Articles

Permanent URI for this collectionhttps://www.weizenbaum-library.de/handle/id/974

Articles, Reviews, Preprints

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Start date: 2017End date: 2019

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Now showing 1 - 10 of 27
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    Data Governance and Sovereignty in Urban Data Spaces Based on Standardized ICT Reference Architectures
    (2019) Cuno, Silke; Bruns, Lina; Tcholtchev, Nikolay; Lämmel, Philipp; Schieferdecker, Ina
    European cities and communities (and beyond) require a structured overview and a set of tools as to achieve a sustainable transformation towards smarter cities/municipalities, thereby leveraging on the enormous potential of the emerging data driven economy. This paper presents the results of a recent study that was conducted with a number of German municipalities/cities. Based on the obtained and briefly presented recommendations emerging from the study, the authors propose the concept of an Urban Data Space (UDS), which facilitates an eco-system for data exchange and added value creation thereby utilizing the various types of data within a smart city/municipality. Looking at an Urban Data Space from within a German context and considering the current situation and developments in German municipalities, this paper proposes a reasonable classification of urban data that allows the relation of various data types to legal aspects, and to conduct solid considerations regarding technical implementation designs and decisions. Furthermore, the Urban Data Space is described/analyzed in detail, and relevant stakeholders are identified, as well as corresponding technical artifacts are introduced. The authors propose to setup Urban Data Spaces based on emerging standards from the area of ICT reference architectures for Smart Cities, such as DIN SPEC 91357 “Open Urban Platform” and EIP SCC. In the course of this, the paper walks the reader through the construction of a UDS based on the above-mentioned architectures and outlines all the goals, recommendations and potentials, which an Urban Data Space can reveal to a municipality/city. Finally, we aim at deriving the proposed concepts in a way that they have the potential to be part of the required set of tools towards the sustainable transformation of German and European cities in the direction of smarter urban environments, based on utilizing the hidden potential of digitalization and efficient interoperable data exchange.
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    Creativity and Productivity In Product Design for Additive Manufacturing: Mechanisms and Platform Outcomes of Remixing
    (2019) Friesike, Sascha; Flath, Christoph M.; Wirth, Marco; Thiesse, Frédéric
    The present study explores the phenomenon of remixing in product design for additive manufacturing (AM). In contrast to other manufacturing techniques, AM offers unprecedented flexibility in adapting existing product designs to changing requirements. However, in order to benefit from this potential, structured design procedures and tools are indispensable. As a possible solution, online platforms for collaborative 3D model creation are increasingly implementing features for remixing, a concept describing the creation of new models on the foundation of existing design elements. Against this backdrop, the objective of this research is to provide evidence for the value of remixing as an organizational intervention for improving product design processes. To this end, we present a mixed methods approach using data from Thingiverse, the world's largest AM-related online community. In a first step, we investigate qualitative data from 81 individual remix-based designs to identify the underlying mechanisms of remixing. We identify six such mechanisms that can further be grouped by the intended outcome of the respective process (creativity-oriented: inspiration, play, learning; productivity- oriented: speed, improvement, empowerment). In a second step, we turn to a quantita- tive analysis of platform data, which indicates that remixing may lead to better design process outcomes in terms of quantity and diversity of designs. Furthermore, we find that designs created by remixing designers are significantly more often printed by com- munity members suggesting that remixing helps ensure manufacturing compatibility akin to continuous process improvement. Our research has several implications for individual designers and organizations engaging with product design for AM.
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    Four Parameters for Measuring Democratic Deliberation: Theoretical and Methodological Challenges and How to Respond
    (2018) Fleuß, Dannica; Helbig, Karoline; Schaal, Gary S.
    Although measuring democratic deliberation is necessary for a valid measurement of the performance of democracies, it poses serious theoretical and methodological challenges. The most serious problem in the context of research on democratic performance is the need for a theoretical and methodological approach for “upscaling” the measurement of deliberation from the micro and meso level to the macro level. The systemic approach offers a useful framework for this purpose. Building on this framework, this article offers a modular approach consisting of four parameters for conceptualization, measurement, and aggregation which can be adjusted to make the measurement of democratic deliberation compatible with the various general measurement approaches adopted by different scholars.
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    Lessons Learned from Establishing the Energy-Informatics Business Model: Case of a German Energy Company
    (2019) Grosse, Matti; Send, Hendrik; Schildhauer, Thomas
    Energy and utilities companies find themselves in a paradoxical situation in which their traditional business models are losing profitability, and they must advocate energy efficiency and climate-protection goals, and thus encourage their customers to save energy. As a result, they must partially cannibalize their business models and experiment with new models and techniques. Energy Informatics (EI) offers promising business opportunities that alleviate the concerns of energy companies about traditional revenue streams. However, recent discussions on this issue lack proof of concept and success determinants. This business case study fills this gap by describing the journey of German energy company Energiequelle, which established a sustainable business model based on EI. On the basis of our interview data, we analyzed Energiequelle’s EI strategy and stakeholder management and present six lessons learned. We believe that our practice-oriented research provides profound insight, especially to high-level executives and policymakers.
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    Privacy Icons
    (2019) Efroni, Z.; Metzger, J.; Mischau, L.; Schirmbeck, Marie
    Although the institution of consent within the General Data Protection Regulation intends to facilitate the exercise of personal autonomy, reality paints a different picture. Due to a host of structural and psychological deficits, the process of giving consent is often neither informed nor does it foster self-determination. One key element in addressing this shortcoming is the visualisation of relevant information through icons. This article outlines a riskbased methodology for the selection, design and implementation of such privacy icons. It lays the groundwork for identifying risky data processing aspects as a first step in a larger project of creating a privacy icons set to accompany privacy policies. The ultimate goal of the privacy icons is to assist users in making better informed consent decisions through the visualisation of data processing aspects based on their inherent risks.
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    Visibility Through Information Sharing: The Role of Tweet Authors and Communication Styles in Retweeting Political Information on Twitter
    (2019) Engelmann, Ines; Kloss, Andrea; Neuberger, Christoph; Brockmann, Tobias
    If a speaker’s political message on Twitter is retweeted, both the speaker and the message become visible to a wider network of Twitter users, making the tweet actor more prominent on the Twittersphere or beyond. This study analyzes the effects of different types of tweet authors (such as politicians, journalists, economic actors, members of nonprofit interest groups, and citizens) and the communication styles of political information (affect and rationality) on the number of retweets. The potential effects of these factors are hypothesized based on the heuristic-systematic model but are also discussed in the normative context of public sphere theories. A content analysis of 4,403 tweets shows that the author types, communication styles, and their interactions affect the number of retweets. The theoretical and normative implications of these results are discussed.
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    Language Learning Tool for Refugees: Identifying the Language Learning Needs of Syrian Refugees Through Participatory Design
    (2019) Abou-Khalil, Victoria; Helou, Samar; Flanagan, Brendan; Pinkwart, Niels; Ogata, Hiroaki
    A large number of refugees need to learn a new language in order to transition to, or settle in, a new country. Most refugees have access to smartphones with which they can access mobile language learning tools. However, refugees in different stages of their journeys have different language learning needs. Identifying the unique needs of refugees is essential to design language learning tools that support their language learning activities. Through a two-part participatory design study, we identify and compare the tacit and latent language learning needs of two different groups of Syrian refugees: a group in transition in Lebanon, and a group settling in Germany. The Syrian refugees we worked with in Lebanon are studying English to transition to another country with better living conditions. On the other hand, the Syrian refugees we worked with in Germany are trying to learn German to better integrate into German society. Our results show overlapping needs and specific needs for the two groups of refugees. We present our findings and discuss the opportunities and challenges for designing language learning tools to support the language learning activities of refugees.
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    Provenance Management over Linked Data Streams
    (2019) Liu, Qian; Wylot, Marcin; Le Phuoc, Danh; Hauswirth, Manfred
    Provenance describes how results are produced starting from data sources, curation, recovery, intermediate processing, to the final results. Provenance has been applied to solve many problems and in particular to understand how errors are propagated in large-scale environments such as Internet of Things, Smart Cities. In fact, in such environments operations on data are often performed by multiple uncoordinated parties, each potentially introducing or propagating errors. These errors cause uncertainty of the overall data analytics process that is further amplified when many data sources are combined and errors get propagated across multiple parties. The ability to properly identify how such errors influence the results is crucial to assess the quality of the results. This problem becomes even more challenging in the case of Linked Data Streams, where data is dynamic and often incomplete. In this paper, we introduce methods to compute provenance over Linked Data Streams. More specifically, we propose provenance management techniques to compute provenance of continuous queries executed over complete Linked Data streams. Unlike traditional provenance management techniques, which are applied on static data, we focus strictly on the dynamicity and heterogeneity of Linked Data streams. Specifically, in this paper we describe: i) means to deliver a dynamic provenance trace of the results to the user, ii) a system capable to execute queries over dynamic Linked Data and compute provenance of these queries, and iii) an empirical evaluation of our approach using real-world datasets.
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    Exploring Students’ Engagement Patterns in SPOC Forums and their Association with Course Performance
    (2018) Liu, Zhi; Pinkwart, Niels; Liu, Hai; Liu, Sannyuya; Zhang, Guangtao
    With the popularity of Small Private Online Courses (SPOCs) in higher education, a plentiful of discussion data has been increasingly generated in SPOC forums. With 752 undergraduates’ discussion posts, this study aims to investigate students’ engagement patterns within SPOC forums in terms of engagement behaviors and emotions. Firstly, we designed a behavioral code rule to identify posting- and content-level behaviors, and examined their association with course performance. Secondly, we built an emotion lexicon including positivity, negativity and confusion word sets, and adopted an emotion calculation approach to visualize emotional evolutionary trends and to examine emotional differences in registration types and course performance. The results show that, (1) the high-performing group was more active in the most engagement behaviors except for interactive postings. (2) The registered group delivered more threads and wrote richer vocabulary in post content. (3) Whether students were registered for a course or not did not have a significant effect on their emotional expressions, but the registered group exhibited more confusion in forum interactions at the end of the semester. (4) Positive emotion was prevailing for the entire population. Furthermore, compared with the low-achieving group, the high- performing group had higher emotion densities in three types of emotions.
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    “Digital citizenship” revisited: the impact of ICTs on citizens’ political communication beyond the Western state
    (2018) Emmer, Martin; Kunst, Marlene
    The role of ICTs in political participation has been a core topic in political communication research for about two decades. Numerous studies have tested whether the enthusiasm about the mobilizing impact of ICTs holds true. Most have been conducted in Western countries and, therefore, reflect a Western-centric understanding of politics and participation. Although these studies have provided insight into the potential of ICTs for established democracies, political and cultural contexts from developing world regions such as sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) have thus far been neglected. However, given the rapid dissemination of ICTs (e.g., mobile phones) and their innovative application in everyday life in developing countries, regions like SSA should be of particular interest for research in this field. This article aims to highlight the shortcomings of Western research and to recommend adjustments in future efforts to investigate effects of ICTs, including developing world regions, in order to develop a more robust empirical grounding for theories of participation.