Digital Decision Making: Back to the Future

Corrigan, Ray (2007). Digital Decision Making: Back to the Future. Springer-Verlag London Ltd.

URL: http://www.springer.com/east/home/computer/program...

Abstract

Since the general public began to use the Internet in the mid 1990s, there has been a vast amount of investment by governments and commerce in digital communications technologies. There has also been a fair degree of confusion and sometimes controversy about the purpose and effectiveness of such technologies, for example the proposed UK identity card system. Decisions about digital communications technologies are not always so clearly a subject of political concern as is the case with identity cards.

The far-reaching implications for commerce and society of some of these decisions in invisible or opaque specialist fields, however, mean they should be matters of concern for every citizen. This book argues:

•Decisions should be based on an understanding of the systems, technology and environment within which they operate.

•Experts and ordinary people should work together

•Technology and law are evolving in restrictive rather than enabling ways

It aims, through a gentle narrative approach, to stimulate an awareness of the issues and be a readable, challenging and informative introduction, both for university students and the general reader, to processes surrounding developments in technology and law which have important implications for the knowledge society.

Ray Corrigan is a Senior Lecturer in Technology with the Open University.

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About

  • Item ORO ID
  • 10298
  • Item Type
  • Book
  • ISBN
  • 1-84628-672-7, 978-1-84628-672-8
  • Extra Information
  • Have you ever wondered what might link Colmcille (a 6th century Irish monk for the uninitiated), the Three Mile Island and space shuttle Challenger disasters, Harry Potter, the 'war on terror', ID cards, World War II, international policy making, the environment, electronic button and gene patents, electronic voting, fingerprints and education? No I didn't think so (!) but my book is a collection of stories about all these things and more, under the general themes of access to knowledge, civil rights and the process of making decisions about large information systems.
    I hope you will find all of the stories interesting in themselves but they should also help you to question whether the emergent pattern of the information society which they illustrate should be a matter for concern, celebration or something in between...
  • Keywords
  • Digital Decision Making; Digital Rights Management; Knowledge Society; Open Access; Intellectual property; civil rights; ID cards; Educational technology; Systems; Security; Critical thinking; World War II Radar; Electronic voting; Information feudalism; Modelling; Colmcille; Disasters
  • Academic Unit or School
  • Faculty of Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) > Computing and Communications
    Faculty of Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM)
  • Depositing User
  • Ray Corrigan
CORE (COnnecting REpositories)

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