Introduction to Computing - Building Information Systems - Essay Example

Assignment title: Module code: Student name: Student number: Submission date: Table of Contents INTRODUCTION 2 Application of ANT 3 Computing story 1 4 Computing story 2 5 Limitations and Criticisms of Actor-Network Theory 7 CONCLUSION 8 References 9 Bibliography 11 APPENDIX 13 INTRODUCTION Building information systems is a very difficult task partly due to the exertion of ascertaining the intended users’ requirements, but majorly because of the complexity that arises from the large number of the interactions between the humans and the machines. In the modern computing, “every actant acts on or is acted upon by at least one other actant, in order to fulfil the aims of the assemblage”. The field of information systems is strictly concerned with how people build and use systems which are computer-based to produce information that is useful (Hevner, March & Park, 2004 p. 81). Hence, it has to deal with matters that involve both machines and people. Information systems is a social-technical discipline that comprise of a multitude of both human and non-human entities. Researchers in this filed face a big problem in their attempts of handling the complexities that arise from the interconnected combinations of computers, operating systems, procedures, peripherals, software, programming languages, data as well as many other objects that are inanimate; how they are relating to humans and human organizations, and how the humans relate to them. This article expounds the actor-network theory (ANT) to explain the interactions that take place when people are using and making information systems (Tatnall & Gilding, 1999 p.38). ANT has its roots deeply in science and technology. It is a very good approach in conducting research in modern computing from the fact that it focuses on the connections made between humans and non-human entities. This theory was developed by Bruno Latour, John Law and Michel Callon back in 1980s and since then it has been used in multiple variations. ANT has the tag theory in it but it is majorly used for research purposes. It describes well how the association between connected entities can lead to creation of new actants which do not necessarily possess the individual characteristics of the constituent entities (Potts, 2008 p.2). The power does not lie within the individual actants themselves but rather through the associations, relations as well as the alliances of the actants (Law, 2008 p.146). Application of ANT Despite being deeply contested, ANT is an increasingly influential approach in understanding the interactions of humans and inanimate objects. This theory approach is significant in understanding the complexity of reality and that of organizations as well as the active role of technology in the modern computing (Alexander & Silvis, 2014 p.121). (Hevner, March & Park, 2004 p. 98).The constituent actants in a network need to be displaced and subjected into transformations in order to make them fit in the actant assemblage. This work is referred to as translation and if the actants cannot be translated through calculations, negotiations, violence and acts of persuasion, then we can say that they are not part of the actant-network (Alexander & Silvis, 2014 p.142). Computing story 1 Berg analyzed the role of objects in a healthcare setting. He analyzed the role medical records play in mediating the social relationships between the staffs in the healthcare (Berg, 2001 p.143). There is interactions of the objects (the records and the staff) through writing and reading to aid in management of patients across professional boundaries. This interaction between the patients, the information that they give to be recorded and the staff in the healthcare lead to a sustained power relationships between the actants. These records can be written or recorded in a computer for reference anytime it deems necessary. Translations occur on the role of the actants as the conventional paper has been replaced by new Electronic Health Record software and this has radically improved the management of the patients and the information concerning them. Before the software is introduced, nurses were informally ordering x-ray requests on conventional papers and often this was done through pre-signed clinicians (Berg, 2001 p.150). Now the process has been eased by the EHR software as the consultants can order for the x-rays without involving untrained clinicians. The integration of the new EHR software will require new connections being formed as well as other more connections being formed to re-organize this new actor and ANT offers useful insight of comprehending the processes being involved. Management in the healthcare will be improved by including this new nonhuman actor (technology) and other human actors to improve the interactions and effectiveness of operations. Translations have occurred as the power relations have shifted from strategies which were previously being implemented by the government to an increased input and choice by the local hospitals and other users (Berg, 2001 p.153). The HER software can be multiple as it means differently to different stakeholders in varying contexts. To some it resembles a managerial vehicle that assists health clinicians undertake their daily care-giving tasks. Others will view it as a control system that is just simply valuable in monitoring activities and outputs of the organization. This story can be viewed in http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2988706/. Computing story 2 Another story is the implementation of Google Docs by Google that enables users to create online word documents for collaboration. The editing/sharing/viewing capability of the tool makes it possible for collaboration to take place. The user who creates the doc is assigned ownership rights or privileges and sharing is done either privately through emailing or publicly through sharing a link to the doc. This tool is hence a social-technical system (Lenandlar, 2015 p.1). This tool can be viewed as a Black box as one needs not to comprehend all the components of the system in order to benefit from the collaboration. Users are in a position to interact with the system without really having a hint of what it entails. Interactions occur when users are granted permissions to share, comment, auto-save, and even download without any clue of the auto-save algorithm that saves instantaneously. The actants in Google Doc collaborate in an interesting manner. Automatic saving of every bits of the edited document is done periodically meaning that the system captures everything and stores it somewhere. Editing the document needs the reversion of the previous versions (Lenandlar, 2015 p.1). The system in the assemblage has no specific owner but every actant has a duty to perform in order to achieve a unified achievement without understanding what each actor contributes. This means that non-human technology aspect might only function if only when triggered by human action as well as algorithmic processes to act sporadically. Non-human actants in the assemblage are internet connectivity, bandwidth as well as computers for accessing the docs. The system keeps track of any changes that the user has made and incase one gets lost without completely making the doc, he/she can roll back to the earlier version and pick up from there. The Google Doc system is an online/internet based collaboration tool that is not meant to be a standalone platform. Hence for the user to benefit from the system collaboration, all the human and non-human actants must be in place: computers, internet connectivity, and electricity (Lenandlar, 2015 p.1). This story was posted on May, 2015 by Lenandlar, https://idleclicks.wordpress.com/2015/05/24/actor-network-theory-and-google-docs/. Evgeny Morozov has had many pieces in technology and said that the criticism of technology and perceives firms as economic actors but other critics see them as a cultural force. He argued that every app or gadget in the modern technology is simply the end point of a much broader matrix of cultural, social and economic relations, which is the actor-network theory. Nicholas Carr said that the surge of internet pop-ups and the advertisements constantly shift our attention from conventional methods to more technologically advanced methods. Inventors will come up with a medium that would rewire our mental circuits, something a lot more sophisticated than the internet, only if they interact. The two theories have demonstrated this. Clay Shirky argued that we can begin seeing the promise of the cognitive surplus as we increasingly become one another’s infrastructure as well as craft new systems which offer the opportunity to connect, share and learn. The two computing stories have systems that free time for the actants instead of having the time filled up by passive consumers. They bring in associations which promote sharing ideas at scale in grounds to benefit everyone and improve management. Limitations and Criticisms of Actor-Network Theory The ANT faces some criticism and to begin with, Grint and Woolgar (1997) who said that there is no clear sufficient set of boundaries of the network. They claimed that the story of the analyst seemed to depend on the actual description of the network as if it was objectively available. (Collins and Yearley, 1992 p.310) critique targeted the way non-human actors are treated in the network. They accused the theory for collapsing into non-ending relativist regress. They argued that the significance of some specific actants cannot be described on the basis of not being in the assemblage. Bruno Latour in his workshop known as On Recalling ANT argued that there are four things wrong with the approach: actor, network, theory and the hyphen (Latour, 2011 p.179). CONCLUSION I have argued that information systems in the modern computing, “every actant acts on or is acted upon by at least one other actant, in order to fulfil the aims of the assemblage”. These interactions are characterized with complex assemblage of human and non-human actants. Future researchers should adopt the ANT research framework to show the interactions of actants that form a stable networks and the theory will offer a very useful way of handling the complexity of such studies. There is an assertively increasingly scale of computerization in the modern information systems that is calling for a more sophisticated association between humans and other objects as technology becomes more complex. ANT in this context has enthused an academic debate due to its radical approach to conceptualization agency and the relationship between human and non-human agencies. This article has comprehensively outlined how ANT can be usefully utilized by modern researchers of modern computing and how to implement the same. References Doolin, B. & Lowe, A. (2002). To reveal is to critique: actor-network theory and critical information systems research. Journal of Information Technology, 17(2), 69-78. Berg M., (2001). Implementing information systems in health care organizations: myths and challenges. International Journal of Medical Informatics. 2001;64:143–156. doi: 10.1016/S1386-5056(01)00200-3. [PubMed] [Cross Ref] Khosrow-Pour, Mehdi, (2005). Encyclopedia of Information Science and Technology, First Edition. Idea Group Inc (IGI), p.43. Tatnall, A. & Gilding, A. (1999). Actor-network theory and information systems research. Paper presented at the 10th Australasian Conference on information systems (ACIS), Victoria University of Wellington, Wellington, New Zealand. Harman, G. (2009). Prince of networks: Bruno Latour and metaphysics. Melbourne, Australia: re.press. Hevner, A.R., March, S.T. & Park, J. (2004). Design science in information systems research. MIS Quarterly, 28(1), 75-105. Latour, B. (2007). Reassembling the social: an introduction to actor-network-theory. New York, NY: Oxford University Press. Law, J. (2008) Actor-network theory and material semiotics. In: Brian Turner, (Ed.). The new Blackwell companion to social theory. (pp. 141-158). Chichester, UK: Wiley-Blackwell. Bibliography Potts, L. (2008). Diagramming with actor network theory: a method for modeling holistic experience. In IEEE International Professional Communication Conference (IPCC 2008), Montreal, Quebec, Canada., (pp. 1-6). Washington, DC: IEEE. Stanforth, C. (2007). Using actor-network theory to analyze e-government implementation in developing countries. Information Technologies and International Development, 3(3), 35-60. Alexander, P. M. & Silvis, E. (2014). Towards extending actor-network theory with a graphical syntax for information systems research. Information Research, 19(2) paper 617. [Available at http://InformationR.net/ir/19-2/paper617.html] Venturini, T. (2010). Diving in magma: how to explore controversies with actor-network theories. Public Understanding of Science, 19(3), 258-273. Association for Information Systems. Theories used in IS research. Actor-Network Theory. 2008.http://home.aisnet.org/displaycommon.cfm?an=1&subarticlenbr=212 last accessed: 12/12/2008. Blok, A, & Elgaard Jensen, T. (2011). Bruno Latour: Hybrid thoughts in a hybrid world. Suffolk: Routledge. Collins, H. M., & Yearley, S. (1992). Epistemological Chicken. In A. Pickering (Ed.), Science as Practice and Culture (pp. 301-326). Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. . Latour, Bruno (2005). Reassembling the Social: An Introduction to Actor-Network-Theory. Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press. Martin, Andrew (2005). Agents in inter-action: Bruno Latour and Agency. Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory 12(4):283-311. APPENDIX Software: This is a combination of operating systems, programs, utilities and applications that are well-organized to enable a computer to work. It is categorized into two: application software and system software. Application software is the one that the users use directly and the system software supports the underlying application software eg. Operating systems. There is a middleware software that mediates the two. Actor: This can be defined as any entity that can make its presence felt by the actors in the assemblage. These can be human or non-human entities such as computers, computer programs, companies, portals as well as other entities that are not visible to many people. It can be perceived as an association of heterogeneous entities constituting a network and it is important that it is made up of both human and non-human factors. Technological Innovation: This is the introduction or technological changes or alterations that are implemented in an organization often information technology. Actor-Network Theory (ANT): An approach to research in which networks associations and interactions between actors (both human and non-human) are the basis for investigation. Socio-Technical Research: this is a research that entails both social and technical interactions that occur in such a manner that it is not easily possible to extricate them. Black Boxing: This is a technique used for simplification and convenience. Numerous actors can be put into a black box so as to simplify the way that we look at them to get their details. Looking at my portal case above, a black box contains ISP, portal software, modems, data storage devices, telephone devices and so on. The black box can later be reopened to investigate its contents. HER: A software that has been introduced in healthcare setting to help in keeping of records and the overall management of the activities that take place in health care setting. Read More