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Betreff:	[AISWorld] CfP ISD2012 Track: The changing landscape of Information Systems. Properties of a new IS ecology.
Datum:	Fri, 16 Mar 2012 16:55:30 +0200
Von:	Jacques Steyn <jacques@steyn.pro>
An:	aisworld@lists.aisnet.org <aisworld@lists.aisnet.org>

CfP ISD2012 Track: The changing landscape of Information Systems. Properties of a new IS ecology.

Track Theme
The changing landscape of Information Systems. Properties of a new IS ecology.
Is this a new kind of IS? Or just more of the same thing?

Conference Theme
Building Sustainable Information Systems

Dates
Conference dates: 29-31August 2012
Paper submission deadline: 20 April 2012

Venue
Prato, Italy

Conference Website
http://infotech.monash.edu/research/ISD2012/

Some keywords
Information Systems, social media, mobile technologies, HCI, ecological systems, social sustainability, developing world, micro businesses.

CfP
We invite you to submit an abstract for a proposed paper in the area of Information Systems for ISD2012 (21st International Systems Development Conference) to be held on 29-31August 2012 in Prato, Italy.

Sustainability has several meanings, with the dominant meaning referring to the natural ecological and environmental domains. Green IT relatively recently became a popular topic at conferences and in publications. While this is an important issue, sustainability may also refer to the maintenance of the complex weave of social systems. Again there is a very wide range of meanings of what "social systems" means, but for the purpose of this track, social ecology would be the focus.

Information Systems (IS) theory traditionally focuses on IS for organizations, typically business organizations, assuming all other kinds of social organizations (such as government organizations and non-government organizations) to be variants of business systems. The PC itself was developed as a business tool, and only over the past two decades with its ability to handle multimedia also became a tool for entertainment. Over the past decade the networked PC became a powerful tool also in personal communication and private socialization in the form of the so-called social media. The rise into prominence of the PC as a tool of entertainment, communication and social media put information systems in the hands of individuals for the use of non-business purposes - i.e. for non-structured or semi-structured social organizations and personal use. The recent mobilization of non-structured socio-political gatherings on the Mediterranean and in the Middle East were made possible by social media technology; while citizen pressure groups use social media to get their voices heard, demonstrated by the several million objections early in 2012 against the proposed Antipiracy Bills in the USA. What is the impact of such non-formal social groups and individual use on the design and construction of information systems? Should design be about Human-Computer-Interface (HCI), or about Human-Human Communication (HHC), facilitated by technology? Similar questions were recently posed at other conferences, eg. the Interaction conference - http://www.siliconrepublic.com/new-media/item/25639-in-interaction-design/

The PC is no longer the dominant device for entertainment, personal communication and private socialization purposes. Mobile phone distribution has surpassed the PC in 2010 in market-share. The prominent past view of the client-server model, where client meant PC, has changed to a model where client now means mobile device - either mobile phone or tablet. Do the same principles of IS developed for the PC still apply?

Ecologically, sustainability has global implications. If social sustainability also implies global social sustainability, all societies and the complex web of international networks (technological as well as social) need to be considered. IS systems in the developing world, which makes up the majority of people on this planet, thus also need to be considered. However, distribution of network infrastructure in the developing world is poor, while most commerce takes place in the informal business sector and on the level of micro businesses. In addition, the mobile market dominates the PC market by far in the developing world. With its emphasis on formal organizational IS, which meant business and mostly big business, and at best medium-sized businesses, there is not much research in IS circles on information systems for micro-organizations and micro-businesses. IS research also typically assumes 24/7 broadband connectivity, which is hard to come by in the developing world. So how does cloud computing apply in this environment? And how should IS be designed for this environment?

Since the discipline of IS was introduced some time ago, the world has changed in the ways described above. What are the implications of this trend for future IS research and for principles to build sustainable IS? Do we need different theories and models for mobile systems, micro-organizations, individuals, social groups, and the developing world? Does status quo IS hold? These are the questions to be addressed in this track. Briefly then, what are the design implications for IS in the long-term outcome of these trends and events? Should information systems consider expanding the scope of the field, or can the existing IS conceptual tools deal with this?