Unit 5 Discussion Board 3

The Socio-technical Plan in Robotics

Primary Response

ThienSi (TS) Le

CS875-1602C-01

Futuring & Innovation

Dr. Imad Al Saeed

 (06-June-2016)

In Unit 5 Discussion Board 3 on the topic of “Updating the Socio-technical Plan”, students are required to provide a social-technical plan to classmates for peer review. This short piece of writing summarizes the socio-technical plan in robotics and provides three bullet points for classmates to study and feedback.

A socio-technical plan of the innovation of the humanoid robotics in education is an interaction between people and technology. The socio-technical plan covers the in-depth topic that includes scope, purpose, bi-directional impact forces, methods, models, analytical plan, anticipated results, conclusion, and especially areas of future research. It was summarized and outlined as follows:

1. Introduction

Socio-technical Plan is a scheme of development that acknowledges the collaboration between humans and technology in the workplace (Long, 2013). In education, robotics can be applied to advance learning in school.

2. Scope

Robotics has implications for higher education areas (NMC 2016). Its features include:

     - Teaching: Robotics is a new growing field of higher education. Many universities offer Robotics programs in BS, MS, and Doctorate degrees.   

     - Learning: Robots have been used to train medical students and perform clinical procedures in hospital settings.

     - 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.

3. Purpose

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.

4. Supporting forces

     - Technological force: Robotics projects supported by the government.

     - Economic force: Robots for labor has productivity impact

     - Educational force: Many universities offer programs in Robotics

5. Challenging forces

     -Instilling humanoid behavior in robots is difficult

     - Robotics’ hardware is still under construction

     - Software divergence: No standardization

6. Methods

In socio-technical plan of innovating robotics, the method of Delphi technique is 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.

7.  Models

The socio-technical architecture consists of 7 layers from equipment hardware to organizations then society as shown in Figure 1 below:

Figure 1

(Source: Adapted from Saeed, 2016)

Interactive Socio-technical system is represented in Figure 2 below that shows that three primary elements, i.e., Technology, Process, and Organization, in an effective interaction in the overlapped areas.

Figure 2: A sociotechnical system works affectively in the overlapped area

(Source: Adapted from tapora.se) 

There are three models:

     - Access control model: This model includes ownership, freedom, fairness, privacy, transparency.

     - Business model: Interactions between people and robots evolves and changes gradually.

     - The cognitive model: This model shows communication between people and robots in education.

Figure 3: Cognitive process in communication between people and robots

(Source: Adapted from Whitworth, 2014)

8. Analytical plan

   The sociotechnical plan can be evaluated by

     - Verifying the conceptual framework

     - Checking hardware

     - Testing software

     - Inspect HCI (human computer interaction)

     - Examine STS (sociotechnical system)

9. Anticipated results

     - Robotics teaching program in higher education

     - Robotics’ assistance in K-12 program

     - Robotics help children in bipolar sickness in learning

10. Conclusion

     - Robotics program in higher education has grown rapidly

     - Robotics’ assistance in K-12 program is effective and in demand

     - Robotics helps bipolar children on learning better communication

       in a new approach

11. Areas of future research

     - Instilling humanoid behavior in robots

     - Robots’ hardware requires improvement in motions

     - Better software is needed in controlling intelligent robots 

     With the socio-technical plan on robotics in education presented above, four bullet points for classmates to provide inputs are:

     - What do you think about this socio-technical plan on robotics in education?
     - Is the method in this plan adequate?  

     - Are these models listed above good to represent the socio-technical plan on robotics in education?

     - Any suggestions on the analytical plan?

REFERENCES

Long, S. (2013). Socioanalytic methods: discovering the hidden in organisations and social systems. Karnac Books.

New Media Consortium, (2016). NMC Horizon. Retrieved April 18, 2016, from

http://www.nmc.org/nmc-horizon/ 

Whitworth, B. (2014). Socio-technical system design. Retrieved June 5, 2016 from 

https://www.interaction-design.org/literature/book/the-encyclopedia-of-human-computer-interaction-2nd-ed/socio-technical-system-design