A meta-study on future work in information and communication technologies

Abstract

Not only have Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) advanced in rapid succession, but society has embraced these developments and implemented them in daily life. This adoption has not only affected our way of conducting routine activities, but also significantly modified the way we do things as well as the things we now do. At this junction, rather than how engineering should improve ICT, the appropriate question seems to be “what should ICT engineers focus on? This question involves not only the prediction of future trends, but core engineering ethics, since any new ICT development is likely to affect societal activity. We present a recent study where we developed an approach to predict future trends and use it to guide our research plans. In that sense, the current study is a meta study, that is, a study to reveal what and how we should conduct future studies.