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INFS 211:
Introduction to Information
Technology
Session 13 – Challenges and Promises of the Digital
Age
Lecturer: Dr. Ebenezer Ankrah, Dept. of Information Studies
Contact Information: [email protected]
College of Education
School of Continuing and Distance Education
2014/2015 – 2016/2017
Session Overview
• The “digital divide” between those with and those without
access to information technology is actually narrowing as the
Information Age continues to expand productivity and wealth.
Still addressing that divide is one of the most important
challenges of our times.
• Today’s information technology amplifies brain power. We no
longer need to rely on human memory or on human eyes for
scanning or human brains for organizing and computing
information and data. This section will concentrate on
challenges and promises of the digital age.
Slide 2
Session Overview
• At the end of the session, the student will
– Understand how information technology creates
environmental, mental-health and work place problems.
– Understand how technology may affect unemployment
rate and the gap between rich and poor.
– Understand the main areas of artificial intelligence
Slide 3
Session Outline
The key topics to be covered in the session are as follows:
• The Digital Age
• The Promises of the Digital Age
• The Challenges of the Digital Age
Slide 4
Reading List
• http://highered.mheducation.com/sites/007288293x/student
_view0/chapter10/index.html
• http://highered.mheducation.com/sites/007288293x/student
_view0/chapter9/index.html
• Williams, B. K., & Sawyer, S. C. (2014). Using Information
Technology: A practical introduction to computers and
communications (11th ed.). McGraw-Hill Education. (Chapter 9
&10)
Slide 5
Topic One
THE DIGITAL AGE
Slide 6
The Digital Age
• The digital age started in the second millennium and it
means that every company, shop, or bar have at least one
computer. This is a age of technology (digital photos, digital
computers, digital books, digital airplanes...).The schools
have digital structures and we do not write just on paper,
we can write on computer, phones, PDA, etc .
Slide 7
Topic Two
THE PROMISES OF THE DIGITAL AGE
Slide 8
The Promises of the Digital Age
• Is the computer just a convenient new gadget that
makes things easier? Or is it a truly revolutionary tool
whose long-range result will be to change all the rules?
Slide 9
The Promises of the Digital Age
• What are the promises of this digital Age? Lets consider
the following areas:
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Emerging global telecommunications
Artificial intelligence
Information and education
Health, medicine, and science
Commerce and money
Entertainment and the arts
Government and electronic democracy
Jobs and careers
Slide 10
The Promises of the Digital Age
• Emerging Global Telecommunications
• Two models of telecommunications are prevalent.
• In the tree-and-branch telecommunications model, a
centralized information provider sends out messages
through many channels to many consumers, as in many
mass media.
• In the switched-network telecommunications model,
people on the system are not only consumers of
information but also possible providers of it; this model,
embodied in the internet, is much more participatory.
Slide 11
The Promises of the Digital Age
• Artificial Intelligence
– Artificial Intelligence(AI) consists of technologies used for
developing machines to emulate human qualities. It
includes the following:
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Natural Language Processing
Expert Systems
Intelligent Agent
Pattern Recognition
Fuzzy Logic
Virtual Reality
Robotics
Slide 12
The Promises of the Digital Age
(1) Natural Language Processing is the study of ways for
computers to recognize and understand human language.
(2) Expert Systems are interactive computer programs used
to solve problems normally requiring the assistance of
human experts. An expert system has three components: a
knowledge base, a database of knowledge about a
particular subject; an inference engine, the software that
controls the knowledge base and produces conclusions;
and a user interface.
Slide 13
The Promises of the Digital Age
(3) An Intelligent Agent is a form of smart software, or software with
built-in intelligence that monitors work patterns, asks questions, and
performs work tasks on the behalf of the user.
(4) Pattern Recognition involves a camera and software that identify
recurring patters in what they are seeing and recognize the
connections between the perceived patterns and similar patterns
stored in a database.
(5) Fuzzy Logic is a method of dealing with imprecise data and
uncertainty, with problems that have many answers rather than one.
(6) Virtual Reality, devices that project a person into a sensation of threedimensional space, is used in arcade-type games and also in
simulators, devices that represent the behavior of physical or abstract
systems and are used in training, as of airplane pilots.
(7) Robotics, the development and study of machines that can perform
work normally done by people, has produced robots, automatic
devices that perform functions usually performed by people.
Slide 14
The Promises of the Digital Age
• There are two approaches to artificial intelligence, these
are weak AI and strong AI. Weak AI makes the claim that
computers can be programmed to simulate human
cognition. Strong AI makes the claim that computers can
be made to think on a level that is at least equal to
humans and possibly even be conscious of themselves.
Types of strong AI are Neural Networks, genetic
algorithms and cyborgs.
Artificial life is the study of "creatures" computer
instructions, or pure information that, like live organisms,
are created, replicate, evolve, and die.
Slide 15
The Promises of the Digital Age
• Information and Education
– The challenge of making sense of vast stores of
information is being addressed with intelligent agents,
programs that roam networks and compile data and
perform work tasks on your behalf. In education, students
at all levels are finding computers helpful. Their use in
distance learning over the internet is increasing.
Slide 16
The Promises of the Digital Age
• Health, Medicine, and Science
– Telemedicine, medical care delivered via telecommunications, is
one way computers and communications are changing health
and medicine.
– The digitizing of medical information is affecting everything
from psychotherapy to implants. Patients' use of health-care
databases is changing their relationship with doctors.
– A new idea in science is the "collaboratory," an internet-based
collaborative laboratory of researchers around the world, such
as that among space physicists. In archaeology, computer
technology may be used to avoid invasive excavations.
Slide 17
The Promises of the Digital Age
• Commerce and Money
– Information technology erases boundaries in business
between company departments, suppliers, and customers.
Consequently, the idea of what constitutes an organization
is changing.
– There are new developments in sales and marketing and
retailing, as with online sales, and in banking and e-money,
stock trading, and manufacturing.
Slide 18
The Promises of the Digital Age
• Entertainment and the Arts
– Information technology is producing changes in music and
movies. In music, new digitized instruments offer a wide
range of sounds, while the internet is reshaping the
marketing of songs.
– In movies, computers are used for all kinds of animation
and other special effects; digital equipment permits better
film editing, and enables amateurs to make movies more
cheaply.
Slide 19
The Promises of the Digital Age
• Government and Electronic Democracy
– The internet has potential for civic betterment because it is
free of government intrusion, is fast and cheap, and
facilitates communication among citizens.
– Examples are found in cities in California, Colorado, Texas,
and Nevada. Online voting has been tried and may be
expanded. The government itself is making increasing use
of computers, as in electronic tax filing.
Slide 20
The Promises of the Digital Age
• Jobs and Careers
– Job seekers can now use employer databases to get leads
on jobs, and they can post résumés with electronic job
registries so employers can find them.
– The five information-technology job categories projected
to have the largest percentage increase in the near future
are computer engineers, computer support specialists,
systems analysts, database administrators, and desktop
publishing specialists.
Slide 21
Topic Three
THE CHALLENGES OF THE DIGITAL AGE
Slide 22
The Challenges of the Digital Age
• If the internet is on its way to becoming the dominant
mode of information exchange, then it is no longer a
luxury but, like the telephone, a necessity.
• And it follows, in this analyst’s opinion that, “anyone
without it is in danger of being shut out”
•
Slide 23
The Challenges of the Digital Age
• The digital divide is only one of the many challenges
confronting us as InfoTech sweeps the world.
• Some of the major challenges of the digital Age are
as follows:
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Security Issues
Quality-of-Life Issues
Economic Issues
The Digital Environment
Slide 24
The Challenges of the Digital Age
• Security Issues: Threats to Computers & Communications
Systems
• Among the threats to the security of computers are the
following.
(1) Errors and accidents, such as human errors, procedural errors,
software errors, electromechanical problems, and "dirty data"
problems.
(2) Natural hazards, such as earthquakes, hurricanes, fires, civil strife, and
terrorism.
(3) Computer crimes, which can be either illegal acts perpetrated against
computers or the use of computers to accomplish illegal acts. Crimes
against computers include theft of hardware, software, time and
services, or information, or crimes of malice and destruction.
(4) Crimes using computers include credit-card theft and investment
fraud.
Slide 25
The Challenges of the Digital Age
(5) Worms are programs that copy themselves repeatedly
into a computer's memory or disk drive, and viruses are
deviant programs that can destroy data. Worms and
viruses are passed by infected floppy disks, or infected
data sent over a network; antivirus software can detect
viruses.
(6) Computer criminals may be an organization's employees,
outside users, hackers and crackers, and professional
criminals. Hackers gain unauthorized access to computers,
often just for the challenge, whereas crackers do it for
malicious purposes.
Slide 26
The Challenges of the Digital Age
• Security: Safeguarding Computers &
Communications
• Security, the system of safeguards for protecting
computers against disasters, failure, and
unauthorized access, has four components.
(1) Computer systems try to determine authorized users by
three criteria: by what they have (keys, badges,
signatures); by what they know (as with PINs or personal
identification numbers, and passwords or codes); and by
who they are (as by physical traits, as determined perhaps
through biometrics, the science of measuring individual
body characteristics).
Slide 27
The Challenges of the Digital Age
(2) Encryption, altering data so it is not usable unless the
changes are undone, tries to make computer messages
more secure.
(3) Software and data are protected by controlling access to
files, by audit controls that track the programs used, and
by people controls that screen job applicants and other
users.
(4) Disaster-recovery plans are methods for restoring
computer operations after natural disasters or accidents.
Slide 28
The Challenges of the Digital Age
• Quality-of-Life Issues: The Environment, Mental Health,
& the Workplace
• Some quality-of-life issues related to information
technology are as follows.
(1) Environmental problems include manufacturing and disposing
by-products, environmental blight, and possible risks of
nanotechnology.
(2) Computer-related mental-health problems include isolation,
online gambling, and stress.
(3) Problems affecting workplace productivity include misuse of
technology, as when employees waste company time going
online for personal purposes; fussing with computers because of
hardware/software problems; and information overload.
Slide 29
The Challenges of the Digital Age
• Economic Issues: Employment & the Haves/HaveNots.
• Two charges by economic critics of information
technology are as follows.
(1) Technology replaces humans in countless tasks, forcing
millions of workers into temporary or part-time
employment, and even unemployment.
(2) Technology widens the gap between the rich and the
poor, between information "haves" and "have-nots."
Slide 30
The Challenges of the Digital Age
• The Digital Environment: Is There a Grand Design?
• Some factors affecting the shape of the digital
environment are as follows.
(1) Internet2 is a cooperative university-business program to
enable high-end users to quickly move data.
(2) The 1996 Telecommunications Act was designed to increase
competition among telecommunications businesses by allowing
different carriers to offer the same services.
(3) ICANN is the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and
Numbers, which is a nonprofit corporation established to
regulate internet domain names.
(4) The unruly nature of the internet has led to the emergence of
company intranets and extranets to provide reliability.
Slide 31
References
• Williams, B. K., & Sawyer, S. C. (2014). Using Information
Technology: A practical introduction to computers and
communications (11 ed.). McGraw-Hill Education
• French, C. S. (2001). Data processing and information technology (10th
ed.). London, Continuum: Sage Publications Ltd.
• Hutchinson, S. E., & Sawyer, S. C. (2000). Computers, communication
and information: A user’s introduction (7th ed.). Boston: Irwin McGrawHill.
• O’Leary, T. J. (2004). Computing today. Boston: McGraw Hill.
• O’Leary, T. J., & O’Leary, L. I. (2005). Computing Essentials. Boston:
McGraw Hill.
• Thompson, R. L., & Cats-Bail, W. L. (2003). Information technology and
management (2nd ed.). Boston: Irwin McGraw-Hill.
• Williams, et al (2003). Using information technology: a practical
introduction of computers and communications. Boston: McGraw-Hill.
•
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