IS Seminar Series – Design Science Research and Design-Oriented Behavioural Research

Shirley Gregor is a Professor Emerita at the Australian National University. Her research interests include artificial intelligence, human-computer interaction and the philosophy of science and technology. Her research has appeared in outlets including MIS Quarterly, Journal of Management Information Systems, Journal of the Association of Information Systems, Information Systems Research, International Journal of Electronic Commerce, European Journal of Information Systems and Information Technology & People. She was a Senior Editor for MIS Quarterly 2008-2010 and was Editor-in-Chief for the Journal of the Association of Information Systems 2010-2013.

Professor Gregor was made an Officer of the Order of Australia in the Queen’s Birthday Honour’s list in June 2005. She is a Fellow of the Association for Information Systems and a Fellow of the Australian Computer Society. She was given a DESRIST Lifetime Achievement Award in 2017 for contributions to design science research in information systems and technology

This seminar will first give a brief overview of design science research (DSR) in information systems, its importance and current status. Despite the increasing recognition of DSR, significant questions remain about what constitutes a design contribution and the range of research activities that can produce design knowledge. The Design Research Activity (DRA) framework is presented, which recognizes both traditional design research as well as what is termed “design-oriented behavioural research” (Maedche, Gregor and Parsons 2021). It is shown how this framework can be used to analyse the maturity of design-oriented knowledge in a specific field. The framework should be useful to authors and reviewers in assessing research with design implications and to researchers for positioning their work. Discussion of these views are welcome.

Reference:

Maedche, A., Gregor, S., & Parsons, J. (2021). Mapping design contributions in information systems research: the design research activity framework. Communications of the Association for Information Systems, 49(1), 12.

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