Guiding Design Principle Projects: A Canvas for Young Design Science Researchers

Particularly young researchers face challenges in organizing large design science research (DSR) projects and often struggle to capture, communicate, and reflect on important components to produce purposeful outcomes. Making informed decisions at the project start, such as selecting suitable kernel theories and development procedures, is of great relevance because they affect the entire design process and the resulting design products. Although DSR can produce different types of outcomes, from more situational artifacts to more abstract design knowledge, scholars point to the need for generalizing insights collected in such projects to advance the knowledge base. As design principles are among the prevailing forms of such design knowledge, this paper builds a visual inquiry tool—represented as a canvas—that navigates researchers through common components for crafting design principles and leverages collaborative reflections on essential project decisions. To build our canvas, we adapt inquiry-based learning (IBL) guidelines and visual inquiry tools to DSR education. Evaluations with doctoral students revealed promising indications for the canvas’s applicability and usefulness in guiding iterative DSR projects, reflecting on basic components, and communicating work-in-progress to other scholars and practice. Overall, we complement the body of DSR literature by providing an educational visual inquiry tool for producing design principles

Towards a Configurative Publication Schema for Design Science Research

Design science research (DSR) has matured and gained acceptance as an appropriate information systems research method. Despite the increasing number of DSR publications there is still no common sense and no comprehensive guidance how to present DSR in scientific literature. Therefore, this paper investigates the potential of a configurative DSR publication schema by means of a reference model allowing the deduction of concrete publication schemas. These schemas provide more detailed advice depending on the particular research context, such as the intended artifact type, the evaluation method, or the knowledge contribution type. By identifying configuration parameters (through an investigation of 13 DSR meta-analysis papers) and common configurations (through a meta-analysis of 52 DSR journal publications) we lay the foundations for a configurative reference model which can be adapted to provide detailed guidance in concrete DSR publication situations for both authors and reviewers. A detailed example sketches the future artifact

Action design research: a comparison with canonical action research and design science

This research in progress paper addresses the IS issue in relation to conducting relevant research while keeping academic rigor. In particular, it contributes to the ongoing academic conversation around the investigation on how to incor-porate action in design science research. In this document the philosophical underpinnings of the recently proposed methodology called Action Design Re-search [1] are derived, outlined and integrated into Burrel and Morgan’s Par-adigmatic Framework (1979)[6]. The results so far show how Action Design Research can be considered as a particular case of Design Science Research (rather than a methodology closely related to Action Research) although they can assume two different epistemological positions. From these philosophical perspectives, future works will involve the inclusion of actual research projects using the three different methodologies. The final goal is to outline and structure the divergences and similarities of Action Design Research with Design Science Research and Canonical Action Research

Research Perspectives: Design Theory Indeterminacy: What Is it, How Can it Be Reduced, and Why Did the Polar Bear Drown?

Design science research strives to be practical and relevant. Yet few researchers have examined the extent to which practitioners can meaningfully utilize theoretical knowledge produced by design science research in solving concrete real-world problems. Are design theories developed by scientists readily amenable to application by practitioners? Does the application of a theory by practitioners always lead to the outcomes predicted (by the scientists)? We examine a particularly difficult challenge—ensuring that the development and deployment of an IT artifact by practitioners based on a design theory result in appropriate changes in the environment predicted by the design theory. As we show in our paper, a gulf exists between theoretical propositions and concrete issues faced in practice—a challenge we refer to as design theory indeterminacy. Design theory indeterminacy might result in considerable ambiguity when implementing a design theory in practice and reduce the potential relevance of information systems knowledge. In this paper, we articulate the problem of design theory indeterminacy, examine factors that contribute to it, and suggest fruitful directions for future research to help reduce it

Learning by Doing: Educators’ Perspective on an Illustrative Tool for AI-Generated Scaffolding for Students in Conceptualizing Design Science Research Studies

Design science research (DSR) is taught in university courses and used by students for their final theses. For successfully learning DSR, it is important to learn to apply it to real-world problems. However, students not only need to learn the new DSR paradigm (meta-level) but also need to develop an understanding of the problem domain (content-level). In this paper, we focus on content-level support (CLS), proposing an illustrative tool to aid students when learning to develop a conceptual design with DSR (e.g., for a prototype). Following the DSR paradigm, we deductively identify students’ issues and use the scaffolding approach to develop design requirements (DRs) and design principles (DPs). To offer AI-generated scaffolding, we use the generative language model (GLM) “GPT-3.” We evaluate our illustrative design through 13 expert interviews. Our results show that providing students with CLS is perceived to be helpful, but the interaction with the student needs to be designed carefully to circumvent unintended usage patterns. We contribute DPs and an illustrative instantiation thereof toward a DSR tool support ecosystem. More broadly, we contribute to the understanding of how humans can be supported by AI to solve problems, an important challenge in human-AI collaboration research

MANTRA: A Topic Modeling-Based Tool to Support Automated Trend Analysis on Unstructured Social Media Data

The early identification of new and auspicious ideas leads to competitive advantages for companies. Thereby, topic modeling can serve as an effective analytical approach for the automated investigation of trends from unstructured social media data. However, existing trend analysis tools do not meet the requirements regarding (a) Product Development, (b) Customer Behavior Analysis, and (c) Market-/Brand-Monitoring as reflected within extant literature. Thus, based on the requirements for each of these common marketing-related use cases, we derived design principles following design science research and instantiated the artifact “MANTRA” (MArketiNg TRend Analysis). We demonstrated MANTRA on a real-world data set (~1.03 million Yelp reviews) and hereby could confirm remarkable trends of vegan and global cuisine. In particular, the importance of meeting all specific requirements of the respective use cases and especially flexibly incorporating several external parameters into the trend analysis is exemplified

Enterprise reference architectures for higher education institutions: Analysis, comparison and practical uses

Enterprise Architecture (EA) is currently accepted as one on the major instruments for enabling organisations in their transformation processes to achieve business-technology alignment. Despite that over the last years EA has been successfully adopted in many industries, Higher Education still represents one of the sectors with lower levels of adoption and maturity of EA practices. The present thesis puts the emphasis particularly on the study Enterprise Reference Architectures (ERAs), as a particular type of EA artefact, in Higher Education Institutions (HEIs). After formally clarifying the concept of ERAs and giving a panoramic view of the current state-of-the-art of existing HEI-oriented ERAs, the thesis proposes an artefact framework build through a Design Science Research (DSR) approach aimed to facilitate practitioners their (re-)use or application in their own real practical settings. The purpose of the constructed artefact is to support practitioners when conducting the necessary adjustments to exiting HEI-oriented ERAs in order to be successfully applied for their specific needs.La Arquitectura Empresarial (AE) es actualmente reconocida como una disciplina que permite configurar procesos de trasformación organizativa a objeto de alinear el negocio con la tecnología. A pesar de que en los últimos años la AE se ha ido adoptando progresivamente de forma exitosa en diversas industrias, la educación superior representa todavía hoy en día uno de los sectores con menores niveles de adopción y de madurez en lo que se refiere a las prácticas de AE. La presente tesis hace especial hincapié en el estudio de las Arquitecturas de Referencia Empresariales (AREs), entendidas como un artefacto específico de AE, en Instituciones de Educación Superior (IES). Así, después de clarificar formalmente el concepto de ARE y de ofrecer una visión panorámica del estado del arte relativo a las AREs para IES existentes, la tesis propone un framework de trabajo construido a través de un enfoque de investigación basado en la Ciencia del diseño destinado a facilitar su (re-)utilización o aplicación práctica en dominios de trabajo reales. El objetivo del artefacto es proporcionar soporte práctico a los profesionales para realizar los ajustes necesarios a las AREs para IES existentes para que puedan aplicarlas con éxito a sus necesidades específicas.L'Arquitectura Empresarial (AE) és actualment reconeguda com una disciplina que permet configurar processos de transformació organitzatius a fi d'alinear el negoci amb la tecnologia. Tot i que en els darrers anys l'AE s'ha anat adoptant progressivament amb èxit en diverses indústries, l'educació superior representa encara avui dia un dels sectors amb menors nivells d'adopció i de maduresa pel que fa a pràctiques d'AE. Aquesta tesi posa especial èmfasi en l'estudi de les Arquitectures de Referència Empresarials (AREs), enteses com un artefacte concret d'AE, a Institucions d'Educació Superior (IES). Així, després d'aclarir formalment el concepte d'ARE i oferir una visió panoràmica de l'estat de l'art relatiu a les ARE per a IES existents, la tesi proposa un framework de treball construït a través d'un enfocament de recerca basat en la ciència del disseny destinat a facilitar-ne la seva (re-)utilització o aplicació pràctica en dominis de treball reals. L'objectiu de l'artefacte és proporcionar suport pràctic als professionals per realitzar els ajustaments necessaris a les AREs per a IES existents de forma que les puguin aplicar amb èxit a les seves necessitats específiques.Tecnologies de la informació i de xarxe

Special Issue Editorial: Introduction to Design Science Education

We propose conceptualizing design science education in the information systems (IS) discipline. While design science has become a robust research paradigm, well-recognized in solving practical problems, how design science should be taught is a question that IS scholars, academia, and practitioners are only now addressing. We do so by considering design science education as a pedagogical tool that engages IS students in design knowledge creation and authentic learning. We conceptualize design science education as three intersections: research-education, research-practice, and education-practice. We further use this conceptualization to introduce six new studies in design science education

Using “Panel Reports” to Advance Scholarly Discourse: A Change in Editorial Policy and Guidelines for Panel Report Authors

“Panel reports” reflect a particular category of submissions that authors can make to the Communications of the Association for Information Systems (CAIS). As the CAIS website states, panel reports (i.e., papers that report on panels, debates, symposia, workshops, and similar events) differ from traditional research papers in that they “have to clearly position the matter of discussion at the event, highlight the relevance of event and topic and outline the different views on the topic that emanated at the events” (see https://aisel.aisnet.org/cais/panel_reports.pdf). While this definition has persisted for some time and still holds true, it leaves room for interpretation as to what constitutes a contribution and how one knows that a particular paper has made enough of one. In this editorial, we interpret and elaborate on these principles based on our collective experience with such reports

Positioning living labs within action design research: preliminary findings from a systematic literature review

In recent years, Living Labs (LLs) are emerging as relevant design methodologies among IS researchers. Prior research leveraged Action Design Research (ADR) to position LLs within this discipline. Through a systematic literature review, this paper proposes the positioning of LLs’ methodologies within ADR. Based on preliminary findings of this study, we argue that, whilst LL’s offer an opportunity to advance learning in ADR in several ways, some critical divergences can be identified in the literature to-date between the two methodologies