I work as an information services secretary in the office of the Valkeakoski Vocational College. My duties include advising students and other customers in the information service desk, purchasing electronic and printed literature (from an online store), archiving and mail services. I am also a data protection officer and my work involves a lot of reviewing new software. Office work has become a team job, where we share information with other team members. In my job, I use Microsoft 365 software cloud services on my computer and mobile phone. Every day I answer Outlook emails and share my calendar with my team. I store my files in the OneDrive cloud, which is a more secure storage than USB memory sticks. From OneDrive I can also share files with my team. In OneDrive, I can use regular programs like Word, Excel and PowePoint. From the web version you can easily access the desktop version and the formattings are automatically saved. From Microsoft 365, I also use OneNote notebook to make notes on important instructions and decisions. Sharepoint is our intranet, where we store a lot of instructions and minutes for staff to view. I also update some websites. The Copilot AI has been introduced recently, but I am not yet familiar with it.
Important app is Teams, which I use every day. Teams is used throughout the organisation and makes it easy to communicate with other colleagues. We use a common team channel for all staff, and it can be used to post current issues, educational newsletters and other useful channels. Messages reach the right people when the message is placed on the right channel, e.g. there is a channel for IT issues. The Office team has own closed channel for us office workers. I receive instant messages daily and respond to them as quickly as possible. Instant messages are answered more quickly than emails because Teams is used on the phone. An important feature of Teams is web meetings. You can set up an online meeting in Teams on the calendar, check the schedules of participants and schedule a time that works for everyone. External participants can also be invited, e.g. the presence of an expert is sometimes important. You can make a note of the meeting in the Teams in OneNote, or you can add a Planner application to the channel if you agree on tasks and schedules for the project.
We use an electronic archive system called M-Files Archive. The system is based on a information management plan with metadata. Metadata refers to information about the data, i.e. it defines the retention period and the public access to data. We are also developing an electronic certificate archive, Atomi. Atomi is an online view of certificates for students. As a data protection officer, I am conducting data protection impact assessments for many of the programs used in the work. IT department and I are the administrators for Cyberday, which is an add-on application for Teams. Cyberday is a Finnish cybersecurity management system. I document the systems and software used and the related contracts.
New acquaintances
I wanted to get to know new AI applications because they are now coming into use.
CHATGPT
ChatGpt makes it easy to search for information, create images and make plans. You can ask it with any words and you don’t have to come up with a specific search word. It responds quickly from the sources it finds, and the responses can be long. The disadvantage is that there are no sources in the answers. I have to judge if the answer is good for my question.
DALL E3
Dall E3 is an AI generated image and art application. It can create realistic or artistic images from text. The free version is limited and you have to login for more usability. When you login AI gets your own images if you share them publicly. There is also the question of who owns the copyright.
MIDJOURNEY
Another image AI generator is Midjouney. It provides a tutorial for free how you can start typing text and edit the image. It´s easy to create commercial quality images. It has a discord channel for instant messages. When login you have to know who get your personal information or how can you get rid of it.
iAUDITOR
This could be useful for workstations in technical or catering classrooms. It is a check-list in your phone and you can forget paper spreadsheets. You can report hazards and near-by situations with app and information is automatically syncing to managements desktop. You can visualize the announcements with Power BI. Employees must learn to use the software on their phones. The management should take the reports seriously and improve things,
MURAL
Mural AI would be interesting innovation tool for some project plannig. It is a visual digital mindmap and sticky notes app. It is ingerated with MS365 Copilot to help you to get more ideas. Mural has signed EU AI Pact, which is very positive thing.
Social media – positive or negative
Social media refers to applications that anyone can use to publish their own writings and pictures. Publishing is no longer only about researched and delivered information, but influencers write opinion pieces on social media. The positive thing is that everyone can publish their opinions and similar people find each other. The negative thing is fake news and disinformation. Social media can influence election results or even distort historical events. Some parties take advantage of people who do not read factual information. It’s good to know that not everything is true or acceptable on social media. It is good to teach children about media criticism in schools.
Self evaluation
The digital world has changed rapidly in the last 10 years. Now AI is coming and it makes writing and taking pictures easier in many ways. Teamwork and occupational safety have become easier when communication programs are available on the phone. I am concerned about young people and other people who believe in fake news on social media. We don’t always talk about facts, people are influenced by emotions. We think that the information is true but is it anymore. There is many issues in AI e.g. copyright and other ethical guidelines should be solve in near future.