Incommensurability and Multi-paradigm Grounding in Design Science Research: Implications for Creating Knowledge

International audienceThe problem identification-design-build-evaluate-theorize structure of design science research has been proposed as an approach to creating knowledge in information systems and in broader organizational and social domains. Although the approach has merit, the philosophical foundations of two specific components warrant attention. First, the grounding of design theory on potentially incommensurate kernel theories may produce incoherent design theory. In addition, design theory has no strong logical connection to kernel theories, and so cannot be used to test or validate the contributing kernel theories. Second, the philosophical grounding of evaluation may inadvertently shift from functionally based measures of utility and efficiency, to evaluation based on the pragmatic fulfillment of multidimensional human actions as people encounter information systems, resulting in evaluation errors. Although design and evaluation from a single paradigm is not desirable, sufficient, or representative of design science research, multi-paradigm grounding of design and evaluation must be realized and used consciously by the research community if the design science approach is to remain a legitimate approach to knowledge creation

Being-in-the-Screen: Phenomenological Reflections on Contemporary Screenhood

The screen is the place that draws us in and somehow demands our attention—hence the saying ‘glued to the screen.’ In an important sense, screens are increasingly the ‘world’ that matters, the world that calls for us to (re)present ourselves there, to be first and foremostly in-the-screen. Moreover, being-in-the-screen frees us from the material weight of a body, a located place and time, and many of the social norms that such material rooted-ness implies. Screen communication is dominated by the instantaneous, emotive, multitasking, the intuitive, and ongoing improvisation. Moreover, in surfaciality and plasticity of the screen, disembodied subjects can play with their identity. Traditional categories such as gender, race, socio-economic class, loose their definitive authority. The physical screen is just one element of the relational whole that makes ‘being-in-the-screen’ possible. The screen in its screening always and already facilitates certain patterns of perception, structures of attention, models of thinking, and thus alter our lives independently of individual analysis or opinions. © 2023 selection and editorial matter, Taylor and Francis, individual chapters, the contributors

Knowledge Discovery in Databases and De-Individualization

The production of generalizations about groups and profiles of information subjects defined by group characteristics with the help of data mining can be highly problematic from a social and moral point of view. In this paper, we point out that the current privacy law and regulations start from too narrow a definition of 'personal data' to capture these problems. We introduce the notion of 'categorial privacy' as a starting point for a possible remedy for the failures of the current conceptions of privacy. Finally, we discuss some ways in which these problems certainly cannot be solved and suggest a possible way out of these problems

Location-Based Services and Privacy in Airports

Abstract. This paper reports on a study of privacy concerns related to location-based services in an airport, where users who volunteer for the service will be tracked for a limited period and within a limited area. Reactions elicited from travellers at a field trial showed 60% feeling to some or to a large degree more secure with the system in operation. To provide a background for the privacy study we also describe services provided by the tracking facility and the infrastructure behind it as well as the design and evaluation activities we used. Based on project results including a large number of comments from passengers, we discuss factors influencing passengers' acceptance and appreciation of location-based services in airports

Intelligence Techniques in Computer Security and Forensics: At the Boundaries of Ethics and Law

Computational Intelligence (CI) techniques have been widely used in the domains of computer security and computer forensics. One problem that normative discussions of technologies face is that the technical capabilities under investigation tend to be unclear and that the experts in normative questions do not tend to be experts in technical developments and vice versa. The present paper therefore sets out to chart the ethical and legal problems arising from a new and fast moving field, namely that of computational intelligence and its application to computer security and forensics. Using artificial neural networks (ANNs) as an example of computational intelligence, the paper’s main aim is to create a link between what can now be perceived as technical developments and established discourses in ethics and the law. It aims to chart the territory to highlight likely ethical and legal problems related to ANNs and point in the direction of future research

Using Photo-Diary Interviews to Study Cyborgian Identity Performance in Virtual Worlds

Track II: Recent Developments in Inductive Research MethodsInternational audiencePeople’s identities (i.e., who they are) are increasingly performed in both physical and digital spaces. Individuals become cyborgs as they extend their presence and bodily senses through digital bodies (e.g., social media profiles, blog posts and avatars). To gain insight into how people make sense of who they are in the face of their digital extensions, a photo-diary method is advanced in this paper. Using a single photo-diary entry and its associated interview, this short paper illustrated empirically the material and discursive practices a user of the virtual world, Second Life, enacted to dynamically draw boundaries to construct her and her avatar’s identities