MIS41030 Digital infrastructure

Academic Year 2023/2024

Information systems originated as internal organizational tools to fulfil management purposes. Now, stand-alone and task-oriented information systems are being substituted by global information infrastructures. Information systems spread far beyond industrialized economies while we tend to remain focused on traditional settings like formal organizations of Western societies. This oversight might have been justified by the assumption that IT innovation originates from advanced economies and trickle down to other ones. This assumption is nowadays questionable, innovations may originate from the diverse settings and develop in unpredictable ways.
So, global information systems pose new challenges to our understanding and managing businesses:
- Usual distinction between IT designers and users is becoming blurred as a) no designer is in full control of IT in use and b) users engage in production of information and technology increasingly
- Global distribution of activities through electronic networks spans widely diverse settings, and put different organizations and cultures in novel interplays
- The contemporary actual contexts of reference and consequences of IT in use require more careful consideration of ethics
This module relies on a variety of case studies of IT in use (based both on world recognized scholars’ works and first hand research) from very diverse settings (for example: telemedicine and e-health, spatial data infrastructures, digital photography, micro-payment platforms among others). In order to account for the variety of organizational forms and processes presented, contemporary practice-based research in organizational studies is brought in for theoretical framing.

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Curricular information is subject to change

Learning Outcomes:

This module will provide students with novel insights from contemporary research about IT in the global context and aims at stimulating critical and creative thinking by questioning established approaches.

Student Effort Type Hours
Lectures

24

Total

24

Requirements, Exclusions and Recommendations

Not applicable to this module.


Module Requisites and Incompatibles
Not applicable to this module.
 
Assessment Strategy  
Description Timing Open Book Exam Component Scale Must Pass Component % of Final Grade
Continuous Assessment: Teamwork on topics made available in class Throughout the Trimester n/a Graded No

50

Examination: 2h exam 2 hour End of Trimester Exam No Graded No

50


Carry forward of passed components
Not yet recorded
 
Resit In Terminal Exam
Summer No
Not yet recorded
Autumn
     
Lecture Offering 1 Week(s) - 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 9, 10, 11, 12 Tues 12:00 - 13:50

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