Vive les differences?: developing a profile of European information systems research as a basis for international comparisons

The information systems (IS) community is truly international, yet there is often a sense that different elements of the community have different profiles in terms of their research and publication expectations. This paper contributes to this discussion by developing a profile of European IS research that can be used as a basis for international comparisons. It reflects on European research on IS as presented during the first 10 years of the European Conference on Information Systems (ECIS). Based on an analysis of all papers published in the ECIS proceedings during the period 1993–2002, the paper presents the key characteristics of the ECIS conferences, together with a profile of European IS research activity as presented at ECIS. In particular, it highlights the key references and sources used by researchers presenting papers at ECIS. It articulates the research areas presented at ECIS and explores the claim that European IS draws more on social theories than elsewhere. Its contribution in presenting a profile of European research in the IS field lies in identifying particular characteristics of the European style of research that can be compared to that undertaken in other parts of the world

A Computational Mechanism for Initiative in Answer Generation

Initiative in dialogue can be regarded as the speaker taking the opportunity to contribute more information than was his obligation in a particular discourse turn. This paper describes the use of stimulus conditions as a computational mechanism for taking the initiative to provide unrequested information in responses to Yes-No questions, as part of a system for generating answers to Yes-No questions. Stimulus conditions represent types of discourse contexts in which a speaker is motivated to add unrequested information to his answer. Stimulus conditions may be triggered not only by the discourse context at the time when the question was asked, but also by the anticipated context resulting from providing part of the response. We define a set of stimulus conditions based upon previous linguistic studies and a corpus analysis, and describe how evaluation of these stimulus conditions makes use of information from a User Model. Also, we show how the stimulus conditions are used by the gener..

The enactment of significance: a unified conception of information, systems and technology

This paper introduces a new perspective that helps unpack the relationship between information, systems and technology within the nature of human organisation. We argue for an area of interest located at the intersection of signs and systems, which involves the enactment of forma, informa and performa. To demonstrate the utility of this perspective, we deliberately consider a ‘strange’ case from a different time, space and culture. We discuss the nature of human organisation among the Inka Empire and how this organisation was reliant upon the enactment of significance, particularly in relation to an artefact known as the khipu. We conclude with a discussion of the value of our framework in helping us understand the complex entanglement of information, systems and technology within human organisation