Research

Value creation is at the core of every organization. Innovative utilization of digital technologies not only enhances processes, efficiency, and creates new value, but also has the potential to disrupt entire industries by rendering some traditional value chains obsolete. Research at the MDTRC aims to investigate how digital technologies can transform the ways value is created in organizations of all sizes, at all stages of maturity, and across a broad spectrum of industries.

Adoption of new technologies is an ongoing challenge for individuals and organizations. Research at the MDTRC will explore key enablers of and barriers to Information and Communication Technology’s (ICT’s) adoption, taking into account individual, organizational, technology, and contextual variations.

Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) have become essential to many contemporary professional, educational, and personal activities, with obvious transformational implications for the way individuals interact, communicate, and collaborate with each other. Research at the MDTRC focuses on understanding and enhancing users’ experiences as they interact with various ICTs in different social, educational, and professional contexts.

The digitization and networking of information and systems in the healthcare industry had a tremendous impact on all stakeholders. Understanding these impacts and appropriate applications of emerging technologies is critical to the effective management of numerous healthcare market segments.

Effective decision making is a key success factor for organizations. With the advent of the Internet and “Big Data”, decision makers face an overabundance of information as they search, process, integrate, and contextualize information from a wide variety of sources. As a result, decision makers may settle for suboptimal decisions based on their intuition, as opposed to evidence, to reduce their cognitive burden.

Virtual and Mixed Reality systems are increasingly becoming more economical and powerful with time. They hold the potential to disrupt our personal and professional lives by changing the way we almost everything. Research at the MDTRC investigates the innovative application of Mixed Reality in various professional and social contexts to enhance communication, collaboration, and productivity.

Due to the pandemic, most educational institutions around the world were forced to quickly implement online learning tools.  Research at the MDTRC seeks to understand how online learning differs from traditional classroom learning with an emphasis on the drivers for student engagement.  For example, gamified learning systems are explored for their potential to enhance learning outcomes across various contexts. 

Older adults are the fastest growing segment of the population but the challenges they face when using technology are typically overlooked. The natural process of aging is associated with declines in several cognitive and physiological abilities that puts older adults at a significant disadvantage when engaging with technology. Research at MDTRC closely examines how aging impacts the User Experience (UX) of older adults and how user interfaces can be better developed to remove barriers.

Digital communication technologies have great potential to enrich and transform our personal, professional and educational lives.  However, these benefits or bright sides come with dark sides where IT can be misused, become a threat or cause harm. For example, researchers at MDTRC explore technology addiction, technostress, cyberbullying, negative health outcomes of technology use, cybercrime victimization, and misinformation, with the aim to provide support and mitigation strategies.