In the current global situation-burdened by, among others, a vast number of\npeople without formal identification, digital leap, the need for health\npassports and contact tracking applications-providing private and secure\ndigital identity for individuals, organizations and other entities is crucial.\nThe emerging self-sovereign identity (SSI) solutions rely on distributed ledger\ntechnologies and verifiable credentials and have the potential to enable\ntrustful digital interactions. In this human-centric paradigm, trust among\nactors can be established in a decentralized manner while the identity holders\nare able to own and control their confidential data. In this paper, we build on\nobservations gathered in a field study to identify the building blocks,\nantecedents and possible outcomes of SSI ecosystems. We also showcase\nopportunities for researchers and practitioners to investigate this phenomenon\nfrom a wide range of domains and theories, such as the digital innovation\necosystems, value co-creation, surveillance theory, or entrepreneurship\ntheories.\n
Received wisdom portrays digital records as guaranteeing perpetuity; as the New York Times wrote a decade ago: "the web means the end of forgetting". The reality however is that digital records suffer similar risks of access loss as the analogue versions they replace. Often this risk is outsourced to specialised third parties. Common use cases include Personal Information Management (PIM): e.g. calendars, diaries, tasks, etc. Frequently these are outsourced at two removes - firstly by the individual to their employer (e.g. using a company system) and then by their employer to an external provider. So enters a new risk: organisational change; by the time the information is required the organisational chain that links user to data may be broken: the employer transitions to a different provider, the employee leaves the company, the IS provider pivots to new offerings. The advent of Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) could help mitigate these risks; and has led to a re-evaluation of the relationship between data creation and ownership. Although DLT is an imprecise term, it typically involves data storage across organisationally separate entities in a cryptographically secure form; and therefore could present a partial solution to the risk. This project presents the first research that applies DLT to the field of PIM, furthering design science state of the art by a novel implementation of a calendar application on the Ethereum blockchain. It also extends current research in utilising DLT in digital preservation, namely by enacting a continuum approach within a DL that allows for transfer of ownership of digital objects as they transition from individual to collective relevance. Finally it provides guidelines for future use of DLT within digital preservation.
The envisioned embracing of thriving knowledge societies is increasingly compromised by threatening perceptions of information overload, attention poverty, opportunity divides, and career fears. This paper traces the roots of these symptoms back to causes of information entropy and structural holes, invisible private and undiscoverable public knowledge which characterize the sad state of our current knowledge management and creation practices. As part of an ongoing design science research and prototyping project, the article's (neg)entropic perspectives complement a succession of prior multi-disciplinary publications. Looking forward, it proposes a novel decentralized generative knowledge management approach that prioritizes the capacity development of autonomous individual knowledge workers not at the expense of traditional organizational knowledge management systems but as a viable means to foster their fruitful co-evolution. The article, thus, informs relevant stakeholders about the current unsustainable status quo inhibiting knowledge workers; it presents viable remedial options (as a prerequisite for creating the respective future generative Knowledge Management (KM) reality) to afford a sustainable solution with the generative potential to evolve into a prospective general-purpose technology.
Open access
Personal Information Management and User Behavior
Innovative Human-Technology Interaction
Innovative Approaches in Technology and Social Development
This demonstration presents an innovative Bluetooth blockchain payment terminal (PBT), built over an Arduino AVR processor, with a touch screen, a smartcard reader socket and a Bluetooth module. The system is bare metal, i.e. firmware's (both BPT and Bluetooth module) can be fully uploaded on-demand. The demo shows an Ethereum blockchain transaction protocol (BTP), performed between a user equipped with a BPT and a merchant using a mobile phone connected to Internet.
This workshop aims to develop an agenda within the CHI community to address the emergence of blockchain, or distributed ledger technologies (DLTs). As blockchains emerge as a general purpose technology, with applications well beyond cryptocurrencies, DLTs present exciting challenges and opportunities for developing new ways for people and things to transact, collaborate, organize and identify themselves. Requiring interdisciplinary skills and thinking, the field of HCI is well placed to contribute to the research and development of this technology. This workshop will build a community for human-centred researchers and practitioners to present studies, critiques, design-led work, and visions of blockchain applications.
Chris Elsden, Arthi Manohar, Jo Briggs, Mike Harding · 6 authors
Blockchain is an emerging infrastructural technology that is proposed to fundamentally transform the ways in which people transact, trust, collaborate, organize and identify themselves. In this paper, we construct a typology of emerging blockchain applications, consider the domains in which they are applied, and identify distinguishing features of this new technology. We argue that there is a unique role for the HCI community in linking the design and application of blockchain technology towards lived experience and the articulation of human values. In particular, we note how the accounting of transactions, a trust in immutable code and algorithms, and the leveraging of distributed crowds and publics around vast interoperable databases all relate to longstanding issues of importance for the field. We conclude by highlighting core conceptual and methodological challenges for HCI researchers beginning to work with blockchain and distributed ledger technologies.
The emergence of distributed ledger technology (DLT) based upon a blockchain data structure, has given rise to new approaches to identity management that aim to upend dominant approaches to providing and consuming digital identities. These new approaches to identity management (IdM) propose to enhance decentralisation, transparency and user control in transactions that involve identity information; but, given the historical challenge to design IdM, can these new DLT-based schemes deliver on their lofty goals? We introduce the emerging landscape of DLT-based IdM, and evaluate three representative proposals: uPort; ShoCard; and Sovrin; using the analytic lens of a seminal framework that characterises the nature of successful IdM schemes.
After its first prominent application as part of the digital currency Bitcoin, blockchain technology is gaining in popularity. It comprises a chain of blocks (the ledger) that provides a secure, immutable and auditable list of ordered records. Using both cryptography and a distributed database, once a block is recorded, it can no longer be changed. In Bitcoin's case, the ledger contains the history of all currency transactions. This paper offers a critical overview of the blockchain technology for an interaction design audience, in three parts: (1) The principles making block-chain technology possible are briefly explained using examples. (2) Specific cases such as food provenance and supply chain tracing, are used to illustrate both the wide array of possible applications and the profound implications of blockchain technology. (3) Opportunities and challenges for HCI and interaction design are discussed in the form of a nascent research agenda.
IntroductionBlockchain (distributed ledger technology) is a network software protocol that enables the secure transfer of money, assets, and information via the Internet, without the need for a third-party intermediary such as a bank (Swan, 2015). Transactions are validated, executed, and recorded chronologically in an append-only tamper-resistant database, where they remain
As drivers of human civilization, Knowledge Management (KM) processes have co-evolved in line with General-Purpose-Technologies (GPT), such as writing, printing, and information and communication systems. As evidenced by the recent shift from information scarcity to abundance, GPTs are capable of drastically altering societies due to their game-changing impact on our spheres of work and personal development.<br><br> This paper looks at the prospect of whether a novel Personal Knowledge Management (PKM) concept supported by a prototype system has got what it takes to grow into a transformative General-Purpose-Technology. Following up on a series of papers, the KM scenario of a decentralizing revolution where individuals and self-organized groups yield more power and autonomy is examined according to a GPT's essential characteristics, including a wide scope for improvement and elaboration (in people's private, professional and societal life), applicability across a broad range of uses in a wide variety of products and processes (in multi-disciplinary educational and work contexts), and strong complementarities with existing or potential new technologies (like organizational KM Systems and a proposed World Heritage of Memes Repository).<br><br> The result portrays the PKM concept as a strong candidate due to its personal, autonomous, bottom-up, collaborative, interdisciplinary, and creativity-supporting approach destined to advance the availability, quantity, and quality of the world extelligence and to allow for a wider sharing and faster diffusion of ideas across current disciplinary and opportunity divides.
Just like the personal computer revolution, it is possible that Knowledge Management (KM) will in the 21 century experience a decentralizing revolution that gives more power and autonomy to individuals and selforganized groups. Seven decades after Vannevar Bush’s still unfulfilled vision of the Memex. Levy’s scenario stresses the dire need to provide overdue support tools for knowledge workers in our Knowledge Societies, not at the expense of Organizational KM Systems, but rather as the means to foster a fruitful co-evolution. With a prototype system addressing these issues about to be converted into a viable Personal KM system (PKMS), the author follows up on recent publications and considers the impact and potential of a novel memebased approach aiming to aid individuals throughout their academic and professional life and as contributors and beneficiaries of organizational performance and in light of the anticipated next generation of KM systems. 1 A NEXT GENERATION OF KM The first generation of Knowledge Management (KM) has been described as the capturing, storing, and reusing of existing knowledge including “systems of managing knowledge like company yellow pages, experts outlining processes they are involved in, creating learning communities where employees/customers share their knowledge, creating information systems for documenting and storing knowledge, and so on. These first-generation KM initiatives were about viewing knowledge as the foremost strategic asset, measuring it, capturing it, storing it, and protecting it. They were about treating knowledge as an asset, recognizing how it influences strategy, and wanting to make the most of it by managing it properly” (Pasher & Ronen 2011). The second KM generation needs to focus on creating new knowledge and innovation, a process which starts with the “reuse or new use of existing knowledge, adding an invention, and then creating a new product or service that exploits this invention.” This process requires creativity and the awareness that old knowledge becomes obsolete. For reaping the appropriate rewards, it is essential to systematically exploit the knowledge captured and created (Pasher & Ronen 2011). In reviewing a wider range of features for the ‘Next KM Generation’ (suggested by Sveiby, Wiig, Snowdon, McElroy, Ponzi, Miles, St Onge, Allee), the identified seven key themes prioritize confirm this need, but also strongly emphasize the personal and social nature of knowledge (Grant 2008). 1.1 The Personal KM Agenda Despite these accentuations and in contrast to Organizational KM (OKM), Personal KM (PKM) has been placed historically in a narrow individualistic confinement (Cheong & Tsui 2011b). In limiting its scope, PKM has been labelled as sophisticated career and life management with a core focus on personal enquiry (Pauleen & Gorman 2011) or as a means to improve some skills or capabilities of individuals (Davenport 2011), negating its importance relating to group member performance, business processes, or new technologies. This state surprises in light of prominent past suggestions to develop a ‘Memex’ for making one’s “intellectual excursions more enjoyable” (Bush 1945), to offer assistance in allocating one’s “attention efficiently among the [emerging] overabundance of information sources” (Simon 1971), or to provide adequate organizational leadership for building, connecting, and energizing dynamic knowledge-creating environments and their expansion (Nonaka 2000). As a result, PKM remains “a real and pressing problem”, and Bush's dream of a ‘Memex’ has yet to be fully realized on a wide scale (Davies 2011). Appropriately, Wiig argues for shifting the focus of KM toward strengthening the ability of people for enabling them to act in the best interest of their enterprise and its desired strategies and performance (Wiig 2004). In this context, PKM needs more appropriately to be regarded as a bottom-up approach to KM (Pollard 2008), as opposed to the more traditional, top-down Organizational KM. As such, PKM also “goes beyond Personal Information Management” (PIM) which focusses predominantly on information processing without the emphasis on creating new knowledge (Cheong & Tsui 2011a). But, although there are many PKM tools available, “they are not integrated with each other”, and the “currently available PKM systems can provide only a partial support to knowledge workers” (Osis 2011). “While today we have many powerful applications for locating vast amounts of digital information, we lack effective tools for selecting, structuring, personalizing, and making sense of the digital resources available to us” (Kahle 2009). Meanwhile, the organizational, commercial, social and legal innovations driven by technological progress and economic pressures continue to have profound impacts. Work has suffered from a process of fragmentation which will continue to accelerate. Its implications include one’s slipping control over constant interruptions, the loss of time for real concentration, and less learning by observation and reflection (Gratton 2011). With specializations and domain-specific knowledge on the rise, peoples’ identification has shifted from their company to their profession, and vertical hierarchies and traditional career ladders have been replaced by sideways career moves between companies and a horizontal labour market (Florida 2012). The ‘Future of Employment’ study estimates 47% of the current US employment to be still at risk due to recent technological breakthroughs able to turn previously non-routine tasks into well-defined problems susceptible to computerization (Frey & Osborne 2013). What is overdue is in the opinion of the author – an innovative PKM technology to provide the means for life-long-learning, resourcefulness, creative authorship and teamwork throughout an individual’s academic and professional life and for his/her role as contributor and beneficiary of organizational and societal performance. It needs to support the notion that knowledge and skills of knowledge workers are portable and mobile and with it their options on where, how, and for whom they will put their knowledge to work. 1.2 Intents and Barriers to Overcome In Wiig’s opinion (2011), individuals need to be highly knowledgeable not only to function competently as part of the workforce, but also in their daily lives and as public citizens: “In a society with broad personal competences, decision-making everywhere will maximize personal goals, provide effective public agencies and governance, make commerce and industry competitive, and ensure that personal and family decisions and actions will improve societal functions and Quality of Life.” But, “for better performance, people must [also] be provided with resources and opportunities to do their best. They need knowledge and understanding as well as motivation and supportive attitudes.” Such resources may well be autonomous PKM capacities, networked in continuous feedback loops, where individuals are able to determine how their expertise will be used or exchanged with people, communities, or organizations close to them. Levy (2011) expects such systems nourished by the creative conversation of the many networked PKM devices to assume an elementary role that enables the emergence of the distributed processes of collective intelligence, which in turn feed them. Accordingly, he sketches a scenario which stresses the vital role of future education “to encourage in students the sustainable growth of autonomous capacities in PKM” and which envisages KM to experience “a decentralizing revolution that gives more power and autonomy to individuals and self-organized groups” (Levy 2011). Although the author concurs that PKM Systems (PKMS) are destined to become potent drivers of human development (Schmitt 2014b), an enabling technological environment benefitting such a novel solution is presently facing severe barriers wasting individuals’ time and efforts (Schmitt 2014f). The remedies have been summed up into five provisions: 1. Digital personal and personalized knowledge is always in the possession and at the personal disposal of its owner or eligible co-worker, residing in personal hardware or personalized cloud-databases. 2.