Out of Scandinavia: The History and Contributions of an IS Research Tradition

This summer, the Scandinavian IS research community celebrated its 21st annual IRIS conference (Information systems Research In Scandinavia), and from that point of view it is probably the oldest active IS research community in the world. Many important contributions have come out of this tradition: for example, the work of Börje Langefors on theories of information systems (1966), which contributed to the establishment of our field, and the controversial contributions of Kristen Nygaard (1971), emphasizing the political aspects and the strengths of action research approaches as integral parts of information systems studies

Foreword

The Information Systems Research Seminar in Scandinavia (IRIS) is an annual seminar for In-formation Systems researchers established in 1978. The 45th IRIS was held in conjunction with the 13th Scandinavian Conference of Information Systems (SCIS). The theme of the seminar and conference was Workforce Leadership in the Age of Digital Transformation. The event was hosted in Helsinge, Denmark, from August 14th to 17th 2022. The six papers selected for this 13th issue of the selected papers of the IRIS were nominated by the group chairs and have been subjected to a double-blinded peer-review process before the seminar. Before being included in this issue, the papers were revised based on the working group discussions and the review comments

Pragmatizing the Normative Artifact: Design Science Research in Scandinavia and Beyond

In this panel report, we analyze the discussion that unfolded during the “Design Science Research: A Scandinavian Approach?” panel held at the third Scandinavian Conference on Information Systems in Sigtuna, Sweden, in August, 2012. The second author of this paper chaired the panel, which also included Tone Bratteteig, Shirley Gregor, Ola Henfridsson, Alan Hevner, Jan Pries-Heje, and Tuure Tuunanen as panelists. Three themes that highlight how the design of artifacts contributes to knowledge production emerged during the panel. The first theme addresses our responsibility, as a research community, to come up not only with descriptions of the world but also to try to change things into preferable states. The second theme emphasizes that knowledge production also happens through the design of artifacts. The third theme identifies an apparent pragmatic turn in our discipline

IRIS Conference Health Check. Traditions, tensions, and reformations

Regional conferences support researchers to network in a cost-efficient way. Quite often, such conferences become tight communities where friends and colleagues meet and share ideas regularly, year after year. However, with increasing public interest towards universities and the ideology of private-public management, deans and other managers have started to urge for high-quality scientific impact. Under the circumstances, regional conferences, with limited publication opportunities and lesser worldwide visibility among academics, have begun to lose their status as an important venue for science and networking. It is equally easy and cheap to travel and attend more prestigious venues. In this paper, we analyze the main conference of the Scandinavian Chapter of the Association for Information Systems (AIS), aka IRIS association, namely IRIS, Information Systems Research Seminar in Scandinavia. We aim to understand what makes regional conferences (and chapters) sustainable. Our argumentation is based on two empirical studies; an analysis of the IRIS participants between 2011-2019 and a survey among senior scholars in the region

Participatory design and participatory development: a comparative review

This paper examines literature in the twin domains of participatory interactive systems design and participatory approaches to international development. As interactive systems are increasingly promoted as a possible means of achieving international development goals, designers generally agree that participatory design approaches should be applied. However, review of the literature reveals that these two different traditions have more complex relationships, and questions must be asked about: the aims of participation, the forms of participation that are being advocated, and the skills and strategies required of practitioners. The findings suggest that successful integration of participatory interactive systems design into development will require careful reflection on the nature of development and the approaches adopted.</p

For the Jubilee of Vladimir Mikhailovich Chernov

On April 25, 2019, Vladimir Chernov celebrated his 70th birthday, Doctor of Physics and Mathematics, Chief Researcher at the Laboratory of Mathematical Methods of Image Processing of the Image Processing Systems Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences (IPSI RAS), a branch of the Federal Science Research Center "Crystallography and Photonics RAS and part-Time Professor at the Department of Geoinformatics and Information Security of the Samara National Research University named after academician S.P. Korolev (Samara University). The article briefly describes the scientific and pedagogical achievements of the hero of the day. © Published under licence by IOP Publishing Ltd

UCL DAF (Data Audit Framework) Pilot: final report

The UCL DAF (Data Audit Framework) pilot implementation project was funded by JISC for a period of seven months (August 2008-March 2009) to trial the implementation of the DAF methodology at UCL

Designing library tools: the (un)importance of employee involvement

The growing trend of public institutions to open up data and information to citizens encouraged archives and libraries to enhance the disclosure of their content towards end-users. This implies technical challenges as more and more information is exchanged not only between people, but also between different databases and applications which are consulted by different user groups through different devices and entry points. For libraries, the challenge lies in constructing a properly functioning catalogue which is able to combine a huge amount of information from various sources and is consultable by a large group of end-users in a user friendly manner. Based on the User Centred Design paradigm and Kaulio’s (1998) degrees of user involvement in innovation, this paper wants to consider whether involving users during the creation of metadata tools can result in more motivated library co-workers and a more appreciated tool and (hopefully) in a permanent tagging tool

Organic Agricultural Research in Europe -– Present State and Future Prospects

Organic agriculture has become a widely accepted sector of agricultural and food research. In Europe publicly funded research has shifted towards organic farming, while research funding for conventional farming has been cut considerably. This paper takes a closer look at how organic farming research is organised in Europe and at what challenges researchers will face in the future

Social Europe. ENEPRI Occasional Paper No. 5, November 2003

[From the Introduction and Summary]. Building a Social Europe has received due attention since the founding of the European Community in Rome. The European summit in Lisbon in 2000 was an important milestone in this process. European leaders committed themselves to working together through the 'open coordination' method to develop a policy to combat poverty and social exclusion. The open coordination approach means that countries exchange information and encourage each other to pursue policies geared to their social objectives. The European Union does not itself play an active role in the way in which individual member states set about achieving those objectives. It has however been agreed that member states will draw up a National Action Plan every two years setting out the way in which they plan to realise their objectives