-------- Original-Nachricht -------- Betreff: [isworld] *CFP* AMCIS 2009 MiniTrack Users as Designers: Theory and Research on Tailorable Systems and Services Datum: Sun, 30 Nov 2008 19:20:51 -0500 Von: Dirk S Hovorka dhovorka@bond.edu.au Antwort an: Dirk S Hovorka dhovorka@bond.edu.au An: AISWORLD Information Systems World Network isworld@lyris.isworld.org

*CFP* MiniTrack: �Users as Designers: Theory and Research on Tailorable Systems and Services�

15th Americas Conference on Information Systems AMCIS 2009 San Francisco, CA, USA 6-9 August 2009

We invite you to submit your work to the minitrack described below:

Objective and Aspirations

The proliferation of tailorable information systems and services has engendered a shift in our conceptions of information systems as �artifacts�. The shift away from provision of defined and preset applications and services toward dissemination of information environments that enable users to actively select and integrate information services presents unique challenges to design research and design theorizing. The recognition of secondary redesign or tailoring of systems and services by users has exposed a new problem space for the creation of information environments that are mutable, loosely coupled, and emergent. Designers and users engage in an interplay of continual creation, consumption, disengagement, and re-creation in a broad design process resulting in use as intended, and/or appropriation for some unanticipated purpose, and/or redesign. The actions, created meanings, and processes by which designers and �users-as-designers� engage in design-redesign of information systems and services are poorly understood.

In this context services refer to �the offering of a capability for generating, acquiring, storing, transforming, processing, retrieving, utilizing, or making available information via technology� (Federal Communications Commission, 2008). This mini-track focuses on design research approaches that focus on the broader context of tailorable information systems and services and how design theory that supports these interactions is developed and evaluated.

Description

Recent initiatives have demonstrated a shift from the provision of defined and preset services or applications, to an environment that enables users to select and integrate pre-built technology services in the ongoing creation and re-creation of unique information systems. Information services make multiple, heterogeneous information sources discoverable and accessible by breaking through traditional barriers of location, structure and context. What faces us now is the reality that many of our information systems have multiple design states, including an initial design state and multiple secondary states, in an evolutionary trajectory of human-system-service interactions. Design can be viewed as a series of production activities (by a designer or a user), and also interpretation, appropriation, and understanding activities. So, for example, a stakeholder may produce a problem statement or articulate a need which is interpreted by a designer, and a solution produced which is then interpreted, appropriated and redesigned and possibly disseminated to a user community. The process may continue as the new information system or service is again designed by a primary designer.

Traditionally, research has focused on building and evaluating information systems in accordance with performance criteria that are frequently not reflective of the range of interactions. Much of the current design science research and theorizing focuses on programmatic building of artefacts and evaluation of performance in terms of utility and efficiency. Little research has examined design from the perspective of the user to understand how the user interacts in the secondary design states of the system, what goals are accomplished, or what meanings are created through the recombinant design.

Questions regarding the philosophical foundations of design research and a pervasive view that design science as currently conceptualized is about technical �things� have increased interest in extending design research into areas less amenable to traditional technically-oriented design research. A variety of research questions of a more socio-technical and interactionist nature and oriented more towards the roles of users and designers in design-redesign have in the main not been addressed. For example, can design metaphors, the rhetorical framing of the problem space, or alternative epistemological approaches provide greater insights and understandings into design research? (e.g. How has the Cartesian object-subject dualism defined views of design research? Does the concept of embodied interaction inform secondary design in design science?) In addition, questions about appropriate means of design theorizing are under-developed in relation to theories that can offer insights into the production, interpretation, redesign and appropriation of artifacts by users-as-designers? (e.g. Can understanding their point of view help develop theory? How are recombinant systems disseminated into broad use? How can inherently flexible services, which encourage loosely coupled, ad hoc, temporary and emergent systems be evaluated?) This minitrack seeks to look at this new problem space and the processes and interactions of design, redesign, and evolution from a broad perspective with the goal of informing design theory and practice.

Suggested Topics (not an exhaustive or exclusive list)

* Theoretical and conceptual foundations of users-as-designers - Research approaches to explaining, understanding, or predicting user redesign of tailorable information systems and services - Theory development for the phenomenon of tailoring -Principles of secondary design by �users as-designers�

* Design and theory in Information Environments - Ecologies of components vs. artifacts - Discovery and innovation with information services - Active vs. reflective environments

* Service Science - Co-value creation - Balance of commodities and innovation - Configuration of resources (people, technology, organization, & information) - Definition and categorization of �information services�

* Evolving information systems and services - Reconciling Design Science frameworks with evolving systems - Cycles of system innovation-dissemination-acceptance-( re)innovation - Principles of rigid systems vs. mutable, evolving systems - Contributions to design by user and designer production and interpretation activities

* Approaches to Design Science in tailorable systems - Use of metaphor in design theorizing - Alternative ontological/epistemological approaches for design science - Designing �interactions� vs. �artifacts�

Important Dates: Manuscript Central will start accepting paper submissions January 2, 2009 Papers Due February 20, 2009 (11:59 PST) Notification of Acceptance April 02, 2009 Camera Ready Copy Due April 20, 2009 (11:59 PST)

Questions? Please contact:

Dirk S. Hovorka Bond University dhovorka@bond.edu.au

Judy McKay Swinburne University of Technology JMcKay@swin.edu.au

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