Association for Information Systems Conference, August 7 - 9, 2014

Details

Track Chairs:

Karen Patten, University of South Carolina,  This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Mari W. Buche, Michigan Technological University,  This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.">

Track Description:

The Social-Technical Issues and Social Inclusion track focuses on information systems research areas impacting the intersection of humans and technology. It provides a venue for scholars of multiple Information Systems research areas to present research related to a broad range of social-technical issues as well as social inclusion issues. This track establishes an area for interested researchers to establish platforms for future research leading to comprehensive research streams dealing with information systems and social, ethical, political, and cultural aspects.

This track also partners with the relatively new SIG – Social Inclusion, which focus on issues relating to diversity and social exclusion. The track also addresses under-represented groups within the IT field whether producers or consumers of information systems and technology. This partnership provides a greater awareness and an opportunity to focus related research into a more comprehensive research stream.

Social-Technical Issues and Social Inclusion track solicits research papers (conceptual, theoretical, and empirical) as well as case studies, research-in-progress, and best practices / lessons learned.

Mini-Tracks:

Social Inclusion Minitrack

Michelle Carter, University of Nebraska at Omaha, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

This mini-track welcomes relevant theoretical, empirical, and intervention research, in either full paper or research-in-progress format, that relates to the mission of SIG Social Inclusion (SIGSI). The purpose of SIGSI is to promote research, pedagogy, and outreach on all aspects of social inclusion in the field of Information Systems (IS). The goal of such efforts is to stimulate greater diversity of thought and personnel in AIS and the IS field overall, and participation of all our members in a more socially-aware and inclusive discipline. Social inclusion research includes topics such as the gender gap in the IS field, gender minorities (e.g. LGBT community), intersectionality of identities (such as ethnicity, gender and socio-economic class), the digital divide, underserved groups in the information society (such as persons with disability), and a range of topics related to human diversity, and the “haves” and “have nots” in the information society.

The Dark Side of Social Networking — Social and Ethical Issues

Bo Sophia Xiao, University of Mannheim,
Christy Cheung
Tillman Neben

Recent years have witnessed a proliferation of online social networking sites that “allow individuals to (1) construct public or semi-public profiles within a bounded system, (2) articulate a list of other users within whom they share a connection, and (3) view and traverse their list of connections and those made by others within their system” (Boyd and Ellison, 2008). By facilitating the establishment and maintenance of social relations as well as the sharing of interests and activities within individual networks, social networking sites (such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, YouTube, and Google+) have become increasingly integrated in our modern culture, changing the way we work, study, play and socialize, and how we spend our time and money.

Notwithstanding the many personal, educational, and work benefits offered by online social networking sites, their use raises a variety of social and ethical concerns (e.g., privacy and security threats, cyber-bullying, addiction, deception, censorship and surveillance). The objective of this mini-track is to develop theoretical insight and understanding on topics and issues that address the troubling or dark side of online social networks. We welcome conceptual, theoretical, and empirical papers that enrich our understanding of the social and ethical issues of online social networks. All methodological approaches are welcome.

In Search of a 'Virtual Walden:' Re-imagining a 21st Century Vision of B.F. Skinner's Utopia

Lester Leavitt, Florida Atlantic University, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Edward Rowe

This mini-track invites papers from researchers who are heavily invested in creating pragmatic solutions that promise to bridge the gap between "utopian visions" and the hard reality faced daily by geographically dispersed social equity activists, street-level bureaucrats and community workers. The "opening volley" for this mini-track will be a review of Stéphane Hessel and Edgar Morin's short book on the 2011 protest movements, "The Path to Hope." As modernized versions of Skinner, the “call” by nonagenarians Hessel and Morin was to globalize the idea of “community” and restore it to a central place in society, while simultaneously deglobalizing predatory capitalism. Papers submitted to this mini-track should propose how the “intersection of humans and technology” might create virtual communities that might emulate Walden Two, where like-minded individuals, regardless of geographic location, might still have a sense of “communion” with friends and allies.

Social Theory in Information Systems Research (STIR ’14)

Howard Rosenbaum, Indiana University, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Pnina Fichman

STIR’14 solicits papers that make use of social theory in information systems research drawing upon such approaches as sociotechnical theory, critical theory, social informatics, organizational theory, cultural anthropology, sociology and others. We are interested in understanding and supporting the evolution of social theory, socio-technical theory, and social informatics in IS research. We want to highlight research that uses these approaches to critically examine the constitution of ICT, and their roles in organizations and society. We are particularly interested in research that makes use of social theory to address issues of designing a smart and sustainable digital future, answer questions about how we are interacting with ICTs in our work and social lives in ways that help and hinder the move towards sustainability, and critically examine the constitution of ICTs, and their roles in the design, maintenance and dissolution of sustainable organizations and social groups.

Social Aspects of Social Media

Laurence Brooks, Brunel University, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Roman Brandtweiner
Howard Rosenbaum

Social Media, as exemplified in the ‘Web 2.0 concept’ (Kaplan and Haenlein, 2010), have been making headlines in the national newspapers (Lanchester, 2006), not only for their high profile acquisition by major media companies, but also for their ability to potentially create a whole new revenue stream, create a new exploitation route, influence the outcome of the US presidential election, monitor natural disasters (Greengard 2011) or even effect wholesale political change such as in the Arab Spring (Stelter, 2008). These technologies have now become accepted and ubiquitous. While the technology is important, as without this the whole phenomena would not exist, the interesting and challenging element of social media is what people do with it, ie. the social aspect (Aguenza et. al., 2012). This track aims to bring together related articles (theoretical and empirical papers, including survey and case/field study research papers) that address the concept of social media and related phenomena.

Inclusion of the Differently-Abled in the Information Society

Rakesh Babu, University of Wisconsin Milwaukee, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Rahul Singh
Brian Wentz

This mini-track invites research papers (conceptual, theoretical, and empirical), research-in-progress, case studies and best practices on Information Systems (IS) use by the differently-abled (DA). People with different abilities, include the blind & visually-impaired, the elderly, the hearing-impaired and the dyslexic. They are atypical users who interact with IS differently. Often, they face systemic and functional barriers in effective use of IS. Moreover, they are an under-studied population in the IS discipline.

We draw the attention of the AIS community to the broad theme of IS and differently-abled users to make IS more inclusive. The long-term goal is to leverage the unique skill-sets of differently-abled users to develop an inclusive information society.

Organizational and Social Dynamics in Information Technology

Dragos Vieru, Distance Learning University of Quebec, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Micheal Knight

Social issues related to information technology represents one of the most often discussed underpinnings in information systems research throughout the tenure of the IS field. Social issues are those research topics most aligned with the human factor in terms of information systems planning, development, implementation and utilization.

This mini-track includes all aspects of social issues that are impacted by information technology affecting organizations and inter-organizational structures. This would include the conceptualization of specific social issues and their associated constructs, proposed designs and infrastructures, empirical validation of social models, and case studies illustrating socialization success and failures. Some key topics may include: (1) ethics, (2) culture, (3) relationships, (4) human interaction, (5) security, (6) design, (7) building relationships, and (8) diversity in the IT workforce.

Relevant topics include Systems Accessibility & Usability; Universal Access to IS Education; E-learning of differently-abled; Social/ Mobile Computing through Assistive-Technology; Healthcare IS for the differently-abled; Public Policy and/or Legal Implications of Accessibility and Usability.

Social Media, Social Action, and Politics

Rozan Maghrabi, The University of North Carolina - Greensboro, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
A.F. Salam
Mike Gallivan

The increasing impact of social media on social issues and politics over the past few decades has change how social media is viewed and used. The power of the online social tools in promoting and facilitating political participation and social action across the globe highlights the connection between technology diffusion and digital media use and political change. Social media is also having a major impact on business, sparking a revolution in the customer experience and behavior, and influencing transformations in organizations. With the recognition of the powerful role of social media in these contexts, the objective of Social Media, Social Action, and Politics minitrack is to provide a forum for discussions and presentation of original research that critically examines the constitution of ICTs and their roles in organizations and society. We believe that IS research is uniquely positioned to investigate the larger role of Information Systems and Technologies in our social and political systems both for the benefit of business organizations as well as for the larger society.