Digital Platforms and Digital Inequality - An Analysis From Information Ethics Perspective

Digital platforms are information technology artifacts that erode established market structures by providing a digital interaction space for producers and consumers. Therefore, it is argued here that digital platforms inherently support digital divide. This potential, if not governed or made visible for the involved actors, can lead and is already leading to undesired societal and ethical consequences. To derive these insights, Information Systems (IS) perspective is enriched with the Information Ethics approach and terminology. This interdisciplinary view allows considering both the technical and the social side of the problem. The analysis of interactions and roles is performed using the four ethical issues identified by Mason as a general taxonomy of ethical concerns in IS context. The identified aspects offer insights on the potentials of digital platforms that fosters digital inequality. Power asymmetries between the digital platform and its users are identified, outlining their potential for manifestation of the digital divide

Transparency as a Potential Factor for Implementation of Machine Learning-based Systems

Legal regulations such as European General Data Protection Regulation have put transparency as an essential characteristic of data-based information systems firmly into the focus of the system developers. Furthermore, enterprises increasingly consider challenging machine learning-based systems (MLS) to support particular business functions and hence require informed decisions based on explainable results of the MLS. This research in progress explores the information needs for the adaptation of predictive analytics MLS in a commercial setting. Using scenario-based survey and based on the technology acceptance model, insights into the transparency requirements from the users’ perspective are derived and future research directions are outlined. This empirical investigation provides suggestions for potential factors influencing the adaptation of MLS in business context and supports design decisions for MLS. Future directions for the exploration of the role of transparency requirements for the acceptance of machine learning-based information systems are outlined

Measuring Information Content Change in EPC to BPMN Business Process Model Transformation

Much research work has been discussing the transformation between different process modeling languages. The focus was often put on model syntax rather than on the integrity of process content. Here an established approach for evaluating information content is used to assess the information content change that results due to process model transformation from EPC to BPMN business process representation. The results show that induced information change is not significant and provides insights into EPC and BPMN language structures. Contribution of this paper is thus a generic strategy for information content measurement in business process models as well as information theoretical view on business process modeling notations. The findings have implications for analysts and modelers in that they provide guidance on language choice and reduce uncertainty of model transformation

Towards a cross-sectional view of online-research in information systems

As the Internet has changed communication, commerce, and the distribution of information, so it is changing Information Systems Research (ISR). The goal of this paper is to put the topic of application and reliability of online research into the focus of ISR by exploring the extension of online research methods (ORM) into its popular publication outlets. 513 articles from high ranked ISR publication outlets from the last decade have been analyzed using online content analysis. The findings show that in ISR online research methods are applied despite the missing discussion on the validity of the theories and methods that were defined offline within the new environment and the associated challenges

Use of Social Software in E-Business: A Cross-Sectional, Cross-Country Study

Social Software (SoS) is a term commonly used to describe a group of web based services that have capability to connect, disseminate information, network or blog. The popular SoS has created environments to attract millions of users and a favorable environment for businesses to exploit the benefit of having access to the users by adopting it as a business support tool. Studies indicate that SoS is being used by businesses for engaging with the general public, enhancing customer interaction and crisis communication. This paper analyses the status quo of the SoS use of enterprises from six countries and various industries in the context of e-business. The reported findings show that the surveyed enterprises mostly use the established SoS like Facebook and Twitter to engage with the customer but that there are also significant differences in SoS usage by country, industry and enterprise ranking

Crowdsourcing in a Public Organization: Transformation and Culture

Employees increasingly want to participate in the decision-making processes of their organization. Approaches that facilitate organizational participation, such as internal crowdsourcing platforms, can achieve this. However, although organizations of various backgrounds should be able to reap benefits from such systems, in practice, implementation might fail due to an organizational culture built on hierarchical structures, low experience with employee participation and fixed processes. Taking a design science approach, we explore this relation in a five-month case study of a transformational process at a public organization. We design, implement and evaluate an information system for internal crowdsourcing. Based on the results from user-generated content analysis of the proposals and comments, survey data and several in-depth interviews, we observe an IT culture conflict that significantly affects system adoption and use. Our findings contribute to the discussion on theoretical and practical implications for design and implementation of information systems in organizational contexts

VERBESSERUNG DER WIRKSAMKEIT DES SOA-DESIGN DURCH REFERENZMODELLE

Dieser Beitrag untersucht die Anwendung von industriespezifischen Referenzmodellen im Entwurfsprozess für Serviceorientierte Architekturen (SOA). Während sowohl Methoden der Modellwiederverwendung, als auch verschiedene Qualitätsframeworks für die Bewertung von Referenzmodellen vorgeschlagen wurden, sind Untersuchungen, die einen konkreten Ansatz der Modellwiederverwendung im SOA-Entwurf vorstellen und mittels Qualitätskriterien evaluieren, nicht bekannt. Wir schlagen ein erweitertes Qualitätsmodell für die Evaluierung der Referenzmodellanwendung im SOA-Entwurf vor und wenden es auf eine existierende Methode an, deren integrativer Bestandteil die Wiederverwendung von Referenzmodellen ist. Es wurde ein Laborexperiment durchgeführt, welches qualitative und zeitliche Vorteile des Referenzmodelleinsatzes zeigt

HIV-care access among people with incarceration experience in St. Petersburg, Russia

Background: Little is known about the clinical care experiences of HIV-infected persons in St. Petersburg who have experience with incarceration. To address this question, we conducted a capture-recapture study to identify individuals who had been diagnosed with HIV infection while incarcerated and who subsequently presented for medical care in St. Petersburg, Russia following release from prison. Methods: We matched 292 HIV-positive prisoners tested by the prison system in 2010 to the medical records at the St. Petersburg AIDS Center in the following 4 years. Results: The data analysis shows that as many as half of HIV+ prisoners fail to seek treatment in the community upon release. Of those who had sought care post-release, only 36% were receiving HAART. Of the 109 individuals for whom tuberculosis testing was indicated post-release, 36.7% were found to be reactive. Conclusion: Despite the limitations of the data, this study is the first of its kind to review records documenting HIV care among prisoners in Russia post-incarceration. In addition to providing important descriptive information about this marginalized population, the findings from this study highlight areas where HIV control efforts could be improved in order to address the HIV epidemic in the Russian Federation

Agroecological peculiarities of technogenic pollution of soils and vegetation in the impact zone of Lebedinsky mining and processing enterprise

Soil contaminated with heavy metals is of little or no use to most living organisms. Even if the soil does not become lifeless, the biocenoses formed on it are characterised by small biomass volume, low speed of biological processes, narrow species composition (biodiversity), weak stability, etc. In addition, agricultural products obtained on contaminated soils are often simply toxic, due to the increased content of heavy metals. We have investigated the impact of Lebedinsky mining and processing plant on the state of soil and vegetation in the zone of its operation. On the large factual material, the regularities of spatial variation are revealed and the character of statistical distribution of heavy metals content in soils and plants of agricultural crops in the technogenic landscape is established