The technology which surrounds almost everyone in the modern society, affects both work and leisure activities. Technology contains information that many would rather it did not have. It influences minds in good and bad ways, and it allows people to share information which they would otherwise not be able to attain. Even if a person does not own a computer or have credit cards, there is information on a computer somewhere about everyone. The technology which is just now beginning to be manipulated and harnessed is affecting the minds of small children and adolescents in ways that could be harmful. It is affecting our immediate future. It also gives another form of communication and exchange of information which was not available before, information that is both good and bad.
Technology is one of the principal driving forces of the future; it is transforming our lives and shaping our future at rates unprecedented in history, with profound implications which we can't even begin to see or understand. Many different elements affect how satisfied we are with our lives. The impact of technology on these elements can change how safe, healthy and happy people feel.
How to overcome Barriers to Information Technology/ Information System? Here are some examples states hot to overcome these barriers.
Overcoming barriers to information
Brian Martin, The University of Wollongong
What stops timely public access to information that people need and want to know? The answer is relatively easy: a range of barriers to information access, such as bureaucratic secrecy, defamation law and corporate pressure on the media. What is the best way to remove these barriers? The answer to this question is much harder.
An information strategy is an organised way of moving towards a desirable information future, taking into account the current reality, available resources, opponents and obstacles. There aren’t many people acting on the basis of explicit grand strategies, but there are quite a few making valuable contributions. The sum total of efforts in the same general direction can be thought of as a de facto strategy.
So let’s look at some de facto strategies in the information sphere, to see what can be learned. To begin, it’s useful to spell out some specific obstacles to information access. I focus on five particular ones (Martin, 1998).
• Government and corporate influences on mass media range from heavy-handed attempts to stop stories to the subtle self-censorship deriving from a fear of offending advertisers or sources. Typical things covered up include embarrassing policy failures and corporate malfeasance. Pressure is normally applied to editors and journalists behind the scenes; this pressure is seldom justified publicly.
• Defamation law is used to stop publication of critical material about individuals and organisations. For example, politicians and entrepreneurs may threaten to sue, and seeing the costs of actual suits scares potential targets, leading to excessive caution even when defamation suits are unlikely. The stated rationale for defamation is protection of reputation, but it is far more effective as a form of censorship. Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation (SLAPPs) most commonly use defamation law (Pring and Canan, 1996).
• Intellectual property is used to restrict access to cheap copies of information and to inhibit innovation building on proprietary materials. The cost of intellectual property reduces access to databases, scientific articles, photographs and music, while worries about legal action inhibit efforts to create improved or creatively modified versions of existing works. Intellectual property is supposed to promote innovation but often slows it by creating intellectual monopolies and by reducing the "intellectual commons"—the public domain—which is the foundation for inspiration and innovation.
• Bureaucratic controls, especially in government and corporate organisations, are used to prevent disclosure of inside information. Employees know an enormous amount about corruption and bad policy but are subject to serious reprisals if they speak out. The usual rationale for organisational secrecy is efficiency; routine leaks by senior bureaucrats reveal a double standard. The power of the bureaucratic hierarchy induces conformity in most employees.
• Misleading information is produced in vast quantities by advertisers, governments and other vested interests, overloading people and making it hard to recognise what is really important. The constant diet of biased and inadequate information leads to confusion and cynicism, while independent sources of information are relegated to the sidelines. Production of misleading information is justified as freedom of speech.
Lack of adequate financial support is top IT implementation barrier.
Financial pressures are a powerful limitation on capital investment in information technology. The top three IT implementation barriers cited by 2001 survey respondents are lack of adequate financial support for IT (21%), difficulty proving IT quantifiable benefits/ROI (15%), and vendors’ inability to effectively deliver product or service to respondents’ satisfaction (14%). Although it is still a top concern, difficulty in proving ROI has decreased in significance from 22% last year.
Accessing capital and demonstrating return-on-investment are not the only challenges. While recruiting and retaining high-quality IT staff was mentioned, staffing concerns dropped for the second year in a row; only 6% of respondents cited it as a barrier, compared to 15% in 2000, and 23% in 1999.
I believe that every company has its own Information System or Information Technology Barriers, same with the company I adopted, they also facing this rampant situation in processing high technologies. Here are some obstacles in Information Management which also encountered most of the company today.
Obstacles to information sharing and their management
1. What are the obstacles to information-sharing?
Human resource problems
• Insufficient skilled management in information-gathering and retrieving information
• Insufficient trained personnel at all levels
• Insufficient communication skills
Technical resource problems
• Need for modern information systems
• Difficulties in setting up information programme
• Problems in data processing
• Technical constraints to reproducing or copying documents
• Decoding statistics collected and the structure of statistical reporting
• Time factor in the collection and updating of information
• Need for qualitative aspects of information
Physical resource problems
• Need for publishing houses
• Need for documentation centres
Financial problems
• Need for funds for processing, printing and dissemination of information
Communication problems
• Production of incomprehensible information
• Insufficient understanding of the objectives, goals and aims of programmes
• Top-down approach
• Languages: media of communication
• Information-filtering
• Untargeted information
• Insufficient understanding among interest groups
Operational problems
• Need for co-ordination and networking among professionals and educational institutions
• Need for supportive policy to release information
• Insufficient access to information source
• Confidentiality
• Redundancy of information
• Nature of policy directives
• Need for identifying sources of information
• Centralization of activities
• Need for systematic documentation
Psychological and other problems
• Need for mutual trust between professionals and administrators
• Need for trust in information-sharing
• Need for of goodwill
• Competition between organizations
• Censorship
• War
2. How can these obstacles be effectively managed?
Human resource development
• Training
• Other capacity-building
Technical resource development
• Establish documentation centre (independent non-governmental institution for processing and disseminating information ?)
• Install modern information technology
• Create database
• Encourage small-scale publishing
Physical resource development
• Improve infrastructure
• Build documentation centre
Operational improvement
• Set clear policy guidelines on information dissemination
• Encourage government to have depository laws and enforce them
• Introduce information system
• Use mass media
• Follow a bottom-up approach
• Develop grassroots level inventory of information
• Create awareness of the value of information
• Identify user information needs
• Consult target groups
• Develop target-oriented and useable information
• Develop effective system of information management and dissemination; information should be simple, understandable and manageable
• Institute efficient and effective co-ordination and networking
• Encourage a free flow of information — horizontally and vertically
Common Barriers in Information Technology
• When information technology is designed so that it does not work with assistive technology, it creates barriers to people with disabilities.
• Software that requires the use of a mouse to perform commands is inaccessible to people with disabilities that cannot use a mouse.
• A copier that has controls outside of accessible reach ranges is inaccessible for some persons who use wheelchairs.
• A computer laboratory that is located in an inaccessible building cannot be accessed by people with disabilities.
• Some of the barriers listed above are primarily the responsibility of IT vendors, but educational entities should take these barriers into account in the procurement process.
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Sources:
http://www.australianreview.net/digest/2002/04/martin.html
http://www.unesco.org/education/educprog/erd/english/wgesa/doc/ethiopia/appendice_2.htm
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