Report 2003: Department of Informatics (INF)
Department of Informatics (INF): Research Report 2003
The objective of the Department of Informatics is to be the leading North European university-based research department in the research field of design, development, implementation, management and use of information and communication technology in private and public enterprises. Department research is conducted by 3 research groups: a) IT Systems Development and Distributed Systems, b) Management and Organisation of IT, and c) Human-computer Interaction. The 3 research groups represent 3 academic fields of major importance to the study programmes serviced by the Department, to the private and public organisations to which the Department wants to contribute knowledge, and to the international research field of which the Department considers itself a part.
Highlights 2003
- The 3-year Mobiconomy research project was launched January 2003. The total project budget amounts to over DKK 25 mill., and the project is implemented in cooperation with Danish financial daily Børsen, the Danish Broadcast Corporation (DR), Hewlett-Packard, Nokia, TDC Inc. and the Danish Consumer Information. The project is managed by professor Jan Damsgaard with the participation of 5 researchers and 3 PhD students. The project objective is to describe, analyse and develop practical guidelines for the design and implementation of mobile services sensitive to location, situation and time. The project is expected to develop: a) new economics models to distribute turnover and profit in connection with the establishment and supply of mobile services, b) business scenarios adjusted to the unique properties of Ørestad, where mobile service experiments and tests will be conducted, and c) a strategy for scalable implementation of advisable, useful and sustainable mobile services. (Partnership with the business community)
- In June 2003, professor Jan Damsgaard and associate professor Jens Hørlück from the University of Aarhus received the European Case Clearing House Award for best marketing case 2003, for their case: Designing www.lego.com/shop
: Business Issues and Concerns. The Award was established 12 years ago and is sponsored by Business Week. It is given to the authors of the case within 7 categories, which in the past year was applied by most business schools, universities and enterprises worldwide. No case is given the award more than once. (Internationalisation)
- On 6 - 8 October, professor Jan Damsgaard, assistant professor Helle Zinner Henriksen and assistant chief of section Vicki Antosz arranged the 10th anniversary conference of IFIP 8.6 (IFIP = International Federation of Information Processing, which is made up by a number of permanent working groups set up by UNESCO in 1960). The subject of the conference was: ”The Diffusion and Adoption of Networked Information Technologies”. As has been the case with previous IFIP 8.6 conferences, the emphasis was on the discussion of various diffusion theory trends, which is the focus area of the IFIP 8.6 working group. 41 researchers from the Nordic countries, UK, Ireland, Italy, USA, Australia and China participated in the conference. In addition, there were 4 panel discussions with practicians and researchers from Denmark and abroad. The keynote speakers at the conference were professor M. Lynne Markus from Bentley College, USA, professor Kalle Lyytinen from Case Western Reserve University, USA, and assistant manager Peter Lund from Bluetags.com. The conference was held at Hotel Marienlyst in Elsinore, Denmark. The Danish Society for the Advancement of Business Education (FUHU) sponsored a cultural function and the conference dinner at Kronborg Castle. (Internationalisation)
- In the period from April – May 2003, research staff from the Department visited IT enterprises in Bombay and Bangalore and the Indian Institute of Management in Bangalore. The purpose of the trip was to explore the possibilities of establishing a working relationship and exchange experience with those enterprises in the fields of knowledge management, software reuse, human-computer interaction and software process improvement. During the trip, 2 seminars were held in Bombay and Bangalore, respectively. After the visit to India the parties involved expressed an interest in establishing a closer working relationship with a view to mutual experience exchange and cooperation, and this is expected to take effect in the course of 2004. (Internationalisation)
Academic profile
The target field of the Department is research into information and communication technology (ICT). The research field comprises the design, development, implementation, management and application of ICT. Research conducted by the Department is primarily application-oriented, but it cannot develop without related basic research. The objectives of the Department are as follows:
- To be an internationally leading informatics research institution
- To be the preferred informatics partner of the business community
- To provide relevant, high-quality informatics education and study programmes
A good and efficient academic and social environment is essential to fulfil these objectives. It is also necessary to acquire external research funds on a continuous basis and to have a technological infrastructure enabling the Department to be at the leading edge of ICT developments. Furthermore, it is important for the Department to be able to attract and retain the necessary number of high-quality researchers. This became somewhat easier in 2003, but it is still particularly difficult to attract and retain staff with competencies in more technically-oriented research areas.
Research strategy
The Department wishes to strengthen its position as the leading Nordic research department in the field of business economics ICT research and to become a leading research department in the field of business economics ICT research in Europe. It is our ambition to cover the IT management field in general, whereas the size of the Department limits its capability to cover the many different applications of ICT and ICT development areas.
Department research and presentation of results is aimed at national as well as international audiences. Its international research level is sustained through frequent contacts and working relationships with internationally recognised researchers at conferences and in research projects. Consequently, the Department’s research results are mainly published in English in international journals, anthologies and in conference proceedings subject to peer reviews.
In 2003, the Department started working on a targeted strategy for international publication, especially with a view to publication in A journals. The Department therefore developed a 3-stage publication behaviour model where each stage represents an improvement on the previous stage. The 3 stages are:
- Increasing the number of international publications in the form of conference papers, articles in international journals and chapters in books in a non-Nordic-language.
- Increasing the number of international publications in the form of edited special editions of respected international journals, edited books and books in a non-Nordic-language. Scientific staff obtaining honorary offices as (co-) editors and membership of editorial committees for international journals and book series.
- Improving the quality of the international journals in which we are published, from B/C to A journals; more quality and less quantity.
For the present, the Department is at stage 2 and preparing to move to stage 3. It is important to bear in mind that the focus on publication in A journals implies embarking on a more risky publication strategy. For example, the rejection rate of articles submitted to A journals is much higher than for B and C journals. Similarly, due to the higher quality requirements of articles published in A journals, more time must be spent on writing the articles before they are submitted for review. Thus the effort to advance the Department from stage 2 to stage 3 implies a much larger investment per article submitted for review while at the same time the success rate of submitted articles must be expected to decline. From the time when the Department implements the strategy, the quantity of research results must therefore be expected to decline in the short term (2-3 years). This is acceptable in expectation of the increased quality of research results in the long term (4-6 years).
The Department’s choice of a risky publication strategy is due to the fact that publication of a research department’s research results in A journals is one of the most important sources, if not the most important source, of preserving and improving the reputation of the department. The reputation of a department also has major significance for the quality of the students which the department is able to attract and for the amount of research funding it can obtain from external sources.
Research results
The number of Department publications increased from 94 in 2002 to 100 in 2003 – a highly positive 6.4% rise. However, those figures actually represent an even more positive development. For the Working papers and proceedings category, the increase from 57 (2002) to 60 (2003) represents an increase of 43.3% (30 in 2002 and 43 in 2003) ) in the number of proceedings (conference papers), of which all 43 were presented at international conferences. On the other hand the number of working papers (WP’s) declined from 27 (2002) to 17 (2003). The Department has been successful in increasing its publication rate in international journals from 6 (2002) to 9 (2003), but even so the result cannot be considered satisfactory. We must therefore note that the head of department was overly optimistic in the 2002 Report where he said: ”In the light of the increased WP production in 2002, a rise in the number of foreign-language articles published in journals is also to be expected in 2003 and 2004.” Hopefully this is due to a delayed effect of the WP production in 2002, as a substantial part of the WP’s were presumably turned into proceedings in 2003, and some may be expected to appear as re-edited journal articles in 2004. This would also render the proceedings development much less surprising.
Figure 1
The above account of the publication activity of the Department of Informatics in 2003 does not make much sense in relation to the above Figure 1, because the latter may be said to ”compare apples and bananas”. For example, WP’s may be in a foreign language. A way to get a more interesting picture of, say, a department’s international research production, might be to count the foreign-language production in the more interesting publication categories, i.a. books, chapters in books, journal articles, conference papers and working papers.
Figure 2
Research relations to practice
In a national perspective, the presentation of research results to Danish private and public organisations is important. In addition, it is important that Department staff participate in groups and organisations creating and formulating policies. In summary, the Department has the following key ’clients’:
- The Danish IT business (including IT user companies, software developers, IT sales companies, IT educational establishments);
- Danish and international students;
- Policy-creating and formulating groups and organisations (various ministries and NGO’s);
- External research foundations, including the European Union.
In 2003, the Department had more external research funds at its disposal than in the two previous years. This may reflect that Department research addresses issues which are considered relevant by the primary clients. Furthermore, it is satisfactory that largely all members of the Department’s scientific staff have acted as presenters at or co-organisers of seminars and conferences for professional practicians.
Figure 3
Last updated by Webmaster 19/11/2004
