Key Address at EUNIS 2012 (European Conference in Information Systems in Education), 20-22 June 2012

1. On the Social
Sustainability of
Information
Systems in
Higher Education
June 20-22, 2012
EUNIS’12 – A 360º Perspective of IT/IS in Higher Education
UTAD, Vlia Real, Portugal

2. 1. THE MISSING DIMENSION OF IS/IT IN HIGHER EDUCATION
2. FROM INDUSTRY TO HIGHER EDUCATION
3. THE WEBERIAN IRON CAGE OF HIGHER EDUCATION
4. BACK TO THE MISSING DIMENSION
5. THE DESIGN CHALLENGES
6. CONCLUSIONS

3. 1. THE MISSING DIMENSION OF IS/IT IN HIGHER EDUCATION
2. FROM INDUSTRY TO HIGHER EDUCATION
3. THE WEBERIAN IRON CAGE OF HIGHER EDUCATION
4. BACK TO THE MISSING DIMENSION
5. THE DESIGN CHALLENGES
6. CONCLUSIONS

4. 1. THE MISSING DIMENSION OF IS/IT IN HIGHER EDUCATION
What is the Missing Dimension in
Information Systems in Higher Education?

5. 1. THE MISSING DIMENSION OF IS/IT IN HIGHER EDUCATION
What is the Missing Dimension in
Information Systems in Higher Education?
PEOPLE

6. 1. THE MISSING DIMENSION OF IS/IT IN HIGHER EDUCATION
2. FROM INDUSTRY TO HIGHER EDUCATION
3. THE WEBERIAN IRON CAGE OF HIGHER EDUCATION
4. BACK TO THE MISSING DIMENSION
5. THE DESIGN CHALLENGES
6. CONCLUSIONS

7. 2. FROM INDUSTRY TO HIGHER EDUCATION
Higher Education has been adopting
the key management practices
of the corporate world:
• Management
• Strategy
• Quality Management
• Information Systems
• IT Governance

8. 2. FROM INDUSTRY TO HIGHER EDUCATION
In many cases, however,
it has been doing it with:
• much delay
• out-dated practices
CORPORATE WORLD
50s 60s 70s 80s 90s 00s 10s
HIGHER EDUCATION
50s 60s 70s 80s 90s 00s 10s

9. 2. FROM INDUSTRY TO HIGHER EDUCATION
Higher Education Corporate World
classical management: modern management:
Management control, repeatability, culture, commitment,
people as replaceable parts people as knowledge workers
analytical, centralized projective, collective,
Strategy and reactive and transformative
Higher Education has moved directly The corporate world has moved from
from ad hoc management to bureaucratic and mechanistic
bureaucratic management management to organic and ecological
It is increasingly emphasizing management, and sees people
control, and forgetting people as the most valuable asset

10. 2. FROM INDUSTRY TO HIGHER EDUCATION
Higher Education Corporate World
quality control, quality quality management,
Quality assurance, accountability quality as transformation
(mechanistic process) (social process)
Information
Systems
IT Governance
Quality as reaction to audits, Quality by design,
essentially summative closely linked to strategy

11. 2. FROM INDUSTRY TO HIGHER EDUCATION
THE
QUALITY
MOVEMENT
IN
INDUSTRY
Before
1900
Quality
as
an
integral
element
of
the
cra7
1900-­‐1920
Quality
control
by
foreman
1920-­‐1940
Inspec>on-­‐based
quality-­‐control
1940-­‐1960
Sta>s>cal
process
control
Higher Education 2012
1960-­‐1980
Quality
assurance
(quality
department)
1980-­‐1990
Total
quality
management
(TQM)
1990-­‐Present
Culture
of
con>nuous
improvement,
organiza>on-­‐wide
TQM
Involvement of (Adapted from Sallis, E. (1996). Total Quality Management in Education, 2nd Ed. London: Kogan Page)
all personnel

12. 2. FROM INDUSTRY TO HIGHER EDUCATION
ISO 9000 - European Quality Award (EQA), 1992
European Foundation for Quality Management
people satisfaction of
management collaborators
(9%) (9%)
policy & results of the
leadership processes satisfaction
strategy whole activity
(10%) (14%) of students (15%)
(8%) (20%)
resources impact on
(9%) society
(6%)

13. 2. FROM INDUSTRY TO HIGHER EDUCATION
ISO 9000 - European Quality Award (EQA), 1992
European Foundation for Quality Management
people satisfaction of
management collaborators
(9%) (9%)
policy & results of the
leadership processes satisfaction
strategy whole activity
(10%) (14%) of students (15%)
(8%) (20%)
resources impact on
(9%) society
(6%)

14. 2. FROM INDUSTRY TO HIGHER EDUCATION
BALDRIGE CRITERIA (USA)

15. 2. FROM INDUSTRY TO HIGHER EDUCATION
Higher Education Corporate World
quality control, quality quality management,
Quality assurance, accountability quality as transformation
(mechanistic process) (social process)
Information information systems as information systems
Systems bureaucratic systems as social systems
lower maturity, higher maturity, increasing
IT Governance ignores social nature sensitivity to social nature
Quality as reaction to audits, Quality by design,
essentially summative closely linked to strategy

16. 1. THE MISSING DIMENSION OF IS/IT IN HIGHER EDUCATION
2. FROM INDUSTRY TO HIGHER EDUCATION
3. THE WEBERIAN IRON CAGE OF HIGHER EDUCATION
4. BACK TO THE MISSING DIMENSION
5. THE DESIGN CHALLENGES
6. CONCLUSIONS

17. 3. THE WEBERIAN iRON CAGE OF HIGHER EDUCATION
Max Weber introduced the sociological
concept of ‘iron cage’ to describe
the rationalization of the industrial societies
of the late 19th and early 20th centuries
that imprisoned people in
bureaucracies of technical efficiency,
rational calculation and control

18. 3. THE WEBERIAN iRON CAGE OF HIGHER EDUCATION
The promotion of quality and
comparability across universities
in the face of tightening budgets
and increased competition
has led to an identical
bureaucratization
of Higher Education:
• increased coordination
• growth of power of central administration

19. 3. THE WEBERIAN iRON CAGE OF HIGHER EDUCATION
This is being described as:
• the neoliberal vision
of higher education
• the market ideology
informing higher education
• the replacement of
innovation by accounting
• the short-sighted interpretation of
comparisons between universities

20. 3. THE WEBERIAN iRON CAGE OF HIGHER EDUCATION

21. 3. THE WEBERIAN iRON CAGE OF HIGHER EDUCATION

22. 3. THE WEBERIAN iRON CAGE OF HIGHER EDUCATION

23. 3. THE WEBERIAN iRON CAGE OF HIGHER EDUCATION

24. 3. THE WEBERIAN iRON CAGE OF HIGHER EDUCATION

25. 3. THE WEBERIAN iRON CAGE OF HIGHER EDUCATION

26. 3. THE WEBERIAN iRON CAGE OF HIGHER EDUCATION
This Weberian pyramid of higher
education, where everyone has
a position to fill and a role to play
is driving out of the academic ranks
some of the more promising
scientists and academic staff
who do not want to work
and live in an ‘iron cage’

27. 3. THE WEBERIAN iRON CAGE OF HIGHER EDUCATION

28. 1. THE MISSING DIMENSION OF IS/IT IN HIGHER EDUCATION
2. FROM INDUSTRY TO HIGHER EDUCATION
3. THE WEBERIAN IRON CAGE OF HIGHER EDUCATION
4. BACK TO THE MISSING DIMENSION
5. THE DESIGN CHALLENGES
6. CONCLUSIONS

29. 4. BACK TO THE MISSING DIMENSION
The strategic analysis that underlies the
specification of the information systems
is conducted within this bureaucratic
mind-set about higher education
It concentrates on short term visions
led by cost and efficiency factors
and systematically ignores people

30. 4. BACK TO THE MISSING DIMENSION
This leads to:
• bureaucratic task models forced
upon the users (namely faculty)
• poorly structured workflows for collecting
data from the users (namely faculty)
• lack of concern with user experience
• unsatisfactory usability

31. 4. BACK TO THE MISSING DIMENSION
Information Systems are,
thus, part of the problem

32. 4. BACK TO THE MISSING DIMENSION
Can Information Systems
be part of the solution?
YES
by being conceived with
PEOPLE in mind

33. 1. THE MISSING DIMENSION OF IS/IT IN HIGHER EDUCATION
2. FROM INDUSTRY TO HIGHER EDUCATION
3. THE WEBERIAN IRON CAGE OF HIGHER EDUCATION
4. BACK TO THE MISSING DIMENSION
5. THE DESIGN CHALLENGES
6. CONCLUSIONS

34. 5. THE DESIGN CHALLENGES
THE DESIGN CHALLENGES FOR
IS/IT IN HIGHER EDUCATION
The social nature of IS/IT
solutions in Higher Education
must be taken into account from
the very beginning and through all
the stages of the IT/IS lifecycle

35. 5. THE DESIGN CHALLENGES
DESIGN AS A PARTNERSHIP
The design, management, and
enhancement of the IS should be
seen as a partnership between:
• stakeholders
Traditional visions of IT Governance
refer to business-IT alignment, • business/management
ignoring the existence of
human stakeholders • technology

36. 5. THE DESIGN CHALLENGES
PRINCIPLE OF SUSTAINABLE PARTNERSHIP
For a partnership to be sustainable it
must fulfil in permanence the interests
and motivations of all the parts.
If one of the parts feels it is losing,
the partnership breaks down.
Each part must make sure that all the
other parts are happy with the partnership.

37. 5. THE DESIGN CHALLENGES
The common agreement that matches
the interests of all the parts is
known as the value proposition.
The clarification of the value proposition
requires that all the parts, and the
relationships between them, be identified and
the value for each part fully recognized.

38. 5. THE DESIGN CHALLENGES
The sustainability of the value proposition
can be established and monitored at all
stages of the Information System’s lifecycle
with the help of social theories such as
ACTOR NETWORK THEORY

39. 5. THE DESIGN CHALLENGES
Some important current dimensions of
the IS/IT domain, such as:
IT GOVERNANCE
SERVICE SCIENCE, ENGINEERING AND DESIGN
which were mostly technical in their origins
are now becoming increasingly
sensitive to the social nature of IS/IT

40. 5. THE DESIGN CHALLENGES
but some dark clouds could be
looming in the horizon

41. ACADEMIC ANALYTICS
which can be an invaluable
tool at the service of strategy and
management in higher education
can also have catastrophic
implications, if used against social
values and expectations of
people

42. 1. THE MISSING DIMENSION OF IS/IT IN HIGHER EDUCATION
2. FROM INDUSTRY TO HIGHER EDUCATION
3. THE WEBERIAN IRON CAGE OF HIGHER EDUCATION
4. BACK TO THE MISSING DIMENSION
5. THE DESIGN CHALLENGES
6. CONCLUSIONS

43. 6. CONCLUSIONS
Information Systems in Higher
Education can and should be
• sociable
• socially sustainable

44. 6. CONCLUSIONS
For that to happen
they must be designed with the
social nature of Higher Education in mind
and make invisible to the users
the bureaucratic needs of management
They should make people’s
lives better: not worse

45. 6. CONCLUSIONS
Finally, they should be audited for compliance with
the original concerns of Quality in Higher Education:
people satisfaction of
management collaborators
(9%) (9%)
policy & results of the
leadership processes satisfaction
strategy whole activity
(10%) (14%) of students (15%)
(8%) (20%)
resources impact on
(9%) society
(6%)

46. 6. CONCLUSIONS
Shouldn’t information
systems be up to the
quality of the academic
environment they are
supposed to support?

47. THE END
On the Social
Sustainability of
Information
Systems in
Higher Education
The slides will be made available at:
http://www.slideshare.net/adfigueiredo
June 20-22, 2012
EUNIS’12 – A 360º Perspective of IT/IS in Higher Education
UTAD, Vlia Real, Portugal