INF5220 Intensive winter course
Detailed teaching plan:
TUESDAY 27TH DECEMBER (12.00 – 16.00):
Content of lecture: Overview over course content.
What is research methods? What is qualitative research?
We divide you into 4 groups, each group selects, studies and describes one of four
fundamental approaches to research: a) positivist b) interpretivist c) critical and d)
design research. Resources: Chapter 1 (introduction) from Myers and Avison’s book,
chapter 6 on interpretive research, and Bansler on critical research. The website
www.isworld.org: the section on “Design Research” and the section on “Qualitative
Research”. Spend around two hours to prepare for up to a 20-minute presentation for
the rest of the class.
Assignments to do during this first week: a) Interview one of your fellow students,
b) experience what it is like to be interviewed, and c) one observation in a public
space. More instructions will follow. A write-up shall be submitted to lecturers by
email before Monday morning.
Homework for tomorrow: read chapter 2 in Silverman. Discuss how his grouping
into ‘positivism’, ‘emotionalism’ and ‘constructionism’ relate to the four types we
discussed today.
WEDNESDAY 28TH DECEMBER (10.00 – 14.00):
Content of lecture: A brief introduction to various types of qualitative research:
ethnography, case studies, grounded theory, action research, ethnomethodology,
conversation analysis, discourse analysis, contextual inquiry. (Ethnography and action
research are most central and will be further discussed later in the course).
Homework for tomorrow: Read about Action Research: Baskerville and Myers
(2004), and Braa, Sahay and Monteiro (2004).
THURSDAY 29TH OF DECEMBER (10.00 – 14.00):
Content of the lecture: Juma Lungo: Action Research (in general and specifically in
the context of HISP in Tanzania).
We will discuss the particular nature of IS research, in terms of its close links to
practice (design, change).
Homework for tomorrow: Read the three examples of ethnographic/interpretive
studies: Bardram and Bossen (2005), Walsham and Sahay (1999), Rolland and
Monteiro (2002).
FRIDAY 30TH OF DECEMBER (10.00 – 14.00):
Content of the lecture: We will discuss the three papers above as examples of
interpretative ethnographic studies. Then we will look at some advice for how to
conduct an ethnographic study/situational analysis. Practically, principles of
organising a study (what to look for, where to start etc).
MONDAY 2ND OF JANUARY (10.00 – 14.00):
Content of first lecture hour: We will discuss your experiences with interviews and
observations based on your written summaries and discussion in class.
The major assignment for this week will be to select one previous Master thesis to
study and present on Thursday and Friday. Today we coordinate the distribution of
previous Master theses and start studying them. (Possibly also discuss possible topics
for your work, see suggestions from Knut Staring).
Second lecture hour: Guest lecturer Faraja Mukama:
What sort of conditions and situation may you expect in your initial field survey
(situational analysis) and what should you prepare for?
Assignment this week: Read your assigned Master thesis. Prepare a presentation
where you a) describe it and b) evaluate it (some guidelines will be distributed).
Homework: Read chapter 3, 4 and 7 in Silverman.
TUESDAY 3RD OF JANUARY (10.00 – 14.00):
Content of the first lecture hour: We will do a textual analysis of an official health
policy document from Ethiopia, with the assistance of Solomon Berhanu.
Second and third hour: Library resources, databases and search techniques.
Literature reviews, positioning with respect to related research, motivation. Use of
literature: use of related research in the motivation of the study, to construct a
theoretical framework. Appropriate referencing styles.
Assignments: Locate the additional (voluntary) course papers and download or print
them. Exercises which involves using X-port (the INSPEC database, the UIO’s DUO
database, and the electronic journals), ACM’s Digital Library (the Forward Citation
features, and the ‘Find Similar Articles’ functionality. Searches using Google Scholar,
Referencing styles.
Homework: Read chapter 5 and 6 in Silverman.
WEDNESDAY 4TH OF JANUARY (10.00 – 14.00):
Content of first lecture hour: Guest lecturer: Woinsheet Mohammad will present the
experiences from her Action Research work in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
Second hour: The structure of a Master thesis (various types): What does it contain,
what do the various chapters do? Writing a research proposal: how to select and
define a research question? Pre-fixed versus evolving research focus. Use of theories,
what is a theory, concept, model? How to use it? Choosing a methodology, designing
(planning) a field study. Data gathering, recording, preliminary analysis.
Homework: Read chapter 8, 9 and 10 in Silverman.
THURSDAY 5TH OF JANUARY (10.00 – 14.00):
Presentation of Master thesis evaluations (by individual students): Describe the
research problem, motivation, research design, findings and conclusions. Evaluate.
Homework: Read chapter 11 and 12 in Silverman.
FRIDAY 6TH OF JANUARY (10.00 – 14.00):
Continued presentation of Master theses.
Homework before Monday: Read chapter 16 and 17 in Silverman. (Preferably also
chapters 18 to 24, although we will not discuss these in class).
MONDAY 9TH OF JANUARY
Individual work: Start drafting the Research Proposal.
Do literature searches. Discuss with lecturers as needed.
TUESDAY 10TH OF JANUARY
Work with Research Proposal. Discuss with lecturers as needed.
WEDNESDAY 11TH OF JANUARY
Work with Research Proposal. Discuss with lecturers as needed.
THURSDAY 12TH OF JANUARY
Plenary session
Quality of qualitative research: credibility, validity, reliability.
(Klein and Myers)
Read chapter 14 and 15 in Silverman.
FRIDAY 13TH OF JANUARY
Wrap-up session.
----------------References
Course book: David Silverman: Doing Qualitative Research. 2nd edition, Sage Publications
2004.
Course papers: (compulsory)
Myers, M.D. and Avison, D. (2002): Chapter 1: An Introduction to Qualitative Research in
Information Systems. In Myers and Avison (eds.): Qualitative Reasearch in Information
Systems, Sage Publications. (An introduction and overview)
Baskerville, R. and Myers, M.D. (2004) Special Issue on Action Research in Information
Systems: Making IS Research Relevant to Practice - Foreword, MIS Quarterly, Vol.28, No.3.
(An overview over Action Research in the IS field).
Jørn Braa, Eric Monteiro and Sundeep Sahay. Networks of action: sustainable health
information systems across developing countries, MIS Quarterly, 28(3):337-362, 2004.
Special issue on Action research. Link: http://www.idi.ntnu.no/~ericm/misq.pdf
(An example paper of Action Research)
Walsham, G (2002): Ch 6 "Interpretive Case Studies in IS Research. Nature and Method." In
Myers, M.D. and Avison, D. (eds.) Qualitative Research in Information Systems, Sage
Publications. (On interpretive research)
Bardram, J. and Bossen, C. (2005) Mobility Work: The Spatial Dimension of Collaboration at
a Hospital. Journal of Computer Supported Collaborative Work, vol. 14, pp. 131-160. (An
example paper of an ethnography oriented towards design)
Rolland, K. and Monteiro, E. (2002), Balancing the Local and the Global in Infrastructural
Information Systems. In The Information Society, 18(2), pp. 87-100. (An example of an
interpretive ethnographic study).
Walsham, G. and Sahay, S. (1999): GIS for District Level Administration, MIS Quarterly, 23
(1), pp. 39-66. (An example of an interpretive IS study, where the nature of ‘intensive’ studies
is described).
Additional readings (voluntary):
Bansler, J. (1989): Systems Development Research in Scandinavia: Three Theoretical
Schools. Scandinavian Journal of Information Systems, vol. 1, pp. 3-20. (A historical
overview over important streams in (Scandinavian) systems development research).
Orlikowski, W.J. and Baroudi, J.J (1991): Studying Information Technology in
Organizations: Research Approaches and Assumptions. Information Systems Research, vol. 2,
no. 1, pp. 1-28. (An early paper on interpretive research in the IS field)
Walsham. G. (1995): The emergence of interpretivism in IS research. Information Systems
Research, vol. 6, no. 4, pp. 376-394. (A classic reference on IS research in the IS field)
Klein, H. K. and Myers, M. D. (1999): A set of principles for conducting and evaluating
interpretive field studies in information systems. MIS Quarterly, vol. 23, no. 1, pp. 67-94. (A
classic paper, call for a self-reflective examination according to the principles of
hermeneutics)
Markus, M.L. (1983): Power, Politics, and MIS Implementation. Communications of the
ACM, vol 26, no. 6, pp. 430-444. (A well-known paper that has elements of several
approaches, and neither falls completely into a positivist, interpretivist nor a critical category)
Yin, R. K. (1994): Case Study Research: Design and Methods, Second Edition. Thousand
Oaks, CA and London: Sage. (A classical book on case study, mainly from a positivist
perspective)
Glaser, B. and Strauss, A.L. (1967). The Discovery of Grounded Theory: Strategies for
Qualitative Research. New York: Aldine de Gruyter. (The classic reference on Grounded
Theory)
Alvesson, M. and Sköldberg, K., (2000).Reflexive Methodology: New Vistas for Qualitative
Research. London: Sage. (A wide and deep discussion on various qualitative methods, mainly
for PhD students)
Beyer and Holzblatt: Contextual Design. Defining Customer-Centered Systems. Morgan
Kaufmann Publishers, 1998. (Some practical hints for doing ethnographic-style investigations
aimed at informing design work)
HISP-related:
Lungo, J. H. and J. L. Nhampossa (2004). The Impacts of Legacy Information
Systems in Reporting Routine Health Delivery Services: Case Studies from
Mozambique and Tanzania. International ICT Workshop 2004, Dar es Salaam
Tanzania. Link:
http://heim.ifi.uio.no/~leopoldo/Publications/Papers/Nhampossa_Lungo_LIS.pdf
(An action research study, where legacy systems were addressed)
Chilundo, B. and Aanestad, M. (2004) Negotiating multiple rationalities in the process
of integrating the information systems of disease-specific health programs. In
Electronic Journal of Information Systems in Developing Countries, vol. 20, no. 2, pp.
1-28.
http://www.ejisdc.org/ (An example of papers where also quantitative data forms part
of the material)
Ethnography in IS/CSCW/HCI:
Hughes, J., King, V., Rodden, T. and Anderson, H. (1994): Moving out from the
control room: Ethnography in systems design. In Proceedings from CSCW’94, Chapel
Hill, North Carolina. (A classic paper for adapting ethnography to design-oriented
purposes)
Harper, R. (2000): The Organization in Ethnography. A discussion of Ethnographic
Fieldwork Programs in CSCW. Journal of Computer-Supported Cooperative Work,
vol. 9,no. 2, pp. 239-264. (Some useful practical hints)
Forsythe, D. (1999) It's Just a Matter of Common Sense: Ethnography as Invisible
Work, Journal of Computer-Supported Cooperative Work, vol. 8, no. 1-2, pp. 127145. (Can non-ethnographers do ethnography? A critique of the simplistic uptake of
ethnography in the CSCW/IS/HCI field.)
Zuiderent, T: Blurring the Center: on the Politics of Ethnography. Scandinavian
Journal of Information Systems, vol. 14, no. 2, pp. 59-78.
http://www.cs.aau.dk/SJIS/journal/volumes/volume14/articles/no2/7_Zuiderent_ss.5978_.pdf (how can one handle the many expectations one meet when placed in an
organisational context?)
Pors, J.K., Henriksen, D., Winthereik, B.R. and Berg, M. (2002). Challenging
divisions: Exploring the intersections of ethnography and intervention in IS research.
Scandinavian Journal of Information Systems, vol. 14, no. 2, pp. 3-7. (Special Issue on
Ethnography and Intervention)
http://www.cs.aau.dk/SJIS/journal/volumes/volume14/articles/no2/3_guest_editorial_
_ss.3-7_.pdf