Tendani Mawela

Achieving blockchain interoperability is a complex process for many organisations seeking to use the technology to augment business processes. The novelty of blockchain technology introduces new challenges that cannot be effectively addressed with contemporary interoperability approaches, and blockchain-centric interoperability tools, methods, and frameworks that support organisations are scarce. Therefore, there is a need for blockchain-specific frameworks and solutions to be developed. This study addresses this gap by exploring blockchain interoperability from an enterprise perspective. The study adopted the design science research approach and was informed by multiple data collection points, including systematic literature reviews, qualitative interviews with blockchain experts, and industry webinars. The research, underpinned by the General Systems Theory, developed and evaluated a blockchain interoperability framework within the context of the banking industry. The results emphasised the importance of a clear blockchain use case, understanding the goal for adopting blockchain, and defining the scope of interoperability, understanding systems, data, and compliance with regulatory frameworks as key elements that inform the blockchain interoperability approach. The study makes a theoretical and practical contribution through the comprehensive Enterprise Blockchain Interoperability (EBI) framework and guidelines. The EBI framework can be used as a guide and reference point for blockchain practitioners and organisations to guide the decisions regarding the process of interoperating blockchain technology with existing organisational processes and systems. The EBI framework and design guidelines were evaluated and validated by blockchain experts, pointing to their utility for enterprises that are considering integrating blockchain systems.

The older adult population is growing in South Africa. However, it is reported that approximately only 3.6% of older adults use the Internet. Using information technology resources and the internet can enable older adults to be independent for longer, and the internet may improve older adults’ quality of life. Additionally, access to technology and the internet supports access to information and digital inclusion. This study investigated older adults’ level of internet skills in South Africa and their experiences regarding internet use. The research followed a positivist, quantitative approach and used online questionnaires for data collection. The results showed that older adults appear to be lacking in internet skills in South Africa. The overall mean scores were low, where mobile skills seemed to be the lowest-rated skill for the respondents. The evaluation also showed that online operational and creativity skills appeared low for older adults.

Background: The use of social media platforms to seek information continues to increase. Social media platforms can be used to disseminate important information to people worldwide instantaneously. However, their viral nature also makes it easy to share misinformation, disinformation, unverified information, and fake news. The unprecedented reliance on social media platforms to seek information during the COVID-19 pandemic was accompanied by increased incidents of misinformation and disinformation. Consequently, there was an increase in the number of scientific publications related to the role of social media in disseminating health misinformation and disinformation at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. Health misinformation and disinformation, especially in periods of global public health disasters, can lead to the erosion of trust in policy makers at best and fatal consequences at worst. Objective: This paper reports a bibliometric analysis aimed at investigating the evolution of research publications related to the role of social media as a driver of health misinformation and disinformation since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. Additionally, this study aimed to identify the top trending keywords, niche topics, authors, and publishers for publishing papers related to the current research, as well as the global collaboration between authors on topics related to the role of social media in health misinformation and disinformation since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. Methods: The Scopus database was accessed on June 8, 2023, using a combination of Medical Subject Heading and author-defined terms to create the following search phrases that targeted the title, abstract, and keyword fields: (“Health*” OR “Medical”) AND (“Misinformation” OR “Disinformation” OR “Fake News”) AND (“Social media” OR “Twitter” OR “Facebook” OR “YouTube” OR “WhatsApp” OR “Instagram” OR “TikTok”) AND (“Pandemic*” OR “Corona*” OR “Covid*”). A total of 943 research papers published between 2020 and June 2023 were analyzed using Microsoft Excel (Microsoft Corporation), VOSviewer (Centre for Science and Technology Studies, Leiden University), and the Biblioshiny package in Bibliometrix (K-Synth Srl) for RStudio (Posit, PBC). Results: The highest number of publications was from 2022 (387/943, 41%). Most publications (725/943, 76.9%) were articles. JMIR published the most research papers (54/943, 5.7%). Authors from the United States collaborated the most, with 311 coauthored research papers. The keywords “Covid-19,” “social media,” and “misinformation” were the top 3 trending keywords, whereas “learning systems,” “learning models,” and “learning algorithms” were revealed as the niche topics on the role of social media in health misinformation and disinformation during the COVID-19 outbreak. Conclusions: Collaborations between authors can increase their productivity and citation counts. Niche topics such as “learning systems,” “learning models,” and “learning algorithms” could be exploited by researchers in future studies to analyze the influence of social media on health misinformation and disinformation during periods of global public health emergencies.