Unit 5 Individual Project
The Socio-technical Plan on Robotics
ThienSi (TS) Le
Colorado Technical University
CS 875-1602C-01
Professor: Dr. Imad Al Saeed
12-June-2016
The dynamic and
energetic world has constantly changed and intertwined rapidly with full
uncertainty and chaos. It is almost impossible to predict the different future
from the known present. In an aggressively competitive business environment,
many organizations realize that innovation of the existing systems with the
interaction between humans and technology such as robotics in the socio-technical
process and system is important in business, particularly education in
computing world as shown in Figure 1 below.
Figure 1: Socio-technical plan in the flower of
computing
(Source: Adapted from www.interaction-design.org)
This paper is Unit
5 Individual Project that will describe a socio-technical plan in robotics in
eleven sections in depth. Notice that a reference bibliography will be provided at the end of this document.
I. Introduction
II.
Scope
III.
Purpose
IV.
Supporting Forces
V.
Challenging Forces
VI.
Methods
VII.
Model
VIII.
Analytical Plan
IX.
Anticipated Results
X.
Conclusion
XI.
Areas of Future Research
References
I. Introduction
Social-technical
plan in organizational development is a scheme of arrangement and process
of complex work design that employs the interaction between humans
and technology in the workplaces (Long, 2013). The social-technical system
refers to the interaction between complex infrastructures and human behaviors.
It is about joint optimization such as interrelatedness of social and technical
aspects of an organization or the society as a whole (Trist, & Bamforth,
1951). In education, many academicians and higher education leaders usually
address using technologies to advance learning and creative expression. One of
the technologies is robotics that can be applied
in a socio-technical system for the educational purpose.
II. Scope
New Media
Consortium (2016) predicts that
robotics can be used in higher education to assist students to become better
problem solvers in the next five years.
Humanoid robots can interact and assist learners in disorder or people with
disability to develop well-behaved social skills and better communications in a
sociotechnical process.
Robotics has
direct implications for higher education areas:
- Air traffic management targets safer drone air traffic (NMC Horizon,
2016).
- Annual robotics law and policy conference hosts conversations between
designers, builders, manufacturers on the legal and social structures. (NMC
Horizon, 2016).
- Multiple disciplines on autonomous mobile robots in mechatronic systems
are provided to students for engineering
study (NMC Horizon, 2016).
While robots become
popular in demand in industry, robotics provides many compelling
features. Some typical features are (1) teaching,
(2) learning, and (3) creative inquiry.
(1) Teaching:
Bachelor’s, master’s, and doctoral degree programs
in healthcare robotics in the US universities such as Emory University, Georgia
Institute of Technology, etc. with National Science Foundation (NSF)’s
initiative.
(2) Learning:
Robots have been used to train medical students
and perform clinical procedures in hospital settings.
(3) Creative inquiry:
Robotics research conducted a creative inquiry
such as social skills in using robots to enable children to communicate each
other, creating curriculum modules for math and science teachers in middle
schools.
Except for the enlightening features, robotics has several
limitations. Some typical limitations are:
- Robotics’ applications such as humanlike robots have hurdles due to
the complexity of the human system. For
example, human’s intellectual asset is difficult to transform into machines such as humanoid robots.
- Even though applications of
the robots gain more momentum in progress, robotics’ hardware is still in a
developing stage.
- Robotics software is diverse.
There are many kinds of robotics software in various platforms that rely on
many divergent manufacturers. There is no standardization in robotics
software.
III. Purpose
The aspect of
robotics becomes more practical and less futuristic than ever. Robots that are
recently less clumsy, more humanlike and sophisticated, can perform a useful,
complex and dangerous tasks (Picard, 2016). The
purpose of the study of the advancing robotics between humans to technology
(i.e., robots) in socio-technical plan is to infuse more humanlike behavior in
machines to adapt or accommodate human needs and demands in many fields such as
manufacturing, healthcare, mining, defense, security, transportation,
securities, home appliances, particularly education in using affective
computing in robotics design that balances emotion and cognition.
Figure 2: Robot and human in collaboration and
interaction
(Source: Adapted from http://venturebeat.com/tag/robotics)
IV. Supporting Forces
The
integration of robots into the industry such as automotive, healthcare
transportation, education, etc. impacts business model and economies globally.
The socio-technical plan of robotics in education is driven by many forces such as technological, economical,
societal, educational strength. Three typical driving forces are discussed as follows:
- Technological force
The
Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has funded many projects in
the robotics field. Many universities such as UC Berkeley, Carnegie Mellon
University, MIT, etc. increase their research and development effort in
robotics. For example, scientists who are inspired by the human brain are able to program a robot based on neural
circuitry (The New York Times, 2016).
- Economical force
Proponents such as
economists, social scientists, and futurists are fascinated by robots for
labor. International Federation of Robots in a study between 1993 and 2007
found that robots made a great impact on productivity. Robots have replaced
low-skilled workers, increased production for factories, and generated new jobs
for other high-skilled workers (Rotman, 2015).
- Educational force
Since
popular demand of robots in industry, many higher education institutions
Have developed bachelor’s,
master’s, and doctoral degree programs in healthcare robotics at Georgia
Institute of Technology, air traffic management system for safer drone air
traffic, robotics engineering technology program at University of California,
etc. These programs imply educational
force on robotics in practice (NMC Horizon, 2016).
V. Challenging Forces
In
parallel with the amenable and supporting forces, the innovation of robotics
encounters some challenging forces. For example, the limitation of development
in robotics includes:
- Instilling more humanoid
behavior in robots is difficult and sophisticated because of the complexity of
the human system.
- Robotics’ hardware such as arms, legs, microprocessors, etc. for
motions is still gradually under development.
- Divergence in robotics software in various platforms is another
challenging force for integration between robots manufactured by different
vendors in many countries. There is no availability of the Robotics software’s
standardization today.
- Manufacturing customized robots carries higher price tags and requires
more funding as well as research.
VI. Methods
Group decision
making is a participatory process for multiple participants who collect
information, analyze problems or situations, weigh courses of actions, and
select the best solution. The number of participants in group making-decision varies
differently, typical from 5 to 10 persons. Decision-making groups may be
formal, informal with a specific goal. The process used to arrive at decisions
may be structured or unstructured. Time pressure or conflicting goals that are
external contingencies impact the development and effectiveness of
decision-making groups (Office of Student Programs, 2011). There are four
typical group decision-making methods. They are brainstorm, dialectical
inquiry, nominal group technical, and the Delphi technique (Barnett, 2016). The
Delphi technique is a group decision-making process that can be used by
decision-making groups when the individual members are in different physical
locations. It was developed by RAND Corporation
in the 1950s. A member of the Delphi group is
selected due to his/her expertise on the problem. A facilitator asks
each member independently to provide ideas, input to the problem in successive
rounds, typically three rounds. For example, this forecast method is applied by
a facilitator bases on the results of questionnaires sent to a panel of experts
via e-mail, fax, or online discussion forum. Each round the responses is ranked
or rated in some order. The group arrives at the consensus decision on the best
course of action (RAND Corporation, 1950). Nominal group technique is a structured decision-making process. Members
are required to compose a comprehensive list of their ideas in writing. Group
members record their ideas privately. Each member will provide one item on a
flip chart or marker board. Once all proposals are listed publicly, the group
engages in a discussion of the listed alternatives, which ends in some form of
ranking or rating in order of preference.
In
the socio-technical plan of innovating
robotics, two methods can be used: (1) Delphi technique, and (2) Nominal group technique. They
are chosen because of the rationale
below:
- A socio-technical plan is complex and intensive. It requires highly
skilled members who are likely located in
different physical locations.
- A member of the Delphi group is
selected due to his/her expertise in robotics and education.
- A facilitator asks each member independently to provide ideas, input
to the problem in successive rounds, typically three rounds.
- The group arrives at the consensus decision on the best course of
action.
- The nominal group technique
overcomes individuals' reluctance to share their ideas in the prohibition against criticizing proposals as they are presented.
- The nominal group technique succeeds in generating a greater number of
decision alternatives that are of relatively high quality.
VII. Models
Similar to the open source operating systems’
architecture, the sociotechnical architecture consists of seven layers
(Sommerville, 2013). Its foundation is the hardware that includes all equipment
such as servers, host computers, LAN, WAN, etc. in the first layer at the
bottom. Operating systems (OS) such as Microsoft Windows 10, UNIX, Mac 08 X,
Novell NetWare, BSD, etc. that are system software to manage computer hardware
and software resources and provide common services for programming are located in the second layer. Other layers,
e.g., communications and data management, applications system, business
processes, organizations, and society, are stacked above the OS layer. These
layers are combined and overlapped for system engineering and software
engineering as shown in Figure 3 below:
Figure 3
(Source: Adapted from
Sommerville, 2013)
Interactive Sociotechnical
system, in general, comprises three primary elements: (1) Technology, (2)
Organization, and (3) Processes. Technology includes plant, and
equipment, e.g., robots; Organization
provides roles, relationship, leadership, competence, and culture; Processes
include procedures, risk assessment, and
communications. They are inter-related,
mutually overlapped as shown in Figure 4 below:
Figure 4: A sociotechnical system works effectively in the overlapped area
(Source: Adapted from tapora.se)
The socio-technical system may consist of three models to perform different tasks (Whitworth, & Ahmad, 2014):
- Access control model:
This model bases
on several requirements such as ownership, freedom, fairness, privacy,
transparency for robots design and smooth operation.
- Business model:
The business model
is the interactions between people and robots that evolve and change gradually.
- The cognitive model:
This model shows
communication between people and robots in education in the cognitive processes
as presented in Figure 5 below:
Figure 5: Cognitive
process in communication between people and robots
(Source: Adapted from
Whitworth et al., 2014)
VIII. Analytical Plan
The socio-technical plan on robotics in
education is complex and sophisticated. It can be evaluated by several methods
as shown below:
1. Framework:
The conceptual framework of the
organizational change should be carefully studied in mapping robots and
education needs, sharpening the focus, providing direction of analysis, etc.
Verifying the conceptual framework will guide the plan toward the best outcome
results.
2. Architectural hardware:
Socio-technical system, which includes equipment, computers, robots,
etc., needs
complex processes to control robots. Checking the system hardware
robustly is an extremely important requirement for
many step-by-step procedures.
3. Robotics software
Assume that OS software
is in a good shape because it has been used
for many years. Robotics software is
novel and likely contains many errors and defects. A thorough test plan of
robotics software and hardware must be developed and performed at multiple
stages that consist of design (alpha), test (beta), quality assurance,
deployment, support, and training stages.
4. Human-computer interaction (HCI) is a process that provides the
interdependency between humans such as
students, administrators, etc. and robots as computing artifacts.
Testing HCI is required to ensure
that the robots and users in interactive mode properly and appropriately.
5. Sociotechnical system (STS)
is a network combination of interrelated and interacting entities that includes
people and robots. STS is often complex and sophisticated. Examining and
testing the STS is the vital tasks for the successful socio-technical plan.
IX. Anticipated Results
With the socio-technical
plan and STS on robotics in education, the project may start in a small school
district at a small-scale model. Data,
information, and feedback from higher education leaders, administrators,
students, and technical support groups, etc. will be recorded and collected for
further study and improvement. The social impact of the change will be imminent due to the innovation
of the existing school system (NMC, 2016). The socio impact of change can
affect many areas as shown in Table below:
Table: The socio impact of change
|
Levels
|
Disciplines
|
Examples
|
Community
|
Sociology
|
Laws, culture, sanctions, norms, roles
|
Personal
|
Psychology
|
Semantics, attitudes, beliefs, feelings, ideas
|
Informational robotics
|
Computer science
|
Programs, data, bandwidth, software
|
Mechanical
|
Engineering
|
Hardware, robots, servers, etc.
|
1. Robotics teaching program
in higher education
As robots take a greater
role in STS, many universities will follow the robotics programs from leading
MIT, Georgia Institute of Technology, etc. to train students to engineering innovative designs. Bachelor’s,
master’s, doctoral degree programs will grow rapidly. The National Science
Foundation (NSF)’s initiative covers a range of disciplines in practice such as
air traffic management system for safer drone air traffic, robotics law, and policy, autonomous mobile robotics,
etc. All activities will make a huge
impact on society, economy, human, business, industry and education.
2. Robotics’ assistance in
K-12 program
In a smaller scale such
as the K-12 program in the school district, robots will help teachers to
expand learning environment. For example, robots can create curriculum modules
for math and science teachers in middle schools. Technical groups can be
established in schools to generate and support robotics activities. Robotics’ assistance
in the K-12 program will make an impact on human (students), education, and
society.
3. Robotics helps children in
bipolar sickness in learning
Playful
robots in language practice for children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD)
will aid children with ASD to improve communication in the interaction between robots and the learners.
This activity will also make an impact in education and society.
X. Conclusion
With the aspect of humanlike robots, the collaboration
between people and robots becomes prominent and projecting. Robots are able to complete the required set of
planned tasks. The socio-technical plan on robotics in education is another
further step to impact everyday life in economic, industry, business, society
and particularly education.
In finding ways of using socio-technical plan and STS in organizations,
sociologists concerns about the quality of working life, job satisfaction, and
worker democracy. The socio-technical plan and system have a big contribution to make in applications of
robotics in organizations. They are diffused within the organizations and
society as follows:
1. In organizations where the
applications are made, the staff people
have challenging jobs. They are not looking for jobs but rather looking for STS
that will help them cope without additional bureaucratic barriers.
2. There is one class of
employees that needs to work on job design, and job satisfaction remains
important. These are white collar people whose good job design is needed in the applications.
3. The socio-technical plan will
get more intention and STS will be in demand because it is a game changer. The
socio-technical plan and system are a transformational
approach that takes machines or technological artifact (e.g., robots, robotics)
from ordinary to exceptional to accommodate human’s needs.
4. The socio-technical plan on
robotics is assimilated into the
existing school system, and the need for
organizational change emerges over time as the assimilated process reveals
problems and opportunities.
5. The socio-technical plan
and system on robotics endure relevance
and interdependencies between people and technological artifacts (robots).
6. It is useful to realize
that adoption of the resource utilization of the current working
socio-technical system by taking advantage of the availability of the human and technical resources for the
new socio-technical plan.
7. With the anticipated result, the robotics program has
grown rapidly in higher education. The degrees in robotics will help the
graduates to get good jobs and good pay when the socio-technical plan and
system expand in other fields such as healthcare, mining, mine demolition, defense,
business, etc.
8. With robotics’ assistance
in a K-12 program that is effective and
in demand, the socio-technical plan will be adopted by other school districts
and become virally nationwide.
9. As anticipated outcome, robotics helps bipolar children on learning better
communication in the
socio-technical system. The program will take off and expand to other areas.
In conclusion, the sociotechnical plan in
innovation on robotics in education will make a significant contribution to
technology, economy, culture, humanity, and society. The forces that impact the
trend and the technology are technological, cultural, human, and societal. Innovating
robotics in education becomes an advanced technology and impact trend in the machine
and human interaction for human benefits in the socio-technical process.
XI. Areas of Future Research
Inspiring from the
imaginary robot characters such as C-3P0, R2-D2 or Terminator from the films
industry (Lucas, n.d.; Cameron, n.d.), robotics is
chosen for educational technology for
a future adoption. It is a concept of creating autonomous machines to
mimic human behavior and often manage dangerous tasks (Dobson, 2015). Robots
were developed along with Artificial Intelligence to deploy in factory assembly
line to increase productivity in the automotive
industry in early years. Integration of robots has, today, expanded in many
fields such as manufacturing, healthcare, mining, defense, security,
transportation, home appliances, etc. NMC (2016) predicts that robotics can be
used in higher education to assist students to become better problem solvers in
the next five years. Humanoid robots can
interact and assist learners in disorders or people with disability to develop
well-behaved social skills and better communications in a sociote-chnical
process.
1. Humanoid robots
Instilling humanoid behavior in robots is a
complex and difficult task that involves both hardware and software. In
hardware, a robot is an intelligent
machine that can act similarly as a
portion of the human. Notice that human
is a complex and unique system that consists of physical body and sophisticated
emotional mind. Replicating a robot acts like
a human is still a big challenge to the community
of robotics scientists and engineers.
2. Robots’ hardware
To be humanlike robots, the robot hardware requires improvement in
motions. A movement of hands, legs, head, body, etc. all requires a
breakthrough design to handle a heavy
load to delicate jobs. The hardware with interconnected parts should be
durable, sturdy, and inexpensive. The design
of robot’s hardware is another challenging task.
3. Robots’ software
The robotics software is complex and interdependent
in applications. Most of the robotics software
are customized and designed under different platforms by various manufacturers.
Since robotics software is still in development stage, it is still divergent.
There is no standard software or platform available. Maybe it is a time to call
an international conference for robotics software standardization to provide
guidelines, regulations, rules, laws for manufacturers, vendors in robotics. Better
software is still in need for controlling
intelligent robots.
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