rights of Man was partly a response to E Burke, who was a conservative. Burke was the kind of guy who would probably say that rules and precedent and tradition are primary in law, with a view to the common good, and the benefit of the majority, rather than the ad hoc benefit of the individual, which is arbitrary and subjective. Although I am myself a liberal, I can see the point with this. If we say that rights is the primary ‘unit’ in law, well then how do we decide who’s rights trump who’s? If we have a civil or criminal law situation, who’s rights come first? It does seem rather arbitrary. Not much of a precedent or anything vaguely ‘objective’ to go on. Though that criticism very much applies for all of law anyway.

Anyways, the other book is philosophy and computing by Floridi. In general it’s OK, it’s a bit old and out of date, but this isn’t such a big deal. He goes into the history and sociology of the web quite a lot and I don’t see that much of this is really anything original or philosophical. However he does go off on a few tangents doing thought experiments about ‘what if we had this situation’, or ‘what if the internet was this way, then what would happen?’ I think this is very intersting, and these thought experiments that lawyers tend not to do much. Many of Floridi’s thought experiments could important ethical, moral or legal implications. For example, we could make up some thought experiment about, ‘what if we had a situation where the internet was really important for some reason for giving people power, but the government had the ability to take the internet from certain people and not others?’ In other words, what if the government was able to choose who had access to the internet when? I’m not actually certain, but my understanding is that this thought experiment is in fact though reality. My understanding is that the government does, sort of, have this power already?