Understanding Interest in Studying IT – “Desire for Change” Among Adult Women

Information Systems education has been concerned with student recruitment and diversity. We asked 123 students in an introductory course why they had chosen the Information Technology field. The course provided an opportunity to inquire the motivation of a diverse set of students as the course is open to anyone. We wanted to learn about our students’ backgrounds and whether the answers would differ based on age or gender. The most important themes we found were “interest,” “IT identity,” “potential of the field,” “study opportunities,” “people,” and “desire for change.” We found differences between age and gender groups that can inform inclusion efforts. People referred to recent experiences in their motivation and influences varied in different life stages. Particularly women seemed to develop interest in IT later in life. Our findings point to the significance of having the opportunity to study and the potential of the field, and the problematic online information about the field. Our findings can inform recruitment efforts and highlight potential of different groups of people that may have been overlooked so far

The Future Digital Innovators: Empowering the Young Generation with Digital Fabrication and Making

So far, the implications of digital fabrication and making on digital innovation and the future of IS discipline and profession remain unexplored. This is where this study contributes and it does so by focusing on the perspective of the young generation, in whose hands the future of IS profession, indeed, lies. Digital technology has become intimately intertwined with our everyday life. New stakeholders take part in its development and innovation processes, including children. Calls for offering more in-depth technology knowledge for children have emerged within research on digital fabrication and the maker movement: children need to be educated to design, make, and build new technology. We critically examine existing studies on digital fabrication and making with children, in order to see what the potential of digital fabrication and making for empowering children to become digital innovators of the future is. Implications to IS research, practice, and education are presented

“It’s Just Computers and Science” - Exploring Upper Secondary School Students’ Value Expectations, Perceptions and Propositions Around IS Outreach Programs

Education outreach programs for Information Systems (IS) major are important today. As the need for Information and Communication Technology (ICT) professionals increases, higher education institutions create education outreach programs to attract students to study ICT majors, including IS. For the outreach programs to be successful, it is important to take the target audience and their needs and expectations into account. For this purpose, this paper investigates education outreach programs through the lens of service dominant logic and conducts an interview study with upper secondary education students to map their expected, perceived, and proposed values towards higher education outreach programs

Perceiving ICT: Factors Influencing the Selection of Information Systems as a Major

There is a shortage of employees in the Information and Communication Technology (ICT) field, including Information Systems (IS). Student recruitment is a challenge in IS in many countries despite different student marketing efforts and extensive research on the topic. We conducted a survey with first year students in a Finnish university to understand what factors seem to affect their career choice. Our findings indicate that ICT students mostly share their view of ICT with other students, with the exception that they seemed to see the field as more creative, and people oriented. We highlight the creative aspects of the work in IS to potentially attract new students, including more women, to study in IS

We learned we can do something to reduce bullying: Children designing anti-bullying mobile apps to empower their peers

Mobile applications have thoroughly pervaded the lives of today's children, who live and learn through and with them. However, limited research has been conducted on children designing such apps and not only using those designed by adults. Inviting children to design such apps is the focus of our study. Moreover, in contemporary society, it is emphasized that children should be empowered to take civic action and engage in making the world a better place. In the literature, however, less emphasis has been placed on how children can be invited to do so through the means of digital technology, particularly mobile application design. In this study, 13–15-year-old children are invited to take civic action to address the serious societal problem of bullying through the design of mobile apps. We discussed the design process and analyzed the applications the children designed from the viewpoint of how they aim to tackle bullying. We examined how their app designs aim at empowering other children in the context of bullying, and thus considered what kinds of opportunities emerge for children to learn skills related to the prevention or management of bullying in the apps they have designed. We showed that the children's app designs informed us of the seriousness of bullying in children's lives and that they advocate for the empowerment of other children in different ways. Hence, we have increased our understanding of how smart, interactive technologies designed by children address the learning and empowerment of other children, i.e., application users. We also studied the children's learning from both their and their teachers' perspectives. This study showcases an alternative way educators can integrate digital technologies and apps in school settings to educate children on important societal matters and digital technology

Corrigendum: We learned we can do something to reduce bullying: children designing anti-bullying mobile apps to empower their peers

Mobile applications have thoroughly pervaded the lives of today's children, who live and learn through and with them. However, limited research has been conducted on children designing such apps and not only using those designed by adults. Inviting children to design such apps is the focus of our study. Moreover, in contemporary society, it is emphasized that children should be empowered to take civic action and engage in making the world a better place. In the literature, however, less emphasis has been placed on how children can be invited to do so through the means of digital technology, particularly mobile application design. In this study, 13–15-year-old children are invited to take civic action to address the serious societal problem of bullying through the design of mobile apps. We discussed the design process and analyzed the applications the children designed from the viewpoint of how they aim to tackle bullying. We examined how their app designs aim at empowering other children in the context of bullying, and thus considered what kinds of opportunities emerge for children to learn skills related to the prevention or management of bullying in the apps they have designed. We showed that the children's app designs informed us of the seriousness of bullying in children's lives and that they advocate for the empowerment of other children in different ways. Hence, we have increased our understanding of how smart, interactive technologies designed by children address the learning and empowerment of other children, i.e., application users. We also studied the children's learning from both their and their teachers' perspectives. This study showcases an alternative way educators can integrate digital technologies and apps in school settings to educate children on important societal matters and digital technology.</p

In Pursuit of Inclusive and Diverse Digital Futures : Exploring the Potential of Design Fiction in Education of Children

2020 marks the beginning of a new era as the pandemic catapulted us into new digital and virtual ways of everyday life. As the world changes, we reimagine empowering, equitable, accessible, diverse, and inclusive digital futures, through a series of projects and workshops with a diverse set of participants - children in schools and Child Computer Interaction researchers. We conducted one long-term project with two schools in Finland and two one-day workshops with an international set of participants. Through an analysis of participants’ experiences and outcomes in the project and workshops, we build a case for diversity and inclusion through design fiction in the context of children’s education. In addition, through an analysis of the process we as researchers took for developing the project and workshops, we showcase the support of diversity and inclusion in design fiction.publishedVersionPeer reviewe