Module 5.6.4

1. Module 5.6.4 Implications of ICT

2. Change • Causes of change - examples • Social • Political parties, age and technical expertise of the workforce • Economic • Recession, changes in the world economy • Technical • Changes in equipment, manufacturing processes • Sources of change • Change from within • From management or workforce, new employees bringing new ideas • Responding to rivals • If a rival launches a new product, new marketing campaign response is necessary • Responding to contexts • Economic growth, takeovers, new inventions, etc

3. Impact of External Change • Organisation • Financial • Interest Rates • Economy – both national and international • Research - e.g. production techniques • Change in management • Change in organisational structure • Individuals • Birth, death, marriage and moving! • Job satisfaction and training • Uncertainty over job and future prospects – pension, etc • Systems in use • Age and speed of system • Competition • Functionality • Expansion of the business requiring additional features

4. Change Management • Factors which must be considered: • Staff capability • Involve the workforce • See participation later on • Time for retraining • Staff views • Consultation • Value the opinion of the workforce • Resistance to change • Eliminate through consultation, involvement and communication • Systems and equipment • Thorough testing • Implemented to an agreed time scale and cost • Time for porting data across • Accommodation • Sufficient power, air conditioning, etc

5. Consultation, Participation and Communication • Consultation • Successful changeover • Benefits realised and understood by all • Job security • Job fears lead to obstruction • Value the workforce: • Their skills and their opinions • Participation • Part of user focus groups • Their opinions are included in the final project • Sense of belonging and value • End users who will use the system cannot complain that they have not been involved! • Communication • Telling people as soon as possible • Drawing people in • Giving the full picture

6. Participation • Numbers of people involved • The more people you involve the more likelihood that the final plan will not meet the original target • The more opinions you have there is an increased likelihood that you will leave some opinions out and this will offend • The Participative Approach • Stresses the importance of the user in the Systems Analysis • Users ought to be involved in the design of the system in which they participate of preferably design it themselves • The people who are going to use the System design it themselves, or have a right to make decisions relating to the system • Eliminates rejection of the system by the people who use it, or if not outright rejection then much reluctance and slowness in accepting the new system • Weaknesses • Possible inefficient designs produced by good managers, etc • In some organisation, users may refuse to cooperate arguing that the design and development of information systems is an experts job

7. Where and How to use Participation • Initial problem definition • Users assist in identifying shortcomings in the existing system • Drawing up design specification • Design • Interface design of the new system, etc • Testing • Actual end user testing and use of the system • Evaluation • Against the design specifications they drew up • Committee • Have individual members of the staff from all areas on the review committee and make it their role to feedback to their departments

8. Training and Re-Training • Need for training and re-training when managing change • Training of existing staff • Training for new staff when they join • Re-orientation of existing skills to the new tasks: • Changing typewriting skills to word processing skills • Training must be representative of the real use of the system • Use of software tools to assist: • Computer aided learning (CAL) • The use of a computer to provide instructional information to its trainee, pose questions and to react to the responses. • Computer based training (CBT) • Use of a computer as an instructional system in a training environment • Approach is the same as CAL but the learning area is confined to a well defined training objective

9. Types of Training • Computer aided learning • Computer based training • Interactive video training • Paper based guides • On-line tutorials • In house training • External training courses (instructor based) • Courses with recognised qualifications at the end

10. How ICT Assists Decisions • How ICT assist decision making at managerial and executive level: • Management information systems (MIS) • Help monitor and control organisational performance • Plan for the future • Gather intelligence of competitors activities • Analyse sales data • Highlight trends • Decision support systems • Analyse responses to events (sales, advertising, etc) • Model different situations: • Supply the data – both current and historical • Predict likely outcome • Video conferencing • Enables face to face meetings without: • Travel (associated cost (travel, hotel, etc), and jetlag) • Time taken to organise and get to the meeting • Allows the discussion to take place on neutral territory • All individuals are alert and not jetlagged

11. Giving Managers Freedom and Access to Information • Old idea of a manager: • Separate office – comes out to request information from secretary • New idea of a manager: • Has a PC on the desk and can access the information themselves • How/Why has this happened • User friendly systems – the inclusion of voice activation has helped • Immediacy of information • Fears for job security with new ICT literate employees • What access to information do they have? • Internet • Multimedia presentations (both giving and receiving) • Generic applications – Word Processing, Spreadsheets, Databases, E-mail and diaries • Mobile communications • Laptops, palmtops and hand-held

12. Nomadic Network Environments • Definition • Network that is not static but allows the devices connected to it to roam • Characteristics • Device: • Something portable and small – needs to be carried around • Portable computer (palmtop, laptop, etc) • Means of mobile communication • Method of connecting the device to the network • Telephone (in some cases the means of connection and the device may be the same) • Secure transmission • Encryption needed to ensure security of the transmission

13. Implications of Nomadic Networks • Location • Can be anywhere in the world • Not necessary to be near a static power supply or telephone line • Increases freedom • Transmission • Need to increase security • Traffic in the airwaves increases – must be a theoretical limit • Satellites • Cancer scares about masts at present – increase in number of masts • Require more satellites

14. Standards of Quality and Reliability • Need for agreed standards in information processing systems and in the design of computer software: • Quality • With an expected standard there can be no arguments • Central authority to check on quality of components • Reliability • Linked to quality • Software Design • Anyone can read a standard design – easy to employ new designers • Agreed standards for coding

15. Japanese Fifth Generation Project • Announced in 1982: • Large scale national research and development project in ICT • Inspired by a view of what the needs of the post-industrial society will be and how ICT can meet those needs • Main role of advancing information processing machines in: • Enhancement of productivity in areas of traditionally low productivity • Conservation of natural resources • Support of medical, educational and other services in solving complex social problems • Bettering of international relations through the machine translation of languages

16. Comment: • The approach devised was to develop a computer that was different to the traditional von Neumann machine in current computers • They will have intelligent interfaces: • Natural language (in any language) • Be problem solving: • Have an inference engine – a large expert system • End result is to create a computer that you tell what you want or a problem you have – in natural language – and it finds a solution – even if this requires it to write a computer program to do it! • Any similarity here to Deep Thought?

17. European IT Programme • Announced in 1984 • Main areas of activity: • Advanced micro electronics • High performance micro circuits • Software technology • Efficient software development environments • Advanced information processing • Knowledge engineering and storage • Computer vision, speech interfaces, etc • Office systems • Advanced office workstations • Communications • Filing and retrieval systems • Design of integrated offices • Computer integrated manufacturer • CAD, CAM, CAE, FMS, robotics

18. Comment: • One of the overall ideas was to develop a standard so that all components are transferable: • Microprocessors with the same design so that software is transferable • Standard set of software development tools • Another project was to introduce broadband telecommunication networks • To link all electronic networks and information services of Europe: • Government, medical, police, transport, education, etc • Data protection implications • Language translation was another area under development • Every document produced by the EC had to be produced in all the languages of its members

19. Effect of Projects • Manufacturing techniques • Development of techniques to produce the microcircuits required to build the computers envisaged by the projects • Give rise to multiple processors at an affordable price • Production of software • Use of techniques to increase the speed of software writing: • Rapid prototyping • Reusable blocks of code • New techniques for programming • Logic programming • OOP

20. Hardware and Software Advances • Hardware and software development advances which are changing the face of ICT: • Parallel architectures • A collection of entities capable of executing a task that can communicate and cooperate to solve large problems fast • More than one processor in the machine speeding up calculations, etc • Used to increase the speed of processing in many applications • High density chips • Increasing the number of transistors on a chip which increases the speed of the machine (less distance to travel) and decreases the overall size. • Faster, smaller machines • Logic programming • The user supplies a goal that the system attempts to prove using backward chaining. This involves matching the goal against each fact. If it succeeds if proceeds to the next level and so on. It is reaches the final level the rule succeeds. (e.g PROLOG) • Used in heuristic learning environments, expert systems, etc

21. Object Orientated Programming • Type of programming where the programmer defines not only the type of data but the allowable operations that can be carried out on that data. • There is no distinction between procedures and data • There only exists objects that correspond to real life objects which perform specified actions • There is a standardised format for passing messages between objects • This allows different programs to work together • Allows a team of programmers to work simultaneously and allows for further development of programs without jeopardising exiting parts of the program.

22. Computer Vision/Image Processing • Giving the computer the ability to look at objects and recognise them. • Segmentation • Objects characterised by their outlines or overall shape • Recognition • Match either the whole image or each object to a stored set of patterns or templates • Interpretation • Involves the complete image – equivalent to building a complex sentence from words • Applications • Automatic inspection and measurement (speed cameras) • Robot eyes to monitor and guide robot actions • Sorting – handwriting recognition and sorting accordingly (e.g. mail)

23. Intelligent Systems • Systems capable of exhibiting some aspects of human intelligence - currently include expert systems and neural computers • (Neural computers is a separate topic so this will focus on expert systems) • Represent an attempt to encapsulate the knowledge of an expert • They are able to: • Answer a range of questions within the defined area of their expertise • Show the assumptions and lines of reasoning used to arrive at the answer • Add new facts and lines of reasoning to their knowledge base • Basic system includes: • a knowledge base, inference system and interface • Applications • Medical systems (MYCIN) • Geological systems (PROSPECTOR) • Insurance and Pension systems • British Gas boiler problem detection • Almost anything that can be turned into rules

24. Neural Computing • Artificial intelligence software which allows a system to learn to recognise features or characteristics of situations which are input into it. • Attempt to approach intelligence from a physiological point of view – attempt to model the nerve cells and the interaction between them • Made up of a network of many simple processors. • Applications • Organic Chemistry – finding new molecular structures • Visual recognition • Financial prediction • Any extension to expert systems applications

25. Applications at the Cutting Edge of Technology • Videophones • Currently on computers, but soon integration into mobile phones • Chip implants in the human body • Ear implants for deaf people • Advanced pacemakers • Bionic limbs • Thought control over computers • Remote controlled aeroplanes • Military applications • Virtual reality • Integrated traffic systems: • Smart car • Bus and trains – driverless • Digital technology • Increases in the internet and digital TV • New generation phones with TV connections – TV on demand

26. Advances • Candidates will be expected to keep up to date with advances in technology utilising recently published material • This statement is listed in the syllabus – it is YOUR responsibility to keep up with developments: • Television • Newspapers – including specialist publications - e.g. Computing • Magazines – PC Pro, etc • Internet