Interactive Technologies And Sociotechnical Systems

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 13th International Conference on Interactive Technologies and Sociotechnical Systems, VSMM 2006, held in Xi'an, China in October 2006. The 59 revised full papers presented together with one keynote paper were carefully reviewed and selected from more than 180 submissions.

Uniquely reflects an engineering view to social systems in a wide variety of contexts of application Social Systems Engineering: The Design of Complexity brings together a wide variety of application approaches to social systems from an engineering viewpoint. The book defines a social system as any complex system formed by human beings. Focus is given to the importance of systems intervention design for specific and singular settings, the possibilities of engineering thinking and methods, the use of computational models in particular contexts, and the development of portfolios of solutions. Furthermore, this book considers both technical, human and social perspectives, which are crucial to solving complex problems. Social Systems Engineering: The Design of Complexity provides modelling examples to explore the design aspect of social systems. Various applications are explored in a variety of areas, such as urban systems, health care systems, socio-economic systems, and environmental systems. It covers important topics such as organizational design, modelling and intervention in socio-economic systems, participatory and/or community-based modelling, application of systems engineering tools to social problems, applications of computational behavioral modeling, computational modelling and management of complexity, and more. Highlights an engineering view to social systems (as opposed to a “scientific” view) that stresses the importance of systems intervention design for specific and singular settings Divulges works where the design, re-design, and transformation of social systems constitute the main aim, and where joint considerations of both technical and social perspectives are deemed important in solving social problems Features an array of applied cases that illustrate the application of social systems engineering in different domains Social Systems Engineering: The Design of Complexity is an excellent text for academics and graduate students in engineering and social science—specifically, economists, political scientists, anthropologists, and management scientists with an interest in finding systematic ways to intervene and improve social systems.

Designing Healthcare That Works: A Sociotechnical Approach takes up the pragmatic, messy problems of designing and implementing sociotechnical solutions which integrate organizational and technical systems for the benefit of human health. The book helps practitioners apply principles of sociotechnical design in healthcare and consider the adoption of new theories of change. As practitioners need new processes and tools to create a more systematic alignment between technical mechanisms and social structures in healthcare, the book helps readers recognize the requirements of this alignment. The systematic understanding developed within the book’s case studies includes new ways of designing and adopting sociotechnical systems in healthcare. For example, helping practitioners examine the role of exogenous factors, like CMS Systems in the U.S. Or, more globally, helping practitioners consider systems external to the boundaries drawn around a particular healthcare IT system is one key to understand the design challenge. Written by scholars in the realm of sociotechnical systems research, the book is a valuable source for medical informatics professionals, software designers and any healthcare providers who are interested in making changes in the design of the systems. Encompasses case studies focusing on specific projects and covering an entire lifecycle of sociotechnical design in healthcare Provides an in-depth view from established scholars in the realm of sociotechnical systems research and related domains Brings a systematic understanding that includes ways of designing and adopting sociotechnical systems in healthcare

Hundreds of millions of people use social technologies like Wikipedia, Facebook and YouTube every day, but what makes them work? And what is the next step? The Social Design of Technical Systems explores the path from computing revolution to social evolution. Based on the assumption that it is essential to consider social as well as technological requirements, as we move to create the systems of the future, this book explores the ways in which technology fits, or fails to fit, into the social reality of the modern world. Important performance criteria for social systems, such as fairness, synergy, transparency, order and freedom, are clearly explained for the first time from within a comprehensive systems framework, making this book invaluable for anyone interested in socio-technical systems, especially those planning to build social software. This book reveals the social dilemmas that destroy communities, exposes the myth that computers are smart, analyses social errors like the credit meltdown, proposes online rights standards and suggests community-based business models. If you believe that our future depends on merging social virtue and technology power, you should read this book.

Hundreds of millions of people use social technologies like Wikipedia, Facebook and YouTube every day, but what makes them work? And what is the next step? The Social Design of Technical Systems explores the path from computing revolution to social evolution. Based on the assumption that it is essential to consider social as well as technological requirements, as we move to create the systems of the future, this book explores the ways in which technology fits, or fails to fit, into the social reality of the modern world. Important performance criteria for social systems, such as fairness, synergy, transparency, order and freedom, are clearly explained for the first time from within a comprehensive systems framework, making this book invaluable for anyone interested in socio-technical systems, especially those planning to build social software. This book reveals the social dilemmas that destroy communities, exposes the myth that computers are smart, analyses social errors like the credit meltdown, proposes online rights standards and suggests community-based business models. If you believe that our future depends on merging social virtue and technology power, you should read this book.

Decision makers in large scale interconnected network systems require simulation models for decision support. The behaviour of these systems is determined by many actors, situated in a dynamic, multi-actor, multi-objective and multi-level environment. How can such systems be modelled and how can the socio-technical complexity be captured? Agent-based modelling is a proven approach to handle this challenge. This book provides a practical introduction to agent-based modelling of socio-technical systems, based on a methodology that has been developed at TU Delft and which has been deployed in a large number of case studies. The book consists of two parts: the first presents the background, theory and methodology as well as practical guidelines and procedures for building models. In the second part this theory is applied to a number of case studies, where for each model the development steps are presented extensively, preparing the reader for creating own models.

As web-enabled mobile technologies become increasingly integrated into formal learning environments, the fields of education and ICT (information and communication technology) are merging to create a new kind of classroom: CrossActionSpaces. Grounding its exploration of these co-located communication spaces in global empirical research, Digital Didactical Designs facilitates the development of teachers into collaborative designers and evaluators of technology-driven teaching and learning experiences—learning through reflective making. The Digital Didactical Design model promotes deep learning expeditions with a framework that encourages teachers and researchers to study, explore, and analyze the applied designs-in-practice. The book presents critical views of contemporary education, theories of socio-technical systems and behavior patterns, and concludes with a look into the conceptual and practical prototypes that might emerge in schools and universities in the near future.

The book describes recent research results in the areas of modelling, creation, management and presentation of interactive 3D multimedia content. The book describes the current state of the art in the field and identifies the most important research and design issues. Consecutive chapters address these issues. These are: database modelling of 3D content, security in 3D environments, describing interactivity of content, searching content, visualization of search results, modelling mixed reality content, and efficient creation of interactive 3D content. Each chapter is illustrated with example applications based on the proposed approach. The final chapter discusses some important ethical issues related to the widespread use of virtual environments in everyday life. The book provides ready to use solutions for many important problems related to the creation of interactive 3D multimedia applications and will be a primary reading for researchers and developers working in this domain.