1. 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:

2. 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.

3. 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

4. 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

5. Reading List
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)

6. Topic One
The Digital Age

7. 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 .

8. The promises of the digital age
Topic Two
The promises of the digital age

9. 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?

10. The Promises of the Digital Age
What are the promises of this digital Age? Lets consider the following areas:
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

11. 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.

12. 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:
Natural Language Processing
Expert Systems
Intelligent Agent
Pattern Recognition
Fuzzy Logic
Virtual Reality
Robotics

13. 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.

14. 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 three-dimensional 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.

15. 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.

16. 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.

17. 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.

18. 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.

19. 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.

20. 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.

21. 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.

22. The challenges of the Digital Age
Topic Three
The challenges of the Digital Age

23. 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”

24. 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:
Security Issues
Quality-of-Life Issues
Economic Issues
The Digital Environment

25. 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.

26. 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.

27. 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).

28. 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.

29. 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.

30. The Challenges of the Digital Age
Economic Issues: Employment & the Haves/Have-Nots.
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."

31. 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.

32. 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 McGraw-Hill.
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.