Designing an information system for updating land records in Bangladesh: action design ethnographic research (ADER)

Open Access. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits any use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author(s) and the source are credited.This article has been made available through the Brunel Open Access Publishing Fund.Information Systems (IS) has developed through adapting, generating and applying diverse methodologies, methods, and techniques from reference disciplines. Further, Action Design Research (ADR) has recently developed as a broad research method that focuses on designing and redesigning IT and IS in organizational contexts. This paper reflects on applying ADR in a complex organizational context in a developing country. It shows that ADR requires additional lens for designing IS in such a complex organizational context. Through conducting ADR, it is seen that an ethnographic framework has potential complementarities for understanding complex contexts thereby enhancing the ADR processes. This paper argues that conducting ADR with an ethnographic approach enhances design of IS and organizational contexts. Finally, this paper aims presents a broader methodological framework, Action Design Ethnographic Research (ADER), for designing artefacts as well as IS. This is illustrated through the case of a land records updating service in Bangladesh

Decisions at the end of life: have we come of age?

Decision making is a complex process and it is particularly challenging to make decisions with, or for, patients who are near the end of their life. Some of those challenges will not be resolved - due to our human inability to foresee the future precisely and the human proclivity to change stated preferences when faced with reality. Other challenges of the decision-making process are manageable. This commentary offers a set of approaches which may lead to progress in this field

‘The city is ours, so let’s talk about it’: Constructing a citizen media initiative in Brussels

This article investigates the relationships between citizen media and constructive journalism. It focuses on ‘Dewey’, a nonprofit organization producing citizen content on four hyperlocal online platforms. With an action research approach, the activities, interactions among members, and productions are critically assessed with participants. To do so, semi-directive interviews were conducted among 12 contributors to the platforms. Active participation of 2 years to the Dewey project as well as news pieces produced enriched the analysis. Results indicate that participants’ specific writing practices produce constructive news against stereotypes or against a lack of coverage of certain issues. Furthermore, Dewey’s open (and non-institutional) structure allows individuals to develop their own identities as participants, resulting in different writing styles and approaches to news production. However, this openness created an uneven repartition of responsibilities and a high dependence toward a small number of individuals making the process fragile and slow.SCOPUS: ar.jinfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishe

From repositories to switchboards: Local governments as open data facilitators

As the hype around the Open Data movement fades, the need emerges for the conceptualisation and realisation of more sustainable, equitable and accessible Open Data practices. In this chapter, we share insights from a Code for Australia fellowship conducted in South-East Queensland, Australia. Our contributions are threefold: first, we show how an exploratory and participatory approach to internal local council technology projects can serve to identify Open Data use-cases through the early involvement of local community stakeholders; second, we propose a novel role of the custodianship and facilitation of Open Data exchange and alternate composition for local governments; and third, we articulate the need and concept for co-creative practices across smart city business units, local government IT departments and civil society in particular to successfully deliver Open Data.</p