Hal Richards: Technological Change and Moral Response

This case tells the true story of a university employee who suffered from color blindness and who, although he had been an exceptional employee, was terminated when he could not read the color screens displayed by the newly installed PeopleSoft system. Moral outrage on the campus initiated a process that ultimately resulted in Hal Richards being offered another position in which his talents could be used effectively

AIS, LEO and the Pursuit of Good Work

This paper is the text of a talk at the 15th Americas Conference on Information Systems, San Francisco, California, on 8 August 2009, based on the concept of the “Last Lecture” by recipients of the Association for Information Systems LEO Award

Studying Cyborgs: Re-Examining Internet Studies as Human Subjects Research

Virtual communities and social networks assume and consume more aspects of people\u27s lives. In these evolving social spaces, the boundaries between actual and virtual reality, between living individuals and their virtual bodies, and between private and public domains are becoming ever more blurred. As a result, users and their presentations of self, as expressed through virtual bodies, are increasingly entangled. Consequently, more and more Internet users are cyborgs. For this reason, the ethical guidelines necessary for Internet research need to be revisited. We contend that the IS community has paid insufficient attention to the ethics of Internet research. To this end, we develop an understanding of issues related to online human subjects research by distinguishing between a disembodied and an entangled view of the Internet. We outline a framework to guide investigators and research ethics committees in answering a key question in the age of cyborgism: When does a proposed Internet study deal with human subjects as opposed to digital material

THE FUTURE OF INFORMATION SYSTEMS AS AN ACADEMIC FIELD: YOUR FATE IN 1998

The academic study of information systems is dynamic and exciting. It tends to have very fluid boundaries. Researchers in information systems venture into problem areas associated with such diverse fields as computer science, communications, cognitive psychology, and sociology. Information systems are studied in the context of innovation, organizational change, and competitive advantage. The changing technology provides new and revisited opportunities for investigation and problem solving. Until quite recently, the information systems faculty were the custodians in schools of management of most of the technical knowledge of organizational computing. That technical knowledge is being rapidly diffused to the entire faculty. Faculty in accounting at one time fled from computers; they now embrace them. The same is true of other functional areas in schools of management. What will happen to the academic field of information systems when the computer expertise is shared by most faculty members

Textile Handicraft from the Surroundings of Zagreb

The villages of Resnik, Čučerje, Markuševac and Šestine, in which the research was conducted by the Ethnographic Museum between 1969 and 1979, are located north and southeast of Zagreb, and are ever more becoming its constituent parts. The traditional textile handiwork of the investigated area has a lot of common features, but there are some specifics too. The procurement of raw materials for weaving, and their processing, was the same in all these villages; some elements which were common for all of northwestern Croatia also appeared here. Thus, all four villages had the same tools for the processing of raw textile plants, and the same weaving tools (the horizontal type of loom, for instance). Hemp was grown in the area, while flax, cotton thread and silk had to be bought. The villages differed in division of labor related to hand-making textile. In Markuševac and Šestine there were male semi-professional weavers, in Resnik and Ščitarjevo weavers were exclusively women, while Čučerje had both variants. There, women were weaving textile for costumes, while men were making material for table-clothes, towels and bedding. They used different weaving techniques and decorations. Men\u27s products have decorative strips in countless variants; women\u27s ornaments are more elaborate, having a rich scale of colors and regular geometric or stylized floral motifs. The data reported on here could be collected only from people above forty years old. The process of withdrawal from textile handicraft in the described area started between World War I and World War II, and was completed by the 1950\u27s. Main causes for this were the transformation of large family households (zadruge) to nuclear family households and the increasing employment in industry together with the decline of peasant family economy in general. One of the accompanying changes was switch from traditional clothes to more urban-style clothes, while other textile articles in the household were gradually replaced by those produced industrially

Stimulation of the tibial nerve: a protocol for a multicentred randomised controlled trial for urinary problems associated with Parkinson’s disease—STARTUP

Introduction Parkinson’s disease is the second most common chronic neurodegenerative condition with bladder dysfunction affecting up to 71%. Symptoms affect quality of life and include urgency, frequency, hesitancy, nocturia and incontinence. Addressing urinary dysfunction is one of the top 10 priority research areas identified by the James Lind Alliance and Parkinson’s UK. Objectives Conduct a randomised controlled trial (RCT) targeting people with Parkinson’s disease (PwP) who have self-reported problematic lower urinary tract symptoms, investigating the effectiveness of transcutaneous tibial nerve stimulation (TTNS) compared with sham TTNS. Implement a standardised training approach and package for the correct application of TTNS. Conduct a cost-effectiveness analysis of TTNS compared with sham TTNS. Methods and analysis An RCT of 6 weeks with twice weekly TTNS or sham TTNS. Participants will be recruited in 12 National Health Service neurology/movement disorder services, using a web-based randomisation system, and will be shown how to apply TTNS or sham TTNS. Participants will receive a weekly telephone call from the researchers during the intervention period. The trial has two coprimary outcome measures: International Consultation on Incontinence Questionnaire-Urinary Incontinence Short Form and the International Prostate Symptom Score. Secondary outcomes include a 3-day bladder diary, quality of life, acceptability and fidelity and health economic evaluation. Outcomes will be measured at 0, 6 and 12 weeks. A sample size of 208 randomised in equal numbers to the two arms will provide 90% power to detect a clinically important difference of 2.52 points on the Internatioanl Consultation on Incontinence Questionnaire - Short Form (ICIQ-SF) and of 3 points in the International Prostate Symptom Score total score at 12 weeks at 5% significance level, based on an SD of 4.7 in each arm and 20% attrition at 6 weeks. Analysis will be by intention to treat and pre defined in a statistical analysis plan Ethics and dissemination East of Scotland Research Ethics Service (EoSRES), 18/ES00042, obtained on 10 May 2018. The trial will allow us to determine effectiveness, safety, cost and acceptability of TTNS for bladder dysfunction in PWP. Results will be published in open access journals; lay reports will be posted to all participants and presented at conferences. Trial registration number ISRCTN12437878; Pre-results