Integrated Professional Skills in the Digital Age

This report discusses the positive and negative aspects of individuals and businesses being online and offline. It also covers the challenges and measures of security and privacy in the digital age. Additionally, it explores the difference between a blog and a website and provides information on tools to create a blog.

Integrated Professional Skills
in the Digital Age

Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................1
Compare and contrast between the positive and negative aspects of an individual and
businesses being online and offline........................................................................................1
Challenges and measures of security and privacy that individuals and businesses take when
they go online.........................................................................................................................1
How is blog different from a Website and discuss different tools that could be used to create a
blog.........................................................................................................................................2
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................4
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................5

INTRODUCTION
Integrated professional skills are defined as the career competencies which are not often
taught as a part of their learning required to earn employability. Information and communication
technology skills are about knowing and applying various computer programs and other
applications (Baker and et. al., 2016). These skills are important as it will help individuals as
well as businesses to manage, analyse as well as transmit huge amount of data. This report
covers positive and negative aspects of businesses and individuals of being online and offline
along with the challenges and measures of privacy and security that businesses and individuals
take when they go online. At last, the way blog is different from website is discussed along with
the different tools that can be utilised to create blog.
MAIN BODY
Compare and contrast between the positive and negative aspects of an individual and businesses
being online and offline
Positive aspects of an individual being online:
Internet and social media provide an individual with various benefits as well as
opportunities to empower themselves in different ways. By being online, individuals enable to
maintain support networks and connections which otherwise will not be possible. Buy being
online, the enable to access more amount of data information which helps them in learning new
things. The utilization of networking services and social media like Instagram, Facebook, Twitter
etc. have become crucial part of the daily lives of individuals. Being online help individuals in
learning many new things, identity formation, facilitate supportive relationship and promoting a
sense of self-esteem and belongingness (Blaschke, 2018).
Negative aspects of being online for individuals:
Apart from the positive aspects, there are some negative aspects also of being online for
individuals. Sometimes, constant online presence of an individual makes them feel worse
regarding their own life. Individual sometimes choose wrong path by influencing with others
which negatively impacts their lives. Addiction to social networking sites can disrupt the life of
an individual both professionally as well as personally. Apart from this, easy availability of
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inappropriate or illegal materials on websites that is not suitable for individual will impact
negatively on the behavior and personality of individual.
Positive aspects of an individual being offline:
There are various benefits for an individual of being offline. Going offline will make an
individual feel relaxed and helps them in sleep better. Staying offline can also enable an
individual to emphasize more on the important things only (Farisi, 2016). It also saves lots of
time of an individual as the people who are addicted to use social media are spend more time
online due to which they are not able to complete their other tasks on time. But by being offline,
individuals can save their lots of time and enable to complete all the important tasks on time.
Negative aspects:
Along with the advantages, there are some disadvantages also for an individual of being
offline. People who are not using social media or other online platforms may have less
knowledge regarding what is going on in the world. They are also not able to develop more
networks with other people which may develops a sense of loneliness among them. Moreover,
the individuals who are being offline have less knowledge about new technologies and
innovations.
Positive and negative aspect for business of being online:
An enterprise or organisation engaged in industrial, professional, or commercial activities
is referring to business. It is also referring to collective efforts and activities of beings to produce
and sell outputs and services for maximum profit (Goldie, 2016). It is also known as e- business.
Any type of business activity which happens online is called online business. An owner of
business does anything or all of their business on internet, is called to be an online business.
Wide variety of business prevails over internet.
Business can be done in two ways-
1- online business
2- offline business
Both has positive aspect and negative as well which are discussed below-
The benefits of having business online-
 Global access- 24/7 access: It is the most advantageous point of online business. The
world is full of technology nowadays. An organisation can easily run a business online in
today's world and where it wants.
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 Client service has improved due to greater flexibility which is beneficial for organisation.
Customer prefer to visit website more rather than visit in person and customers also find
online service much attractive.
 Delivery of products has become faster due to online businesses. Now products delivery
much faster as it was before and it is more reliable now (Huda and et. al., 2017).
 Operating business online also provides an opportunity to business to increase its sales by
attracting large group of customers. Online business cause much lesser waste like of
paper and etc.
 This enables owner to manage the business from any part of the world. This is what
attracts a person toward doing online business. Whether you are on a vacation or on some
instant trip an individual is allowed to manage business from any part of the world.
• Increased professionalism: Professionalism means a worker’s appearance, behavior, and
workplace ethics. Workers who have high standard of professionalism are more likely reliable
and credible.
Disadvantages of online business-
 Lack of credibility as online businesses are considered less credible due to not providing
secure payment connection, unclear value proposition etc.
 Customer service challenge is one of the biggest challenge that face by online businesses
as if the product or service is not deliver on time due to any circumstance, then it
adversely impacts the image of firm (Huda, and et. al., 2017).
The benefits of having business offline-
Offline business refers to face to face interview, which ensures buyer gets to know about
what business is about. These business has no relation with internet.
Positive aspects of offline business:
 Easily ordered at short notice which means in last minute people cannot rely on online
business. It is ideal for last minute need.
 Order exactly what an individual need which means it enables to satisfy needs of people
fully irrespective of online business.
 Builds strong relationships as in offline business, the owner can establish a personal
relation with the buyer itself which helps in growing their market.
Negative aspects of having business offline:
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 Offline businesses require more manpower to perform its activities and operations
appropriately, which ultimately increases their cost.
 Another disadvantage of operating business offline is that these businesses are not able to
reach to large group of customers which may results in less sales and revenues.
 The growth opportunities are also very less for offline businesses as people are becoming
more techno-savvy and prefers to buy products and services from online businesses
(Jaeger and Bertot, 2016).
Challenges and measures of security and privacy that individuals and businesses take when they
go online
Recent events have focused an intense spotlight on online privacy and security. The threat
from hackers and cybercriminals has expanded in relation to our dependence on the internet. As
reliance grow, opportunities for them to prey on increase. Online data are breaches are not new
They have been around since the creation of the first networks but there is a risk that they could
reach a dangerous proportion. Cyber fraud is currently the fastest growing category of crime in
the world and freedom to use the internet as desired.
With past data what is required is a combination of collective and individual action. It is
not that much different from how managed plagues in the past. When enough people stayed
indoors washed their hands or received vaccinations certain diseases were wiped from the planet
That’s why it took some time to convince people to change their ways of business. Taking it
back to the web should think of digital identities as susceptible to digital epidemic.
Although view the act of taking personal responsibility for online privacy and security as
the single most important parameter in stemming the tide of cybercrime, there is also a role for
government and law enforcement. Cybercrime is the dangerous challenge of online business,
trust of product, value of product, quality of product is good or not is this also a crucial challenge
of online business (Jacobs, Amuta and Jeon, 2017).
Privacy concerns of online business is a subset of data privacy, involving the right of
mandating personal concerning storing provision to third parties and displaying of information
pertaining to oneself from the internet. Hacking, identity theft credit card stealing bank
information stealing are some of the greatest security issues that hinder the consumer from
trusting online businesses, that means loss of potential business for organization online
challenges are however not limited to consumers.
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Privacy the control over one’s personal data and security the attempted access to data by
unauthorized are two critical problems for online business consumer will not visit or shop at a
site nor can sites function without considering both. System availability is one of the
fundamental need of online business security. Availability because fraud is not limited to the
internet component. Security is legitimate use.
Measures:
Having information about clients and customers is important but ensuring that private
information will be secure in future or not (Lecheler and Kruikemeier, 2016). There are many
small businesses which are not well prepared for the tricks that hackers use to extract data from
their information systems or to deal with the customers.
 Be aware of all the personal information have, where are storing it. How are using it and
who has access to it understand the kind of assets have and why a hacker might pursue
that and customer cannot.
 In one survey conducted by the alliance, 85 percent of small business owners believe
larger enterprises are more targeted than they are, in reality there have been cases where
small business has lost hundreds of thousands of dollars to cybercriminals.
 Having the latest security software web browser and operating systems are the best
defences against viruses and other online threats. Many software programs will
automatically connect and update to defend against known risk.
 Be sure to scan all USB and other device before attached to network is also one among
the measure.
 Employees are often the handlers of customer data. Therefore, need to be kept up to date
on how to protect that information to make sure it does not accidentally land in the wrong
hands.
 Smartphones tablets and laptops can add to employee flexibility and productivity, but can
also be responsible of sensitive information which if lost can harm customer and business
(Raju, 2017).
How is blog different from a Website and discuss different tools that could be used to create a
blog
A blog is a sort of website where the information is described in Reverse chronological
order, so that the most recent post appears first i.e., at the top of website or webpage. Simply
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with the help of blogs one can prove them self as an expert or develop their online presence in
the field of area or industry of their expertise. Today it can either be used for business needs or
to fulfil personal needs. Blogs are usually solely run by a person or a group of people to present
content in a conversational manner. In mid 90s, the evolution of blog develops from online
journals and Diaries. During late 90s the term weblog was first introduced which later known as
web log and then finally become blog. With the Rapid growth in number of several web pages,
different tools started to appear which ultimately made it much easier for user to develop or
create online blogs and journals (Place, Smith and Lee, 2016).
Blogs are just other type of website. The only real difference between both website and
blog is blogs are frequently updated with latest information or content which is displayed in
Reverse chronological order whereas on the other hand websites are more static in
nature means data is organised in pages and are not frequently updated. The people who write
blogs are usually referred as bloggers. At certain Times, bloggers can publish multiple new
articles in a single day. blogs can be a part of larger website. Blog is a kind of tool that help
blogger to engage with large number of audience by sharing the data relevant to audience
interests.
As compared to website, a blog can be referred as a two-way communication which allows
readers to share your blogs socially on other platform or by allowing readers to comment on
blogs individually. In simple words, all blogs can be a website but all website cannot be called as
blogs. When a blogger starts its blog, the most common question arises which are the most
popular type of blogs as it covers wide range of fields, interests, topics and audience. For
becoming a successful blogger, all you need is to select the niche that works in most effective
and efficient manner (Varlejs, 2017). Each niche contains wide range of audience which directly
have an impact on blog, thus it is primary important to choose correct type of blog. Some of the
most popular types of blog includes the following:
Fashion Blog: these are one of the most influential and popular type of blogs on the
internet. it's a highly demanded industry covering massive audience all across the world. these
type of bloggers gets invitation from top fashion brands special perks, merchandise their
products and also deal with the massive audience on the behalf of renowned fashion brands.
these types of blogs are usually good for the people who are creative with keen eye for fashion
and style.
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Food Blogs: these are another type of popular blog. bloggers with food blog usually attract
lot of readers who are mostly interested in ingredients, recipes, healthy eating and other stories
related with food. they usually start by reviewing local or small restaurant. usually stories
covered or displayed on the blog are generally related with food only one chef's main speciality
or restaurant special. With such types of blog, massive audience is aware about where one can
get speciality of food (Walker, Bowkett and Duchaine, 2018).
Travel Blog: these blogs are becoming popular with each passing day. today people are
travelling more than ever and they are always looking forward true cheap airline good travel
advice, tips destination guides. With the help of such blogs Travellers learn about destination
they have never been to.
CONCLUSION
As per the above mentioned report it can be concluded that Internet and online platform
is vital for small and all online business pose many risks to computer systems and the privacy of
the company data. Network systems should be strong. Without effective network and disaster
recovery practices a business is constantly at risk. Anti-virus or systematic client security and a
well-defined outbreak response plan to identify the problems.
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REFERENCES
Books & Journals
Baker, C. and et. al., 2016. Influencing change: Preparing the next generation of clinicians to
practice in the digital age. Healthcare Quarterly 18(4). pp.5-7.
Blaschke, L. M., 2018. Self-determined learning (heutagogy) and digital media creating
integrated educational environments for developing lifelong learning skills. In The
Digital Turn in Higher Education (pp. 129-140). Springer VS, Wiesbaden.
Farisi, M. I., 2016. Developing the 21st-Century Social Studies Skills through Technology
Integration. Turkish Online Journal of Distance Education. 17(1). pp.16-30.
Goldie, J. G. S., 2016. Connectivism: A knowledge learning theory for the digital age?. Medical
teacher. 38(10) pp.1064-1069.
Huda, M. and et. al., 2017. Empowering children with adaptive technology skills: Careful
engagement in the digital ınformation age. International Electronic Journal of
Elementary Education. 9(3). pp.693-708.
Huda, M. I. F. T. A. C. H. U. L. and et. al., 2017. From live interaction to virtual interaction:
addressing moral engagement in the digital era. Journal of Theoretical and Applied
Information Technology. 95(19). pp.4964-4972.
Jaeger, P. T. and Bertot, J. C., 2016. Government information librarians: New skills and training
for the digital age. In Government Information Management in the 21st Century (pp. 21-
34). Routledge.
Jacobs, W., Amuta, A. O. and Jeon, K. C., 2017. Health information seeking in the digital age:
An analysis of health information seeking behavior among US adults. Cogent Social
Sciences. 3(1). p.1302785.
Lecheler, S. and Kruikemeier, S., 2016. Re-evaluating journalistic routines in a digital age: A
review of research on the use of online sources. New media & society. 18(1). pp.156-
171.
Raju, J., 2017. Information professional or IT professional?: The knowledge and skills required
by academic librarians in the digital library environment. portal: Libraries and the
Academy. 17(4). pp.739-757.
Place, K. R., Smith, B. G. and Lee, H., 2016. Integrated Influence? Exploring public relations
power in integrated marketing communication. Public Relations Journal. 10(1). pp.1-
35.
Varlejs, J., 2017. Professional competencies for the digital age: What library schools are doing to
prepare special librarians. Education Libraries, 26(1), pp.16-18.
Walker, V., Bowkett, G. and Duchaine, I., 2018. All Companies Are Technology Companies:
Preparing Canadians with the Skills for a Digital Future. Canadian Public Policy.
44(S1). pp.S153-S158.
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