A paper examined the issue of European Union border controls. It discussed the technologies that were deployed at the external borders, and how new technologies, such as those based on automation and biometrics, were transforming the principles behind the controls. It examined how this affected entry into the European Union, and the proposals for new technologies that were now emerging from European Union institutions.
Source: Elspeth Guild and Sergio Carrera, EU Borders and Their Controls: Preventing unwanted movement of people in Europe?, Centre for European Policy Studies (Brussels)
Links: Paper
Date: 2013-Nov
A new book examined the role and practice of education in the digital age. It said that, from a social justice perspective, the skills-based curriculum should be replaced with one that engaged with digital technologies and equipped young people with knowledge that they would be unlikely to learn outside of the school setting.
Source: Rosamund Sutherland, Education and Social Justice in a Digital Age, Policy Press
Links: Summary
Date: 2013-Nov
A survey examined awareness of issues surrounding child sexual exploitation and the roles of parents, schools and other professionals in keeping children safe. The report noted that mobile phones, rather than computers, were a primary tool used in exploitation attempts. It said that parents had a key role in safeguarding their children, and should be enabled to be more involved.
Source: Are Parents in the Picture? Professional and parental perspectives of child sexual exploitation, YouGov
Links: Report | Pace comment | NSPCC press release
Date: 2013-Nov
An article examined why academics blog. The article reported that academics were found most commonly to write about academic work conditions and policy contexts, share information and provide advice. Rather than being an attempt to expand the audience for their work, the intended audience was often other higher education staff. The article suggested that blogging academics were operating in a 'gift economy', but concluded that the context was changing.
Source: Inger Mewburn and Pat Thomson, 'Why do academics blog? An analysis of audiences, purposes and challenges', Studies in Higher Education, Volume 38 Issue 8
Links: Abstract
Date: 2013-Nov
A report examined approaches to implementing cyber security in higher education institutions. It set out challenges facing university management in evaluating and securing against the risks associated with targeted, unauthorized attempts to access digital information.
Source: Cyber Security and Universities: Managing the risk, Universities UK
Links: Report | UUK press release
Date: 2013-Nov
A report examined local authorities' approaches to, and progress in, the digital delivery of services.
Source: UKAuthority, Local Digital Today, Department for Communities and Local Government
Links: Report
Date: 2013-Oct
A report said that the potential for mainstream technology to transform the lives of disabled people remained largely untapped. Disabled people still faced a huge digital divide, and many still had to choose between expensive specialist equipment or inaccessible mainstream gadgets.
Source: Sam Jewell and Ross Atkin, Enabling Technology, Helen Hamlyn Centre for Design (Royal College of Art)
Links: Report | Scope press release
Date: 2013-Sep
A think-tank report said that the government could save as much as £70 billion by 2020 if it adopted plans to eliminate paper and digitize its activities, work smarter with fewer staff in Whitehall, shop around for the best procurement deals, and accelerate the use of data and analytics.
Source: Chris Yiu (with Sarah Fink), Smaller, Better, Faster, Stronger: Remaking government for the digital age, Policy Exchange
Links: Report | Policy Exchange press release | New Statesman report | Public Finance report
Date: 2013-Sep
A report by a committee of MPs said that the programme for extending broadband internet services to rural areas had been mishandled by civil servants. The contractor, BT, had submitted a wildly inaccurate business case, and had been allowed to exploit its effective monopoly position to the detriment of taxpayers.
Source: The Rural Broadband Programme, Twenty-fourth Report (Session 2013-14), HC 474, House of Commons Public Accounts Select Committee, TSO
Links: Report | Written evidence | Committee press release | ACRE press release | CLA press release | Countryside Alliance press release | Guardian report | Public Finance report | Telegraph report
Date: 2013-Sep
A report examined the 'digital divide'. It said that the concept had been used to justify provision of free or discounted computer equipment to school students: yet 95 per cent of households with children now had access to the internet. Only 3 per cent of young people could be described as 'non-users' (with no access to the internet anywhere), a group that was not representative of any one socio-economic class. Schemes that existed solely to provide students with free equipment were in danger of wasting resources.
Source: Alex Elwick, Kristin Liabo, Joe Nutt, and Antonia Simon, Beyond the Digital Divide: Young people and ICT, CfBT Education Trust | Kristin Liabo and Antonia Simon, Providing ICT for Socially Disadvantaged Students: Technical paper, CfBT Education Trust
Links: Report | Technical paper
Date: 2013-Sep
A report examined internet use by children aged 8 or under. There had recently been a substantial increase in internet usage by this group: but it had not yet been established whether they had the capacity to engage with the internet in a safe and beneficial manner in all circumstances, especially in relation to socializing online – either within age-appropriate virtual worlds or as under-aged participants in sites intended for teenagers and adults.
Source: Donell Holloway, Lelia Green, and Sonia Livingstone, Zero to Eight: Young children and their internet use, EU Kids Online
Links: Report | LSE press release
Date: 2013-Aug
An article examined the findings of a youth-led study into the nature and prevalence of cyberbullying in England. 35-40 per cent of the young people surveyed reported being affected by cyberbullying. The older group experienced higher levels of cyberbullying and aggressive methods, and used peer-to-peer support and independent means (such as internet provider reporting procedures) to address the problem. The younger group faced more discrete and traditional forms of cyberbullying, exhibited less knowledge about self-protection, and were more likely to seek help from parents.
Source: Saima Tarapdar and Mary Kellett, 'Cyberbullying: insights and age-comparison indicators from a youth-led study in England', Child Indicators Research, Volume 6 Number 3
Links: Abstract
Date: 2013-Aug
An audit report said that the coalition government's roll-out of 'superfast' broadband to rural areas was about two years behind its original schedule.
Source: The Rural Broadband Programme, HC 535 (Session 2013-14), National Audit Office, TSO
Links: Report | NAO press release | BBC report | Guardian report
Date: 2013-Jul
A report by a committee of MPs said that the government needed to do more to counter internet-based crime. Offences ranged from attacks on computer networks to the use of cyberspace to facilitate traditional crimes such as forgery, sabotage, drug smuggling, and people trafficking.
Source: E-crime, Fifth Report (Session 2013-14), HC 70, House of Commons Home Affairs Select Committee, TSO
Links: Report | Additional written evidence | Committee press release | ACPO press release | BBA press release | Bedfordshire University press release | CBI press release | Police Federation press release | Victim Support press release | BBC report
Date: 2013-Jul
An article examined what impact digital technologies had had in improving life chances for disabled people from deprived neighbourhoods. There was no evidence that digital and assistive technologies had any impact on reducing social exclusion for disabled people: in fact, the technologies seemed to construct new forms of disabling barriers as a consequence of the 'digital divide'.
Source: Stephen Macdonald and John Clayton, 'Back to the future, disability and the digital divide', Disability & Society, Volume 28 Number 5
Links: Abstract
Date: 2013-Jul
A new book provided a comparative analysis of inequality and the stratification of the digital sphere. It said that the 'digital divide' had the potential to replicate existing social inequalities, as well as create new forms of stratification. It examined how various demographic and socio-economic factors – including income, education, age, and gender – affected how the internet was used and accessed.
Source: Massimo Ragnedda and Glenn Muschert (eds), The Digital Divide: The internet and social inequality in international perspective, Routledge
Links: Summary
Date: 2013-Jun
An audit report said that although there was scope for greater use of online public services, there were still significant numbers of people who could not go online or did not wish to do so – either because they preferred face-to-face contact or were unwilling to provide personal information online. Government departments needed to plan for around 4 million people in England who were likely to need help in using online services.
Source: Digital Britain 2: Putting users at the heart of government's digital services, HC 1048 (Session 2012–13), National Audit Office, TSO
Links: Report | NAO press release | Labour Party press release | Public Finance report
>Date: 2013-Mar
A report said that advances in information technology opened up the potential for a 'knowledge commons' in healthcare – an open system of knowledge within which researchers, clinicians, patients, and communities could be involved in capturing, refining, and utilizing a common body of knowledge in real time.
Source: John Loder, Laura Bunt, and Jeremy Wyatt, Doctor Know: A knowledge commons in health, National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts
Links: Report
Date: 2013-Mar
A new book examined the extent to which socio-economic structures and institutions changed under the influence of new technologies.
Source: Ulrich Dolata, The Transformative Capacity of New Technologies: A theory of sociotechnical change, Routledge
Links: Summary
Date: 2013-Mar
A new book examined public resistance to technological developments (drawing on the examples of nuclear power, information technology, and genetic engineering) and how resistance contributed to efficient and sustainable developments.
Source: Martin Bauer, Atoms, Bytes and Genes: Public resistance and socio-technical responses, Routledge
Links: Summary
Date: 2013-Mar
A new book examined the legal regulation of new health technologies in Europe. It considered the roles of risk, ethics, rights, and markets. New health technologies promised improved quality of life for patients suffering from a range of diseases, and the potential for the prevention of incidence of disease in the future. At the same time, new health technologies posed significant challenges for governments, particularly in relation to ensuring that the technologies were safe and effective, and provided appropriate value for (public) money.
Source: Mark Flear, Anne-Maree Farrell, Tamara Hervey, and Therese Murphy (eds), European Law and New Health Technologies, Oxford University Press
Links: Summary
Date: 2013-Feb
A report examined what social scientists had discovered about how people saw themselves and others, and the implications for policy. It focused on implications for: crime prevention and criminal justice; health, the environment, and well-being; skills, employment, and education; preventing radicalization and extremism; social mobility; and social integration. Over the next 10 years, people's identities were likely to be significantly affected by several important drivers of change, in particular the rapid pace of developments in technology. The emergence of hyper-connectivity (where people could be constantly connected online), the spread of social media, and the increase in online personal information, were key factors that would interact to influence identities. The increasing diversity of the population meant that dual ethnic and national identities would continue to become more common, while the gradual trend towards a more secular society appeared likely to continue. Identities could be a positive resource for social change, building social capital, and promoting well-being: but they could also have a role in social unrest and anti-social behaviour.
Source: Future Identities: Changing identities in the UK – The next 10 years, Government Office for Science
Links: Report | Summary | Background documents | British Academy press release | CLS press release | IOE press release | NSS press release | OMS press release
Date: 2013-Jan
A think-tank report said that politicians had became overly focused on broadband speeds. It called for an end to government subsidies for broadband infrastructure once existing commitments had been reached in 2015. Instead the government should focus on helping the 10.8 million people not online – half of whom were over 65 – and do more to help small businesses make the most of the opportunities presented by the internet.
Source: Chris Yiu and Sarah Fink, The Superfast and the Furious: Priorities for the future of UK broadband policy, Policy Exchange
Links: Report | Policy Exchange press release
Date: 2013-Jan