In distance education, learning often takes place without collaboration with fellow students. Hence, distance students mostly need to study on their own. The aim of this study is to enhance the quality of distance students’ learning processes. An intervention was implemented where a peer-learning structure was tested targeting students’ development of academic writing. The intervention consisted of a structure for the creation of learning spaces to enable student-driven collaboration around scientific writing assignments. Theoretically, the study adopts a sociotechnical approach, consequently assuming that the peer learning spaces are social spaces. A sociocultural approach informs the orientation of the intervention, where learning occurs through collaboration and interaction in a specific context. Three aspects of the construction of the peer learning space have been identified: the structuring, the perception, and the experience of it. Going forward, structural as well as social dimensions of peer learning and learning spaces will be investigated.

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to describe and explore the current state of internet regulation through content filters in Swedish public libraries.

Design/methodology/approach

Data was collected through an electronic survey directed to library managers of Sweden’s 290 main municipal libraries. 164 answers were returned, yielding a 57% response rate. The analysis comprises descriptive statistics for quantitative data and an activity theory approach with focus on contradictions for qualitative counterparts.

Findings

In total, 33% of the responding libraries report having content filters; 50% have not; and a surprising 18% do not know. There is a strong correlation between internet misuse and positive attitudes towards filters, and, reversely, between lack of misuse and lack of active stances concerning filters. Rather than seeing this as weakness, the authors suggest that there is strength in a context-bound flexibility open to practical experience and weighting of values, ethics, legislation and local circumstances. More troublesome indications concern the high deferral of decision-making to local authorities (municipalities) whereby libraries are left with limited insight and influence.

Research limitations/implications

The situation calls for professional organisations to address political mandate questions, and educational programs to strengthen future information professionals’ knowledge of IT in general; filter issues in specific; and local authority decision-making. The study highlights the need of adequate information professional competences and mandates to decide on and oversee internet regulation.

Originality/value

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first internationally published study on content filters in Swedish public libraries.

This article explores the legitimation of ICTs such as free public cloud services in schools. It is also known that services like these utilise user- generated data to create algorithmic identities (Cheney-Lippold 2011) for purposes not fully known. The point of departure in this study is that such practices clash with the Swedish public educational traditions because they infringe students’ privacy and are therefore problematic in relation to legal regulations that protect personal data,2 such as GDPR.

This study contributes to research on tensions between surveillance of pupils, their right to privacy, and their right to use these services (e.g. Livingstone 2016; Lupton & Williamson 2017).3 Additionally, it builds on previous research within education, i.e. educational governance and learning analytics (e.g. Edwards 2015; Edwards & Carmichael 2012; Roberts- Mahoney et al. 2016; Williamson 2016a, 2016b). Furthermore, this study complements previous research, as it explores how the implementation and use of ICTs such as free public cloud services4 have been legitimated within the Swedish educational sector (e.g. Lindh 2017).

Rapporten Skyddsvärden i vågskålen: Internet på folkbibliotek -– ideologi, juridik och praktik beskriver aktuella förutsättningar och strategier för tillhandahållande och användning av internet i svenska folkbibliotek. Rapporten bygger på en nationellt heltäckande enkät till samtliga huvudbibliotek i svenska kommuner samt ett mindre antal intervjuer med tillhörande dokumentstudie. Undersökningen har i synnerhet aktualiserats av två viktiga juridiska förändringar under 2018: inrättandet av EU:s allmänna dataskyddsförordning (GDPR) som svensk lag, samt ett tillägg i offentlighets- och sekretesslagen om utökning av tidigare bibliotekssekretess för uppgifter om lån och reservation till att även inkludera uppgifter om användares användning av informationsteknik. Studiens resultat sätts in i aktuellt biblioteksideologiskt och juridiskt sammanhang genom en omfattande litteraturstudie. Rapporten innehåller även bidrag från jurist Jonas Holm och presenterar därigenom direkta svar på specifika biblioteksjuridiska problem och oklarheter som framkommer i undersökningen, liksom en övergripande juridisk kommentar till de svåra tolkningar och gränsdragningar som uppstår i mötet mellan bibliotekets verksamhet, uppdrag och reglerande lagstiftning avseende tillhandahållande och användning av internet. Undersökningens resultat visar att användningen av internetfilter förefaller ha ökat med cirka 20 % under de senaste 20 åren, och att biblioteken i relativt stor utsträckning är utelämnade åt kommunens it-avdelningar för viktiga beslut om formerna för tillhandahållande av internet. Samtidigt framkommer att bibliotekens huvudsakliga kompetens och medvetna strategier för reglering av internet och skydd av användarnas integritet alltjämt till största delen handlar om det som syns och kan åtgärdas i det fysiska biblioteksrummet. Dessa båda tendenser samverkar till att transparensen för vad som gäller avseende villkor för internetanvändning och personuppgiftsbehandling vid tillhandahållande och användning av internet i biblioteket är mycket låg för såväl biblioteken själva som dess användare. Bristen på nationell samordning och tydliga riktlinjer för ansvarsfördelning samt formella plattformar för samverkan mellan kommun/it-avdelning och bibliotek utgör hinder för insyn, större ansvarstagande och medvetna åtgärder. Som slutsatser förordas i rapporten ökad utbildning för bibliotekarier och studenter i biblioteks- och informationsvetenskap i frågor om internet, intellektuell frihet och personlig integritet (informationsteknik och digital kompetens, datakompetens samt kritisk kompetens); ett ökat ansvarstagande från bibliotekens sida vad gäller användarutbildningar i motsvarande frågor; politisk lobbying från biblioteksrepresentanters sida för att säkra medvetenhet om bibliotekens uppdrag och vikten av tillhandahållande även av internet, samt för upprättande av likvärdiga villkor för insyn 12 och medbestämmande i kommuners och it-avdelningars besluts- och hanteringsmandat avseende internetfrågor; ökat stöd till och insatser i forskning om och utveckling av transparenta och pedagogiska gränssnitt och andra verktyg som synliggör struktur och villkor bakom internetrelaterade tjänster och verktyg för användare; samt stöd för utveckling av tydliga integritetspolicyer och användarregler för internetanknutna system och tjänster i biblioteket.

The aim of this thesis is to discuss the character, purpose, and use of the language surrounding new technology, specifically cloud computing. The thesis is situated within library and information science. Its theoretical basis and argumentation builds upon notions articulated by Berger and Luckmann (1966), known as “the social construction of reality”, and upon conceptual metaphor theory developed by Lakoff and Johnson (2003). The thesis discusses the consequences of how cloud computing is explained and legitimised by various actors, such as cloud providers, computer scientists, IT professionals, business leaders, and strategic staff in organisations that had implemented cloud services. It builds on four articles that are based on diverse empirical materials and methods.

A starting point is that IT has been talked about as neutral and unobtrusive. Instead, the results of this thesis show that accounts about IT hide its complexity both regarding its implementation and use. Talk about computing as a utility from the 1950s and forward was surprisingly precise in predictions concerning future IT. However, rather than accepting such accounts as communicating clear insights, it can be argued that this use of language led to the legitimation and institutionalisation of certain normative ways to talk about IT. The utility metaphor could, therefore, be seen as a powerful persuasive device, guiding changes in policies and investments. In today’s promulgation of cloud technologies by Google, Apple, Facebook and Amazon, the four internet giants sometimes referred to as GAFA, it is possible to distinguish the extension of the utility metaphor into images of power, choice, and a transformed life, while complexity issues are considerably downplayed.

Societies, organisations, and individuals all over the world are now, more than ever before, connected to the internet through various cloud technologies. Scrutinised in the thesis are accounts about Google Apps for Education (GAFE), a suite of cloud-based apps increasingly introduced in schools in Sweden and all over the globe. These cloud services are described as free and able to fulfil various user needs. This persuasive promulgation, together with various rhetorical strategies in their privacy policies, disguises the circumstance that Google exploits user information for its own business purposes by creating algorithmic identities of users based on individual web behaviour. With customers’ utilisation, cloud providers such as Google can act powerfully from a distance. As they develop remote control through their widespread cloud technology, they can affect individuals, businesses, and society at large. In this and other ways, IT will continue to reshape communication, the way people relate to each other, and to themselves. 

Purpose: The article explores persuasive rhetoric in the legitimization of cloud computing by critically scrutinizing metaphorical devices utilized by leaders of the cloud industry. This article introduces a critical approach to the promotion of cloud technology.

Design/methodology/approach: 13 video clips from YouTube.com were analysed, containing presentations and talks delivered by leaders of Google, Apple, Facebook and Amazon – four of the most influential companies within the IT industry, sometimes referred to as GAFA. With the help of conceptual metaphor theory, often-repeated metaphors for cloud technologies reveal what properties were promoted and hidden.

Findings: GAFA mainly used the same persuasive metaphors to promote cloud computing’s positive aspects. Potentially negative or complex issues were mostly avoided. Implicitly, GAFA exerts power through the extensive dissemination of their metaphors and these are used in order to negotiate and overcome doubts about cloud computing and related technologies.

Originality/value: This is the first study aimed at understanding the persuasive rhetoric of GAFA, seen as a uniform object of study, in the legitimization of cloud computing.

Building on conceptual metaphor theory, this article investigates and argues the importance of the utility metaphor in discussions shaping information technologies. The results reveal that the utility metaphor has been evoked in different shapes and forms continually since the late fifties relating, for example, to concepts such as Time-sharing, Computer networks, The computer grid, Utility computing, and – the contemporary metaphor – Cloud computing.