Inclusive Design in IS: Why Diversity Matters

After decades of research and ambitious political programs, we still observe imbalances in the treatment of people on the basis of gender, age, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, religion, disability, and social background. Such an issue raises questions about the degree to which information systems can help to overcome such imbalance; for instance, if design principles can be formalized to reshape information systems’ design into a different, more-inclusive direction. We contend that IS falls short in tackling this issue. We took the theme of ICIS 2013 (“reshaping society through information systems”) as an opportunity to reflect on the multiple aspects of social inclusion in the design and the resulting shape of information systems via a panel discussion. The fruitful discussion during the panel delivered more in-depth results than merely advocating a stance for more diversity in the IS workforce. Building on the principles of design science, we believe that our field can help reshape the digital economy. As a key takeaway, the panel and additional points added in this paper in the light of discussion at ICIS 2013 provide guidance on the impact of gender in IS theorizing as a demonstration example and reflect on the trend towards social design in the IS research community

Dialectical Inquiry in Information Systems Research: A Synthesis of Principles

Although dialectical inquiry has been sporadically and selectively applied in the Information Systems (IS) discipline, and premier IS journals increasingly welcome dialectical inquiries, we lack methodological guidance on its application and evaluation, hindering its adoption as an important and valid IS research method. In response, we present a critical analysis of general dialectics literature and 63 extant IS dialectical inquiry publications in 18 journals spanning three decades, revealing that there is a growing and sizeable community of IS researchers using dialectical inquiry explicitly or implicitly to examine how sociotechnical phenomena change. Based on this analysis, we synthesize six principles for dialectical inquiry that are firmly rooted in dialectical philosophy, evidenced in IS publications, clearly distinct from each other, and together comprehensive. As such, our contribution can help IS researchers, reviewers, and editors to extend and solidify their methodological repertoire

Marshall University Joan C. Edwards School of Medicine, Professional Enhancement Newsletter, Fall 2012

Fall 2012, Volume 4, Number 2https://mds.marshall.edu/pen/1005/thumbnail.jp

Office of the State Archaeologist, The University of Iowa, Annual Report for Fiscal Year 2016

https://ir.uiowa.edu/osa_pubs/1021/thumbnail.jp

A model of service design elements to understand innovative service processes

This paper aims to provide an understanding of innovative service design processes by comparing service design logic with the entrepreneurial logics of causation, effectuation and bricolage (CEB). The paper draws upon empirical data to show how both service design logic and entrepreneurship logics may help us to create more innovative service design outcomes. In this process, we hope to understand how the creation of value enters into the service innovation process through co-creation between customers, organisations, ecosystem members and society. Data used within this paper includes deep qualitative interviews with key stakeholders, written documents and participative observation. From our analysis, we develop a model of service innovation design that shows how design logics and entrepreneurial logics influence the development of new and innovative services

Considering temporal aspects in recommender systems: a survey

Under embargo until: 2023-07-04The widespread use of temporal aspects in user modeling indicates their importance, and their consideration showed to be highly effective in various domains related to user modeling, especially in recommender systems. Still, past and ongoing research, spread over several decades, provided multiple ad-hoc solutions, but no common understanding of the issue. There is no standardization and there is often little commonality in considering temporal aspects in different applications. This may ultimately lead to the problem that application developers define ad-hoc solutions for their problems at hand, sometimes missing or neglecting aspects that proved to be effective in similar cases. Therefore, a comprehensive survey of the consideration of temporal aspects in recommender systems is required. In this work, we provide an overview of various time-related aspects, categorize existing research, present a temporal abstraction and point to gaps that require future research. We anticipate this survey will become a reference point for researchers and practitioners alike when considering the potential application of temporal aspects in their personalized applications.acceptedVersio

PHNNs: Lightweight Neural Networks via Parameterized Hypercomplex Convolutions

Hypercomplex neural networks have proven to reduce the overall number of parameters while ensuring valuable performance by leveraging the properties of Clifford algebras. Recently, hypercomplex linear layers have been further improved by involving efficient parameterized Kronecker products. In this article, we define the parameterization of hypercomplex convolutional layers and introduce the family of parameterized hypercomplex neural networks (PHNNs) that are lightweight and efficient large-scale models. Our method grasps the convolution rules and the filter organization directly from data without requiring a rigidly predefined domain structure to follow. PHNNs are flexible to operate in any user-defined or tuned domain, from 1-D to nD regardless of whether the algebra rules are preset. Such a malleability allows processing multidimensional inputs in their natural domain without annexing further dimensions, as done, instead, in quaternion neural networks (QNNs) for 3-D inputs like color images. As a result, the proposed family of PHNNs operates with 1/n free parameters as regards its analog in the real domain. We demonstrate the versatility of this approach to multiple domains of application by performing experiments on various image datasets and audio datasets in which our method outperforms real and quaternion-valued counterparts

The Digitalisation of African Agriculture Report 2018-2019

An inclusive, digitally-enabled agricultural transformation could help achieve meaningful livelihood improvements for Africa’s smallholder farmers and pastoralists. It could drive greater engagement in agriculture from women and youth and create employment opportunities along the value chain. At CTA we staked a claim on this power of digitalisation to more systematically transform agriculture early on. Digitalisation, focusing on not individual ICTs but the application of these technologies to entire value chains, is a theme that cuts across all of our work. In youth entrepreneurship, we are fostering a new breed of young ICT ‘agripreneurs’. In climate-smart agriculture multiple projects provide information that can help towards building resilience for smallholder farmers. And in women empowerment we are supporting digital platforms to drive greater inclusion for women entrepreneurs in agricultural value chains