In a center for mentally challenged people, a decision was made to monitor each individual person using wireless devices. Can you comment on the relative advantages and disadvantages of such an infrastructure?

Question

What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

Conceivable wireless system advantages:
(a) The advantage of using checklists on computers is that they can be done individually. The information on the list is specific to a particular person. The checklist forces the user to think through factors that otherwise might be considered uninteresting. This relieves the memory load.
(b) These systems demand that one states concepts and methods clearly. You have to be specific what you mean by different expressions. This results in all who work in the residence having a common base to start from.
(c) By expressing thoughts in plain, clear language, they are easy for all to understand and use as topics for discussion.
(d) The system is educational. New employees can benefit from the knowledge that an experienced care provider or the relatives have accumulated over a long period of time.
(e) Such system can continually be improved through the addition of new information. We can gain from the knowledge of others and do not have to start all over.
(f) Important information is collected in one place. This is much easier than having to look through different files or talk to different people.
Conceivable wireless system disadvantages are:
(a) The gathering of so much information about a person in such an accessible format can be seen as an invasion of privacy.
(b) Instead of using the program as a support and intellectual reinforce, the staff instead interpret the system’s statements as truth.
(c) That the system gives such elementary decision-making suggestions that it is considered useless.
(d) That it is perceived as being so di¢ cult to add new information that it cannot be depended on to be up-to-date.
(e) The system forces one to formalize knowledge that it is really impossible to formalize. Fewer contacts are needed with specialists who have approaches that differ from the expert systems.