How Social Computing Can Improve Business Services - Assignment Example

MIS101 – Assignment Template – Trimester 2, 2014 Your Name: Insert your name here Student Number: Insert you student ID number here Deakin Email: Insert you Deakin email address here Assignment – Part A Question 1: Discuss how social computing can improve business services. (~250 Words) The improvement of business services through social computing can be viewed from three important perspectives. The perspectives are: Employee engagement – Employees within a business environment frequent use voluminous and unstructured information, which comes in the forms of instant messages, web pages, videos, emails, documents and news (Liu, Salerno & Young 2009). In addition, the employees use most of their time looking for information, difficulties in accessing appropriate information and most information from employees are undocumented. Therefore, social computing provides features and tools that enhance productivity (Shah 2010). The platform associated with social computing allows for sharing information and communicating. Hence, productivity increase, reduction of information overload, streamlining of business processes, effective collaboration and communication. Customer engagement – social computing provides mechanisms of engaging stakeholders and customers and provides an avenue for organisations to exceed corporate initiatives. Social computing comes with numerous tools that include intelligence, creation, and business integration systems (Liu, Salerno & Young 2009). Therefore, social computing ensure increase sales, decrease operating costs, increase brand loyalty, engagement with customers, enhancement of company reputation and image, and increase customer awareness (Shah 2010). Business engagement – Social computing allows organisations with unique features positioned to improve customer service, business relationships, and promotion of flexible working (Dasgupta 2010). In utilisation of social computing, an organisation increase sales, cut costs and improve efficiency, increase brand loyalty, flexible employee working, shorten development time, increase effectiveness of the entire organisation and increase in market awareness (Liu, Salerno & Young 2009). Therefore, social computing improves effectiveness of an organisation towards fulfilment of objectives and goals (Shah 2010). Question 2: Discuss the efforts that Wikipedia takes to improve the reliability of its content. Why do many educators continue to disapprove of Wikipedia as a reference source for scholarly work? Discuss three reasons. (~250 Words) Reliability is a major issue that affects Wikipedia. The information that Wikipedia provides is untrue and is faced with numerous inconsistencies (O’Sullivan 2012). The Wikipedia understands that information provided is unreliable and Wikipedia has employed numerous approaches to ensure the information become reliable. Wikipedia wants to incorporate students and professors on different fields to authenticate provide information and also contribute in increasing the amount and variety of information (O’Sullivan 2012). In addition, collaboration is important since unreliability of information can be viewed, reviewed and discussed by numerous content developers before putting the information on Wikipedia (Anderson 2011). Therefore, effective and efficient collaboration is important to ensure the information becomes reliable. Furthermore, educators continue to disapprove of Wikipedia because of the shortcomings associated with Wikipedia. Some of the shortcomings include: Inaccurate/unreliable information – the information on Wikipedia is provided through collaboration. Some of the editors or content creators may lack the prerequisite knowledge or capacity to change the information (O’Sullivan 2012). In addition, an editor may decide, through bad intention, provide false information. The information would be unreliable and inaccurate and when students source information from Wikipedia make the entire assignment based on inaccurate and unreliable information (Ayers, Matthews & Yates 2008). Plagiarism related issues – Some students may copy paste directly from the Wikipedia resulting in plagiarism. In addition, some of the information in the Wikipedia may lack appropriate referencing and it directly means it is plagiarism (O’Sullivan 2012). Lack of extensive research – using Wikipedia means the student needs only to rewrite the information. However, research papers and assignments requires bring together numerous resources and materials to write a paper (O’Sullivan 2012). Therefore, using Wikipedia provides minimal information to fulfil the requirements of an assignment. Question 3: Explain how a ‘mashup’ works (conceptually), and provide an example of a ‘mashups’ that you have seen. (~250 Words) The Internet is a voluminous collection of different information and also a double edge sword. Information can be obtained easily from the Internet but sometimes, the information is numerous and it becomes difficult to make sense out of the information (Loton 2008). In such instances, mashup plays an important role in ensuring the data is useful. Mashups are able to employ algorithms, which enable blending of multiple sources to create useful information; however, sometimes the information is obtained from a single source. Mashup is able to present the information in an innovative and compelling fashion. The information is then presented in a manner, which is understandable to users and more valuable to the users (Loton 2008). Easiness of creating mashups is premised on utilisation of application programming interfaces (APIs), which enables programmers to retrieve easily important data from different websites based on programming rules and associated programming standard sets. The programmers then employ brilliant coding to ensure the information is presented in different forms, which fulfil specific requirements (Ayers, Matthews & Yates 2008). An example of mashup is the http://www.housingmaps.com/. The mashup application obtains information from Google Maps and Craigslist and applies it for the real estate. The information collected include homes and apartments for sale, apartments and homes for rent and other important information on real estate. The outcome of the analysis is allowing a user to sort available homes and apartments based on location and price. In addition, the information is marked on a map that allows a user to efficiently and quickly browse through the numerous options. Question 4: Describe how YouTube is redefining the entertainment industry. (~250 Words) Social media such as YouTube has redefined the way things are done and accomplished. YouTube has played an important role in redefining entertainment industry (Lastufka & Dean, 2008). The section analyses the contribution of YouTube in the entertainment industry. The YouTube redefine the entertainment industry through: Artists – it is easier for new artists to present their information and content when compared when traditional methods such as television and radio limited the coverage. Therefore, it is easier for artists to show case their talents Dissemination of information – Content can be shared easily without time related inconveniences or restrictions based on costs (Burgess & Green 2013). For example, a person can watch something after two days or do some other tasks but still watch later the information. Hence, it is easier to access the information. Quality of transmission – a user does not require a television or laptop to access high quality content rather requires a smart phone or even a tablet (Sonvilla-Weiss 2010). Therefore, inconveniences associated with television and other traditional methods are avoided. Follow up and review of content – an artist and other stakeholders can easily trace and determine the number of persons who have viewed the content (Burgess & Green 2013). In addition, it is easier to understand their demographics and other important information that is crucial for repositioning and defining the content that should be provided (Chow 2007) Diversity of content – YouTube provides diversity of content (Sahlin & Botello 2011). Television channels, armatures and other content producers can present their information through YouTube. A user can easily access and go through voluminous information with the aim of obtain appropriate videos or content (Cefrey 2008). Therefore, a user can compare the content from different content providers. Assignment – Part B - Toulmin’s Model of Argument Elements Sentence/s Claim The social media messaging app, Kik, should be banned for children Evidence Kik is a free texting app used by more than 50 million people around the world that enables users to connect with strangers Although rated for people aged 17 and older, experts say children aged 11-15 are its main users Instead of using phone numbers or real names to contact each other, each Kik member has a user name Warrant Kik’s popularity among young people was highlighted by the disappearance of Sydney teenage Jane Smith, who left her house early on Tuesday morning in a car with a stranger before being found in country Victoria on Friday Conversations and images can’t be viewed publicly, which makes it much harder for parents to monitor Kik than Facebook or Twitter Police were concerned drug dealers and paedophiles might trawl Kik, “taking advantage of that hidden communication” Backing The app can be installed on iPod touch and iPad devices as well as smart phones Kik and Instagram were a “dangerous combination” for teenagers, who post photographs publicly on Instagram and then invite viewers to “Kik me” privately to chat Rebuttal But experts say blocking Kik or banning children from using the app is not the answer, rather they advise parents to educate themselves about the social media their children are using, and to set boundaries for that use Qualifier Parents have minimal knowledge on and about Kik Your Opinion Social media plays an important role to the society and community and should be appreciated. Any technology or even a product has its own strengths and weaknesses. Kik is an important app that is installed in a variety of devices, which includes iPods, Iphone and smart phones. Moreover, the application is utilised by many people and according to the article, it is estimated that more than 50 million are using the application. In addition, the strength of the application is the lack of providing personal information. For example, the article states that users just provide user names without the need for real names or phones numbers. Furthermore, Kik champions privacy and limits the persons who can access the information. As compared to Twitter and Facebook, Kik hide important information, which can only be accessed by authorised persons. Therefore, Kik is a crucial application that creates effectiveness in chatting and champions importance of privacy to the users. Conversely, Kik has numerous disadvantages to the users. According to the case study, users are younger than 17 years meaning that they can be manipulated by other users. It is attributed to the lack of knowledge and experience to the young person. In addition, anonymous nature of the app protects people from knowing each other. It allows people to communicate with strangers without knowing the background of the strangers. For example, a young person may easily communicate with paedophiles and drug traffickers and introducing the teenagers to unethical and immoral practices. In conclusion, different social media and messaging platforms will be developed and accessed. Blocking the Kik because of its shortcomings does not prevent mutation of the application or introduction of similar message apps. Therefore, the solution is engaging with the teenagers and educating them on the threats associated with chatting with strangers. Moreover, it is important to monitor and review the behaviour of the teenager and introduce measures to address the shortcoming associated with such applications. Reference List: Anderson, J 2011, Wikipedia: The Company and Its Founders, New York, ABDO Ayers, P, Matthews, C & Yates, B 2008, How Wikipedia Works: And how You Can be a Part of it, New York, No Starch Press Burgess, J & Green, J 2013, YouTube: Online Video and Participatory Culture, California, John Wiley & Sons Cefrey, H 2008, Career Building Through Music, Video, and Software Mashups, London, The Rosen Publishing Group Chow, S 2007, Php Web 2.0 Mashup Projects: Practical Php Mashups with Google Maps, Flickr, Amazon, Youtube, Msn Search, Yahoo!, London, Packt Publishing Ltd Dasgupta, S 2010, Social Computing: Concepts, Methodologies, Tools and Applications, London, Idea Group Inc (IGI) Lastufka, A & Dean, M 2008, YouTube: An Insider's Guide to Climbing the Charts, London, O'Reilly Media, Inc Liu, H, Salerno, J & Young, M 2009, Social Computing and Behavioural Modelling, New York, Springer Science & Business Media Loton, T 2008, Mashup Case Studies with Yahoo! Pipes, New York, Lulu.com O’Sullivan, D 2012, Wikipedia: A New Community of Practice? London, Ashgate Publishing Ltd Sahlin, D & Botello, C 2011, YouTube For Dummies, California, John Wiley & Sons Shah, R 2010, Social Networking for Business (Bonus Content Edition), London, Pearson Prentice Hall Sonvilla-Weiss, S 2010, Mashup Cultures, New York, Springer Verlag Publishers Read More