Teacher & course responsible: Eric Monteiro with Marius Mikalsen

Format

The course is student-driven. There is no ordinary lecturing, only brief injections from the teacher. There are 5 sessions, one for each of the topics we cover. Students are divided into groups and will for every session present written and orally one assigned paper from the topic of that session.

Due to format, it is challenging with more than 20 students.
All students need to contact Eric Monteiro by email (eric.monteiro@ntnu.no).

Introduction

We have an introductory session. 

• Thursday 31 August 2023
• 14:15
• 454 i IT-bygget

It is important to join as do the practical organization of the course. 

The 5 sessions (same place, same timing) are on the following dates for autumn 2023: 7. and 21. Sept, 3. and 19. Oct, 16. Nov.

Language

Open to English-speaking students

Credits

3,75 credits (“studiepoeng”)

Exam

Oral exam

Reading list

The papers on the reading list will be made electronically available from the NTNU domain for the students.

We cover 5 topics, one pr. session. For each topic, the first paper (in grey box) on the list is briefly presented by the teacher. The other papers are assigned, one to each group of students, for written and oral presentation during our sessions.

We do not focus on the theory or the method in the papers on the reading list. We focus on key insights, illustrative cases, and selected vocabulary. This means that papers in our reading list is selectively read.

 1. Design vs use of technology

Design of technology is anticipating a future patterns of use. But are these expectations well founded? How accurate are our expectations of future use during design? And what do users – in practice - do when using the technology?

Les Gasser. (1986). The integration of computing and routine work. ACM Trans. on Office Information Systems, 4(3):205 - 225.  --- BUT only pp 214 - 218

Leonardi, P.M., (2013). When does technology use enable network change in organizations? A comparative study of feature use and shared affordances. MIS Quarterly, pp.749-775.

Farshchian, B.A., Vilarinho, T. and Mikalsen, M., (2017). From episodes to continuity of care: A study of a call center for supporting independent living. Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW), 26(3), pp.309-343.

Svanæs, Dag, Ole Andreas Alsos, and Yngve Dahl. (2010) Usability testing of mobile ICT for clinical settings: Methodological and practical challenges. International Journal of Medical Informatics 79.4: e24-e34.

2. Digital transformation

Digital transformation is a process. Digital technologies are a necessary but hardly sufficient condition. How does this process unfold over time? What and who drives it – or does it unfold ‘automatically’ by itself?

   Wessel, L., Baiyere, A., Ologeanu-Taddei, R., Cha, J. and Blegind-Jensen, T., 2021. Unpacking the difference between digital transformation and IT-enabled organizational transformation. Journal of the Association for Information Systems, 22(1), pp.102-129.

E Monteiro and V Hepsø. (1998) Diffusion of information infrastructure: mobilization and improvisation, In Information systems: current issues and future challenges, TJ Larsen, L Levine and JI DeGross (eds.), IFIP, pp. 255 – 273

Hanseth, O., 2022. When Stars Align. The Interactions and Transformations of e-Health Infrastructure Regimes. Historical Social Research/Historische Sozialforschung, 47(3 (181), pp.40-80.

WJ Orlikowski. Improvising organisational transformation over time: a situated change perspective, Information Systems Research, 7(1):63 - 92, 1996.

3. User (= customer?) centred design

The importance of engaging the user/ customer in the process of developing digital solutions is emphasised in many areas – in user-centred design, in agile software development and in participatory design. What are the different arguments that underpin the motivation – and what is the empirical evidence for the benefits of user participation?

Kensing, F. and Blomberg, J. (1998). Participatory design: Issues and concerns. Computer supported cooperative work (CSCW), 7(3-4), pp.167-185.

Bratteteig, T., & Wagner, I. (2016). Unpacking the notion of participation in participatory design. Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW), 25(6), 425-475.

Zahlsen, Ø.K., Svanæs, D. and Dahl, Y., 2022. Representative Participation in a Large-Scale Health IT Project. Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW), pp.1-38.

Dingsøyr, T., Nerur, S., Balijepally, V. and Moe, N.B., 2012. A decade of agile methodologies: Towards explaining agile software development. Journal of systems and software, 85(6), pp.1213-1221.

4. Digital platforms and ecosystems

Digital solutions are neither developed nor used in isolation. On the contrary, they fit into a portfolio or ecosystem of other modules and components – and they evolve around an enabling platform. How are we to understand digital platforms: what are they and why are they important?

Cusumano, M.A., Yoffie, D.B. and Gawer, A., 2020. The future of platforms. MIT Sloan Management Review, pp.26-34.

Eaton, B. Et al. 2015. Distributed tuning of boundary resources: the case of Apple’s iOS service system, MIS Quarterly, vol. 39, no. 1, pp. 217-243

Möhlmann, M., Zalmanson, L., Henfridsson, O., & Gregory, R. W. (2021). Algorithmic management of work on online labor platforms: When matching meets control. MIS Quarterly, 45(4), 1999-2022.

Alaimo, C and Kallinikos, J. and Valderrama, E. (2020) Platforms as service ecosystems: lessons from sosical media, Journal of Information Technology, Vol. 35(1) 25–48.

5. AI – potential but not the least in practice

AI comes with a significant promise, not to say hype. AI is by its proponents claimed to transform our everyday lives, organizations and complete industrial sectors. However, what are the merits till date of these claims, i.e., what changes in practice have AI brought about?

Tanweer, A. Gade, E. K., Krafft, P. M., & Dreier, S. K. (2021). Why the data revolution needs qualitative thinking. Harvard Data Science Review, 3(3), https://doi.org/10.1162/99608f92.eee0b0da

Lebovitz, S., Levina, N., & Lifshitz-Assaf, H. (2021). Is AI ground truth really “true”? The dangers of training and evaluating AI tools based on experts’ know-what. MIS Quarterly. 45(3), 1501-1525

Crawford, K., & Paglen, T. (2019). Excavating AI: The politics of images in machine learning training sets. AI and Society, 34, 1399-1399.

Passi, S. and Jackson, S.J. (2018). Trust in Data Science: Collaboration, Translation, and Accountability in Corporate Data Science Projects. Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction, 2(CSCW), pp.1-28.