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Technology for Full Citizenship: Challenges for the Research Community
Published in Jack M. Winters, Molly Follette Story, Medical Instrumentation, 2006
Technology assessment is a form of policy analysis designed to provide information on the range of effects of a technology, e.g., social, ethical, legal, political, economic, technical, and psychological effects [5]. U.S. Congress’ Office of Technology Assessment (OTA) reports, most of which are available on the web, provide examples of highly useful, if at times dated, studies of medical technology assessment. OTA’s 1978 report entitled “Assessing the Efficacy and Safety of Medical Technology” lays out policy options as well as explores the concepts of efficacy and safety [25]. The 1982 study of technology for people with disabilities [5] and the 1985 study of technology and aging [26] are important examples of studies targeted to the populations of concern in this article. The 1982 study generated a series of sociotechnical case studies of AT products and processes.
Back to TA practice
Published in Armin Grunwald, Technology Assessment in Practice and Theory, 2018
Technology assessment needs methods for serving different functions in the assessment process: to collect data, to build models of the system under consideration, to achieve understanding of the respective situation, to organize TA-relevant communication, to mediate conflicts, to investigate environmental or other impacts, to uncover the normative structure of technology conflicts, to establish scenarios on future developments, to make value structures transparent, to analyze material and energy flows, to involve citizens and stakeholders, and so forth. The many steps to be taken in an assessment process (Sect. 4.4) imply different expectations concerning the use of appropriate methods.
The Professional Approach to Engineering Ethics: Five Research Questions*
Published in Michael Davis, Engineering Ethics, 2017
On none of these approaches is "technology assessment" (as now practiced) an important ingredient of engineering ethics. Technology assessment (as now practiced) is a way of making available to the public, government, or other non-technical decision-makers what engineers (and others who make technology) already know. Of course, engineers do routinely assess technology, that is, do consider what effect their innovations may have on workers, their employer, customers, end-users, or others. Some engineers even routinely help in technology assessment (strictly so called), providing "expertise" needed to understand how a certain technology will affect others.
The healthcare supply network: current state of the literature and research opportunities
Published in Production Planning & Control, 2020
Leonardo Marques, Marina Martins, Cláudia Araújo
After inventory management (30 studies) taking the lead as the main focus in the sample, two common threads across multiple studies are ‘technology’ (25 studies) and ‘collaboration’ (18 studies), often in conjunction. In general terms, technology is addressed by means of technology assessment and implementation, offering a guide for practitioners and academics on what and how to measure in terms of: what technology to choose according to strategy, what factors can influence the successful implementation and use of a technological tool (referring to drivers and barriers or risks both internal and external to the focal organisation), what are the desired or potential outcomes expected or achieved against the investments made to the technology acquisition and implementation. See below three examples of technology adoption:
The objects of technology assessment. Hermeneutic extension of consequentialist reasoning
Published in Journal of Responsible Innovation, 2020
The next step in the argumentation is to ask what conditions these imaginations must fulfill to become objects of TA. Not just any imagination of possible future developments will attract TA’s interest. Looking at the history and mission of TA the answer is indeed easy: these imaginations must, (1) involve relations with science and technology, and (2) demonstrate that the technologies under consideration possibly have societal meaning and significance. Public and political interest, and also TA, enter the game only if there could be some societal issues related to the technology. Therefore, the objects of TA’s assessment must show some properties, which make new and not-yet-existing technology interesting or challenging at the level of society. The combination of scientific and technological advance or projections, on the one hand, and expectations that these projections could be meaningful for the further development of society, on the other, is at the core of TA’s interest in projections of new technology. The assignment of societal significance and meaning to the envisaged future technology, in combination with its communication, emerging debates and controversies, as well as the impacts created, come within the focus of technology assessment. These assignments typically concern questions such as what might be in store for future society, which risks could emerge, what might be at stake in ethical, economic, or social respects, which consequences for the labor market could emerge, and how could individual lives be influenced.2