The Socio-technical Plan on Robotics

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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