Impact of ICT on Society

Harpender Thind

Candidate No: 1649

Centre No: 25280

Unit 9 Impact of ICT on Society

Task 1

Teleworking, often referred to as telecommuting, occurs where paid workers work away from their normal place of work normally the office or organization headquarters. With teleworking, they work usually from home. Teleworking allows organizations take full advantage of new technologies and new ways of working to focus on the work performed rather than on the location where it is performed. They discover first hand how it increases productivity while reducing accommodation costs, layoffs and absenteeism (of all types including during disruption due to strikes floods, snow or ice storms etc) Teleworking can benefit employees and the employers

Employees

The advantages to the employees are that it can reduce stress levels and allows them to motivate them to work in their own free space. This leads to job satisfaction leading to high quality of work and high levels of productivity. Employees can focus more as there are fewer interruptions, which allows the employees to continue to lead to higher productivity levels as they concentrate more. Employees save a lot of money which they may spend on car and car services including MOT and servicing. Most of the money is spent on petrol and food. Employees do not take a lot of personal leaves or are absent from work. Employees are much more punctual to work as they work from home. It makes it easier for employees, who travel long geographical distances to work, as they can work from home. If the employee is a single parents make it much easier for them as they can also concentrate on family and not stress a lot of about work as there is less tension about work. As employees do not travel to work there is less pollution and reduction in car emissions therefore less traffic congestion on the roads leading to less road accidents. Employees can work around new lifestyles as they can do work when they want without no supervisors. Employees, who may be disabled, can access work easily. Also employees are not exposed to office politics leading to strikes etc.

The disadvantages of teleworking for employees are that it reduces social interaction between employees as they all work from different destinations. There is a lack of professionalism between employees. There are far less career and promotional opportunities as they are no longer in the atmosphere of the office. Employees cannot be monitored no longer because it makes it harder for supervisors due to different locations of work for each individual. There is far less I.T support for workers because they are no longer in the office and lack in resources that could be finding in the workplace. Employees can become addicted to work and can affect family or life balance. Employees can be easily distracted at home as well as the office leading to less work being produced.

Employers (Company)

The advantages of teleworking to the company are that it reduces costs in many ways. The company saves cost on offices and paying for parking for each individual employee. This increases productivity and job performance allowing more profit to be made in the long term. The company also saves health care and absent day payouts for all the employees. The company saves on disabilities costs for supplying disabled works with extra facilities. Also the company saves costs on emergency disruptions like snow and other storms, power outages, floods and strikes. Travel costs are reduced for the company. The staff has flexibility over working times over peak workloads. Improvements in job satisfaction for employees working for the company lead to higher motivation to do work and to produce quality. It improves the company recruitment & retention of key employees. It reduces hiring and training costs.

The disadvantages of teleworking to the company are that it costs a lot to set up. Costs involve communication equipment, home offices and training. Costs of I.T equipment and support costs are high leading to high upfront investment. For some companies, may be harder to coordinate and control staff and monitor their performance. The main thing is that team work can be disrupted no sense of organization structure and atmosphere.

Task 2

E-mail

E-mail combines most of the best and a few of the worst characteristics of the more well known methods of communicating, including postal mail, telephone, and fax. E-mail reduces costs of fax, telephone and postal mail. As Mr. Jean does not have to communicate in these means of communication lowering costs and increasing profit margins for the company, who he works for, because he is using the cheapest and most fastest way of sending information to places around the world in seconds. A lot of information can be sent quickly because of attachments. You can attach drawings, sounds, video clips, and other computer files to your e-mail. E-mail allows you to reply immediately as it is convenient at any time. As with telephone the person may not be in or the fax machines may be turned off.

Most e-mail systems have a reply button that enables you to include all or part of the original message when you are writing a reply. This feature is a small one, but it really speeds replying to messages. In composing a letter or even when making a phone call, people spend a lot of time establishing a context for your reply. As with message sent through post they take a lot of space on desks in office. E-mail are space free and do not need hardcopy storage space as everything is saved. You can easily save thousands of e-mail messages, and you can search message files electronically. With E-mail time is saved as it is too easy to send your message to more than one person. You just type in several e-mail addresses. You can also keep address lists on your laptop or workstation, which allows quick distribution to many people, thousands even. But with other communication you have to do this individual with each client or customer.

Currently we have laptop technology to the extreme with very fast laptops that have built in DVD-RW drives also include floppy disk drives. Few years back the laptop where much larger in size and could hold limited amounts of data unlike workstations. However, nowadays the laptops have the same amount of memory as normal computers. They also have the same features, which could be found in computers including CD writer drives and USB ports. In the past laptops use to be much bigger in size and use to weigh a lot but now over the years the size of laptops and weight has decreased making it easier for users like Mr. Jean to carry laptop and portable equipment around with them while working.

Laptop in the past were much slower in loading up applications and use to take time to start up but now they are as fastest the latest computer technologies taking around less then a second to load up desktop applications and a few minutes to start up. Laptops currently have much more features then computer as they have infrared ports allowing data to be transferred from different devices such as mobiles to the laptop it self. Computer do not have this they still have to rely on the data cable being inserted in to the USB connection or Ethernet port, then allowing data to be transferred between devices.

There have been many communication technology developments over the past then years. There has been development in many types of communications including e-mail, mobile communication and other means of communication using the internet like web meetings.

This is a preview of the whole essay

E-mail has been widely use recently by people because of the internet boom allowing more people to e-mail each and as more people have got the internet more people can e-mail. E-mail has many advantages including being free and quickest way of communication as with telephone people many not be but with e-mails they are delivered to the inbox of the designated person. E-mail can allow huge data files to be attached to that can be sent at the same speed as normal e-mail with text. E-mail can be read at any time as they are convenient and replies can be sent using the internet at any time. The problem with e-mail is that they can be read by other individuals such as hackers by getting unlawful access. E-mails can restrict the size of data that can be uploaded as a attachment. Upload speeds can differ for different e-mail servers reducing the time of uploading files as attachment to e-mails.

Mobiles have developed over the last then years from huge bricks that were carried in suitcases to miniature portable phones allowing any one at any age group to use these devices for safety and communications. The mobile communication now allows people to use WAP, which is lower grade of internet where you can browse the internet and check e-mail using phones. Phones also allow communication via SMS which allow quick text messages to be sent to people all around the world averaging the cost around 10p a text message. Mobiles have many features currently which were not found few years back that include photo cameras, video cameras and games. This was merely thought of ten years before that mobile phones would have this in the future. Before mobiles use to be dull and black but over the years new type of mobiles have been developed with different shapes and coloured designed.

The disadvantages are that mobile communication can lead to cancer which is harmful to human life as radio waves can create deadly cells in the brain. This is because of to much use of the mobile phone when out and about. The use of mobile phone should be limited to reduce the risk of radiation from phone waves. Mobiles have lead to increase in street crime as people are victims of theft as more and more

The internet has allowed different types of communication to occur between people that are situated in different geographical locations all over the world. One of these different types of communication is web meetings. These allow meetings to occur between organizations using input devices such as web cameras and microphones to allow this. Organizations will use this method to reduce costs and make it easier for them to deal with clients all over the world. This can help Mr. Jean as he has clients all over the world including Australia. Net meeting will reduce costs for Mr. Jean as he would not or the company he works for will not have to pay for travel expenditure and the cost of accommodation due to the new type of communication which was not available to people few years back. The web meetings have recently been developed as internet boomed in the world as more and more people became connected to the internet and online shopping increased. Organizations start using net meeting as more and more organization start relying on websites to help them with communication between them and their customers using e-mail and online support features.

The problems with net meeting that most organizations cannot have a net meeting with other organization in a different time zone because of the time factor as offices or organization might be closed. For example a company in USA will find it hard to arrange a time to have a net meeting with an organization in Australia. Another disadvantage of web meeting is that the individuals cannot sense what other individual think via eye contact which can help them create a visible picture in their mind through body language and eye contact. One more disadvantage is that picture and sound is not transferred at the same time as some times the sound gets there quicker then the picture making it hard to understand for individuals on the other side of the workstations what is going in the meeting and what has been discussed. This would not occur in real life. However in the future developments will allow data and sound to be transferred at the same time. These features were not available in the past and are still not properly available but may be used by us in the future.

Task 3

Employee

Automotive Guided Vehicles increase the risk of employees loosing their jobs as Automotive Guided Vehicles are doing tasks what employees use to do. AGV’s are efficient and have the same output less all the time making them very constant unlike employees. They may have an off day making them produce less double glazed sheets. The AGV vehicles reduce the risk of health and safety as the machine carry goods safely because of being computer controlled. They cannot make errors commonly. However employees can be reckless and break sheets of glass and cause them self-injury or other colleagues.

Just in time production occurs when firms produce products to order instead of producing as much as they can and building up stock levels that need employees to be hired out to take care of. The extra stock would have been kept in warehouses or stock rooms this would need security and warehousing employees. However with Just in Time, these types of employee are not required because there is no excess stock to be stored or to be warehoused. The employees need to be reliable because the business does have many stock at any stage of the process, the firm cannot cope with stoppages or delays. If strikes occur, for example the whole production process stops. A business cannot supply customers using stock as none exist. Just in time relies upon employees and the company having goods relationship. The employee will need to be flexible because to ensure that the company can respond to demand. The firm will require a flexible workforce as if some one is ill another employee or worker can cover for them or if demand is high in one area other employee from another department can move around.

Company (Employer)

Automotive Guided Vehicles lead to high production control for the company. As they always work at the same rate it does not vary like real humans. Automotive Guided Vehicles will cost the company a lot of money to set up in the short run but this money will be regained in the long term as less employees will be needed to do task what the Automotive Guided Vehicles will do efficiently and keeping the same quality. The problem with Automotive Guided Vehicles is that they cost a lot of money to set up in the short term but this can be recouped over the years in the long term and allow the company to reduce costs and increase profits. The Automotive Guided Vehicles can reduce insurance costs as less health and safety risks occur with automotive machinery working with glass as employees are more vulnerable to injuring them selves while working. They have higher rates or production because they do not need tea or lunch break like employees as they can keep working through that time doing tasks what the employees would do.

Just in time has many effects on the factory where Mrs. Jean works where double glazed units are produced from glass. The company will not have to keep stock allowing them to lower warehousing costs as they may not need one part of the building and can be rented out or sold of. All of the employee in the warehousing department may be not needed thus reducing costs. As there is not stock in the factory the insurance costs will be reduced significantly. Also security costs will be reduced as security guards to guard the premises will no longer be needed. The company can focus more on the quality of double glazed being produced instead of the stock already there. The problem is costs can rise as the company does not get discounts as they do not buy glass in bulks. Suppliers can become frustrated because of reduced supplies in the quantity and can ruin relationships. Another problem is that the company making double glazed units may struggle to meet sudden major increase in demand. The factory, where Mrs. Jean works will need to be able to rely on suppliers to deliver goods at precisely the right time. They cannot afford delays as this halts production of double glazed units. Also, the glass sheets must be perfect quality as the factory has no stocks to replace the faulty glass sheets. The factory must be able to trust its suppliers completely.

Task 4

A smartcard is a credit card-sized plastic card that contains a silicon computer chip. The computer chip can store and process data about the user. Smartcard chip can store 500 times the data of a magnetic stripe card that are used for credit cards. For now, most smart cards handle a single task, such as storing electronic ''money,'' which can be downloaded from your bank account or smart card machine where money is topped up.

The smartcard chip can store large amounts of information securely in both read only and read/write formats giving the user the ability to safely add and remove data from their card as required. The smartcard chip is contained within a 'gold button', which is embedded into the card. Smart cards can be used for identification.

In the shops smart cards are very useful as they can be used for identification allowing employees passage to areas where there is high security for example the stock room where expensive goods and products are kept. Smart cards allows the shop to keep logs of which employee visited certain areas for security reasons. In the shop the smart cards can be used as identification cards for tills and room locks. Smart cards will allow the shop to see what the takings where on each till when a certain employee was at the till. Smart cards hold individual data allowing this work and benefit the company. As smart cards allow money to be topped on them they can allow the employee to buy food from the shop canteen making it easier for the staff as they do not need change or money only need the smart card. Employees in Argos, which is a catalogue retailer in the UK, use smartcards to access high security areas where stock Problems can occur if the smart card chip is damaged as it will cost a lot of money to replace and if one of the employee forgets to bring it will effect what he can do, like the tills and stockroom work can be only be accessed if they have their smart card because of security reasons. Smartcards are used by BSkyB in order for their sky digital packaged to work. Smartcard chip has information uploaded on to it with customer details and what package the customer is subscribed to. When the listings are displayed on screen it will only let the customer access the channels that they are subscribed to are included in their package and will block the customer from viewing other channels.

In the factory smart cards help a lot as they can be used for clocking in instead of using a sign in procedure. Employees can access areas using the smart card as identification where there is machinery. The identification allows security to be increased by smart cards as there is no authorized access to areas in the factory where machinery is set up. Employees do not have to bring money in to work for lunch every day because they purchase lunch using their smart cards. Smart cards speed up the queues at canteens because no change is given back. The man benefit is that smart cards are less likely to get stolen if there is a photo on the card as this can be shown as well slotted in a smart card machine when identification takes place.

The disadvantages of smart cards are that cost of the cards and dispensing systems are disproportionately high in comparison with expected revenues. Workers in the factory will not be able to purchase lunch if they have forgotten their money to top up their smart card or forgotten their smart card. Smart cards will be needed to access certain areas in the factory, so employees will not be able to do this if smart card has be left at home decreasing productivity and work.

In the future smart cards will be widely used in public places allowing people to use smart cards as identification and communicate using the smart card to ring people from public telephones instead of change. Smart cards widely being used will reduce identification fraud and crime as it will harder for people to fraud using a data chip that is more powerful then a magnetic chip, which in the future may be tracked down and traced when stolen. Smart cards will make it easier for people as they will not have to carry their wallets and will have less risk of loosing wallets as all the things the need from a wallet can be held on a card the size of a credit card. The smartcard could be used for identification and allowing purchasing of goods and services in restaurants as it can be topped up using money. In the future a smartcard can encrypt and store sophisticated identification data - for example, a numerical description of a fingerprint.

Task 5

There are many health and safety requirements relating to the use of computers for employees and the company. Employees must take responsibility for them selves and their work colleagues. Employees must use I.T equipment correctly when working as this can affect their health and safe being. Employees must make sure they can adjust brightness and contrast of screens as this can damage eye sight. They should make sure the chairs can be adjusted to own satisfaction and height. An Employee should keep its back straight as this can lead to pains and strains. Employees must make sure they use workstations and other I.T equipment safely and correctly. Also employees must take regular breaks from using I.T equipment. Potential hazards must be reported to senior member of the company to ensure no injuries occur to them selves and other employees. Employees can be under the risk of RSI (Repetitive Strain Injury) which is caused mainly be keyboards because they do not have the right wrist rests allowing the employees to work comfortably. To reduce the risk of RSI use of a chair that can be adjustable with lumbar support will help and avoid cramped working conditions. Employees must make sure that the monitor is at eye level and they are at the right length away from the monitor screen to protect eye sight.

The company must make sure that it provides all the employees and workers with training and instructions on health and safety. The company must make sure the location is a safe environment to work in with no cramped working conditions. The employer should make sure that all its employees take regular breaks and provide regular eye checks for them. If they require glasses, they should pay for them or contributes towards them. The company must do regular risk assessment to minimize the risks to health and reduce accidents leading to high safety. The company should make sure that lighting does not affect the computer as it can damage eye sights because of the glares. The position of equipment should be perfect allowing the monitor to be positioned for custom satisfaction. The monitor must be flicker free reducing the strain on the eye. Company should have policy where no food or drink should be eaten near electrical equipment for example workstations as this can lead to a serious breach in safety. The company must make sure that all electrical wires are safely attached and not left hanging about as some one may trip over them and injure them selves.

Task 6

The Copyright, Designs and Patents Act (1998) protects a wide range of property such as software, music, images, designs of websites, and literature. Under the act it is illegal to do many things. Betty and Daniel you must make sure that you do not copy software that is copyrighted and pass it on to your friends or other people. You also must make sure that you do not make a copy of any type of CD using a CD writer and sell it on as this will be violating the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act (1998). When ever you use and type of software to help you create the site you must make sure that you use it on the network unless the company license allows to. Software must not be rented out without the permission of the license holder. Pirated software must not be run for example when creating the website for Cyberspace Youth Group; you could use pirated Macromedia FX. This is not allowed as you can not breach the act. Software must not be transmitted over telecommunication, which creates a copy of the software or music. Companies or organizations protect the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act (1998) by printing the license agreement on the software when it is purchased by consumers. Also software for example games only work sometimes if there is a code typed in. Some programs and games only work if the CD is present in the CD-Rom drive preventing pirate copies working from desktop cracks or bypasses. Designs and Patents protect new designs and innovations from being stolen or copied and used by another organization or individual. An item that has been copyrighted will display the © symbol. Betty and Daniel you can protect your website and make sure that users do not breach the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act (1998) by displaying the ©, which will protect your web site designs and pictures and not allowing other people or other cyber groups to copy and use the images as well as the designs from your site.

A Paperless Office, Fact or Fiction?

The paperless office appears to remain more fiction than fact at the sunrise of the 21st century. As a whole, however, society stays nearly as dependent as ever on paper products.

Now there is email. When an import e-mail message arrives no one makes a hard copy for every one to read during a meeting or for example the youth group. It is easier for the e-mail to be forwarded to all 20 people making life easier and quicker and saving paper.
Reduce that pile of paper - electronic filing, imaging and e-mail - but courts and lawyers also other professions using a lot of paper in the office have been slow, if not reluctant, to embrace such innovations. What is the current status of these promises and where are those of in the legal profession going?
Will electronic filing eliminate the piles of paper on our desks? "Paperless... probably not - paper reduced... absolutely" There is a reduction in paper being used in offices because of different types communication that have been developed over the years allowing this to happen for example e-mail and SMS allowing messages to be sent to individuals quickly then memos or letters with in the organization internally.
There has been significant reduction on the level of paper being used in police stations as all criminal records are held on a centralized computer which has a database allowing police officers to access it. Also car registration details are being held on computer databases reducing space used up by filing cabinets and time consumed to find records of cars and criminals.
Paper is far too useful and satisfying to want to get rid of it. Even if we tried, we wouldn’t be successful. The ‘paper efficiency’ approach acknowledges the usefulness of paper, but recognizes that we can still use considerably less than we do now.
Increasing paper efficiency is usually quite separate from office paper recycling programs. The actions you take to do one don't help out the other. When paper efficiency is successful, there is less material to be collected for recycling (and less put into landfills as well). Recycling goals and programs need to be adapted as we reduce paper use, but recyclers understand that it is better to make less waste even when it reduces recycling.

Task 7

Book a flight

Facilities that are offered when booking a flight online for the Jean Family are that they can pay online using a credit card. All of the details inputted are secure because laws such as the data protection act. All website have to follow the regulations regarding personal data. It is a 24-hour service in case of a last minute flight you can book a flight at any time. The only tickets that are shown on the websites are flights that have tickets available to fly.

When booking online you can view all the exact details of the flight including times of departure even the accommodation details. With online booking you can compare prices from other companies and functions on the websites allow this. However this would be time consuming if the Jean family visited the local travel agent. Jean family can view different websites at the same time with more Internet Explorer windows opening allowing them to visit different companies at same time and view the availability of flights.

Other facilities available online for the Jean family are; that they may view the recent payments they have made to company if they are members of the service. Jean family can view special offers that may be available to online customers only and other additional services available to online customers like travel insurance or car hire. The Jean family does not need to wonder about any question as all booking online facilities of frequently asked questions section allowing you to check up the answers. Another facility available is email queries and contact details allowing the Jean family to contact the booking company for any other reason.

Research Sixth Form Colleges

The Facilities available on the internet to research sixth form colleges for the Jean Family include a lot of things. Sixth Form colleges can be found instantly using search engines that use working key words. There are more complex facilities on search engines such as complex search that search specific things. When the Jean Family is on the specific site that is linked to the sixth form college they have chosen they can do many things on the site. They can visit the website any time which is ideal for the Jean family as when ever one of the members has time they can research information on sixth form colleges. Many answers to the questions they may want to ask the sixth form college will be in the frequent asked question section. If the answers are not there, they then may want to contact the college using e-mail or online form that may be available on the sixth form college website.

Jean family can visit the sixth form college that they have researched using search engines as the sixth form college contact and details will be on their website.

Discuss the advantages and disadvantages of using the internet for:

The family

The advantages of using the internet for the Jean family are that it offers huge range of information which can be found easily using search engines that work using keywords. Also on the internet information is regularly updated and so the Jean family will find up to date data when researching things. When visiting websites ran by organizations you can deal with issues in real time and the Jean family gets immediate responses for e-mail queries made. The internet has data which is multimedia based including images, text and sound. It is easy for any age person to research on the internet and much faster. Also researching on the internet for the Jean family is much cheaper in the long term.

The disadvantages of using the internet to the Jean family are that it allows children to visit porno graphical websites. Also there are many website that allow pirated software to be downloaded where copyrights laws are being broken. The disadvantages of the internet that there is a lot of chat sites making it not safe for children to use the internet with out parental guidance. There are lots of websites that offer games that should be only played with parental guidance and music can be downloaded, which break copyrights laws established by record companies.

The Environment

The advantages to the environment are when using the internet are that less people use cars to visit the library meaning less dangerous gases that contribute to global warming are given of in to the atmosphere thus reducing the potential hazards of global warming.

Less people are on the roads using cars so there will be less traffic congestion. Also less greenland is being used to build library’s or research centers as people and the Jean family use the internet. As library consumes less electricity this reduces effect on the environment.

The disadvantages of using the internet on the environment are that more people use computers including the Jean family this will increase costs of electricity bills and meaning power station will be pollution the atmosphere more with harmful gases. Many people do not close there computers leading to high electricity consumption then a few libraries.

Compare booking a flight on the Internet with booking a flight using the services of a travel agent.

Travel agents are some times busy meaning resulting in waiting and costing time. However with online booking there is no need to wait as you can find flights straight away using the menus and services. With travel agents it takes more time to find flights as they do it manually using the phone or other communication equipment. But with the internet booking service it is simpler as the Jean family does not need to leave the house and can find flights using the facilities on the internet.

Travel agents sometimes book people on over booked flights. That has negative implications such as delayed flights or flight the next day. Visiting the travel agent has good implications as you have eye contact meaning you can sense the sales persons thought on holidays but with booking online there is only images and text giving the same information as leaflets. Booking online is faster and allows flights to purchase 24 hours a days using secure payment methods. Additional services are also available online as companies try to promote online purchasing but these may cost additional to buying flights from a real travel agents.

Compare using the Internet for researching sixth form colleges with manual alternative methods.

The internet is much faster to research sixth form colleges as all you do is put a keyword in to a search engine and finds results. But with manual alternative which may include ringing up sixth forms can take long and may have to wait in queues and use computerized telephone keys to access menus. Information is also up to date when researching on the internet as most sixth form colleges update sites regularly.

Jean family can research sixth form colleges using the internet 24/7. However with visits or telephone enquires there are specific times and restrictions. With visiting the colleges you receive eye to eye contact with members of the sixth form colleges which is essentials as you may get to opinions quicker but with internet research it is harder to define the truth.

Consider factors relating to levels of employment due to the growth of Internet Services.

Levels of employment of decreased because of rapid growth in Internet services because less people are required by organizations and companies to take care and manager servers and websites. However before organizations and companies’ requirement manual labour for people to assistant in actual work before the growth of internet services such as online shopping allowing goods and services to be purchased online and customers do not need to go to actual shops where actual labours was required to do stock checks and deal with customers. Nowadays the growth of internet services has reduced employment levels as people are only required in manly in fields such website and server management. Another factor is people are using more services that would require manual employment on the internet such as banking and marketing. Employment levels are down in services such as banking because people find it easier and faster as they do not have to wait in long queues to check and also banking is 24 as well as shopping so there is no restrictions on purchasing allowing consumers to buy or use services when ever. Employment has decreased therefore because of more and more people using the internet for shopping and finding easy methods of using services and less people using high street to do banking and shopping lowering company cost as they use the services of the Internet to offer there services to customers. Marketing has grown on the internet as banners can be placed on website advertising companies and goods reducing employment of people do advertising on television or on radios and reducing costs for company as this will be probably be covered under the job title criteria of website staff.