=Paper=
{{Paper
|id=Vol-344/paper-15
|storemode=property
|title=Sustainable Information Systems: A Knowledge Perspective
|pdfUrl=https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-344/paper15.pdf
|volume=Vol-344
|authors=Laura Maruster,Niels R. Faber,and Kristian Peters
|dblpUrl=https://dblp.org/rec/conf/caise/MarusterFP08
}}
==Sustainable Information Systems: A Knowledge Perspective==
https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-344/paper15.pdf
Sustainable Information Systems: a knowledge
perspective
Laura Măruşter, Niels R. Faber, and Kristian Peters
University of Groningen, Faculty of Economics and Business,
PO Box 800, 9700 AV Groningen, the Netherlands
{l.maruster,n.r.faber,k.peters}@rug.nl
Abstract. We propose a reorientation of the way the concept of sus-
tainability is dealt with in relation to information systems, positioning
the processing of knowledge at the centre of the concept. The concept
of Sustainability of Knowledge (SoK), referring to processes that gov-
ern knowledge is employed to define Sustainable Information Systems
(SIS). Three knowledge aspects are found to be relevant for the design
of Sustainable Information Systems: adaptability, offloading and knowl-
edge evaluation. The proposed sustainability approach is translated into
requirements needed for SIS, by employing a SOA architecture.
Key words: sustainability, knowledge management, adaptation, offload-
ing, knowledge evaluation, stakeholders, SOA
1 Introduction
Current literature acknowledges that sustainability is a broad, complex concept
[1], involving environmental as well as social issues, and which requires con-
tinuous learning in order to be understood and tackled. However, the issue of
sustainability is still mostly connected to ecological and environmental terms.
The discussion about sustainability and Information Systems (ISs) appears
in different contexts. For instance, models and tools have been developed to
assess corporate sustainability [2] and sustainability of Management Information
Systems [3]. Often, the notion of sustainability of ISs stems from the broader
notion of Sustainable Development and is applied in a specific domain. Also,
contributions concerning sustainability and Information Systems originate from
joining domains, such as sustainability and systems [4].
This article proposes a reorientation of the way the concept of sustainability is
dealt with, positioning human behaviour and the processing of knowledge at the
centre of the concept. The sustainability approach presented in this paper is then
translated into requirements needed for designing an Sustainable Information
System (SIS).
Section 2 sets out our position from a social perspective, where we use the
notions of knowledge, adaptability and offloading. Section 3 discusses the re-
quirements of an IS that conforms with our notion of sustainability, centred
around knowledge aspects. In section 4 we present our conclusions and further
research.
58 Proceedings of CAiSE’08 Forum
2 The social perspective on sustainability
The relation between human behaviour and issues of sustainability is conceptu-
alised using the notion of artificial system [5]. An artificial system is defined as a
system that is (i) made by humans and (ii) is operated by humans [1]. Therefore,
an IS is treated as an artificial system, because (i) IS’s are human-made, and
(ii) IS’s are operated by humans. From the definition of the artificial system and
given that human actions follow from an individual’s knowledge, knowledge is
identified to control the artificial system.
The first notion used to approach sustainability is knowledge. Three related
terms are placed in the sequence data - information - knowledge. Data concerns
the signals that humans receive using their senses. One level higher, data is used
to form information, which concerns the interpretation of data. Finally, knowl-
edge is interpreted information, which enables humans to apply the information
in reasoning, decision-making, or performing actions. Knowledge used to operate
an IS needs to be updated continuously. Individuals, who control the IS, have to
cope with the changes of the system to maintain an equilibrium between the sys-
tem and its environment. We call this Sustainability of Knowledge (SoK), which
means that all knowledge processes need to be guided to lead to the development
of new knowledge. Three criteria need to be met by ISs, in order to establish an
appropriate balance of all knowledge processes leading to SoK. An IS should (a)
allow the creation of knowledge, (b) enable the critical evaluation of knowledge,
and (c) ensure the effective integration and application of knowledge.
The second notion used for sustainability is adaptation. Adaptation means
that an organization needs to ensure that its interactions with its environment
fit the demands and possibilities of this environment. In some way, the organi-
zation’s functions need to be aligned with in- and outputs that the environment
provides or allows. Organizational functions are realized by humans in processes
and tasks, thereby supported by machines and all sorts of information systems.
An alignment of organizational functions implies the alteration, reorganization,
and redistribution of the organizations processes and tasks.
The third notion used is offloading. Offloading involves burdening, harming,
destroying or exploiting the economic, ecological and/or social aspects of the
environment [1]. When a unbalance exists between the environment and an or-
ganisation and its supporting IS’s, sustainability can be reached by attempting
to achieve a reduction in offloading, by involving stakeholders. Stakeholders can
be involved in the organizational sense-making, strategy-forming, and decision-
making processes in order to answer the questions how they suffer from the firm’s
offloading and to what extend. Stakeholders are “those groups and individuals
who can affect, or are affected by the achievement of an organization’s purpose”
[6]. Regarding IS’s within organizations, two groups of stakeholders are identi-
fied: (a) stakeholders related to the business system (employees, legislators), and
(b) IS stakeholders, consisting for instance IS-developers or programmers. The
employees of the organization who use the IS also are considered part of the IS
stakeholders.
Proceedings of CAiSE’08 Forum 59
3 Requirements for designing an SIS
Summing up, a Sustainable Information System (SIS) is an Information System
which (i) adapts to its environment, (ii) involves relevant stakeholders, and (iii)
supports the knowledge lifecyle, i.e. knowledge creation, knowledge evaluation
and knowledge integration/application.
We illustrate SIS design requirements by using a platform that seems suit-
able to support our approach, namely Service Oriented-based Architecture [7].
Figure 1 shows our SOA-based solution, consisting of four separate layers: the
Business Process layer, the Application layer, the Service layer and what we call
the Knowledge layer. The first three layers are the standard layers of a SOA-
based architecture. The rational of the additional Knowledge layer is to address
specific knowledge aspects. Concerning adaptability, SIS (i) should be equipped
with mechanisms that detect and deal with changes occurring between IS and its
environment, (ii) the IS forms a suitable platform for dealing with changes. The
theory of Complex Adaptive Systems (CAS) seems to provide a suitable frame-
work for dealing with change [8]. CAS theory consider that systems (for instance
organizations made up of human and software agents) self-organize and adapt
to their changing environment. Offloading can be dealt with through additional
services that manage stakeholder inputs. Such services can be an error-reporting
service, which enables stakeholders to report errors they encounter while using
the information system, or a survey service that regularly questions the stake-
holders about the functionality and useability that is offered by the information
system.
Figure 1 shows our SOA-based solution to support the proposed SIS ap-
proach. Concerning adaptability and offloading concerns, the SOA paradigm is
an option for addressing adaptation and offloading problems, because it provides
solutions for enterprise-wide loose coupling, support for service-oriented business
modelling, organisational agility and layers of abstraction [7].
The architecture proposed in figure 1 provides several advantages concerning
adaptation and offloading. First, it allows the decoupling between different lay-
ers: changes occurring in a certain layer are easily mastered within that layer,
by means of the Orchestration Service layer. Second, by incorporating in the
Knowledge layer current organizational knowledge, it allows the detection of
the discrepancies between the (knowledge about) environment and information
system, and enable the solution search.
4 Conclusions and further research
We propose a reorientation of the way the concept of sustainability is dealt
with, positioning knowledge issues at the centre of the concept. The notion of
sustainability in relation to knowledge is employed to define SIS: Sustainability of
Knowledge (SoK), which refers to processes governing knowledge. Three knowl-
edge aspects are relevant regarding SISs: adaptability, offloading and knowledge
lifecycle. We translate these aspects into requirements needed for designing a SIS,
60 Proceedings of CAiSE’08 Forum
Business Process Layer
Knowledge Evaluation Layer
Surviving Falsified Undecided
Knowledge Base
Knowledge Layer
Knowledge Service
Layer
Orchestration Service
Layer
Business Service Layer
Application Service
Layer
Service Layer
Application Layer
Fig. 1. SIS proposed architecture
by employing a Service Oriented-based Architecture. An additional Knowledge
layer is added, consisting of a Knowledge Base and a Knowledge Evaluation
layer. The function of this Knowledge layer is to support all three knowledge
aspects relevant to sustainability. As further research, we aim to perform case
studies in different organizations that aim to test the proposed approach.
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