No abstract

South African public hospitals are faced with many challenges comprising inefficient processes, lack of digitalisation, severe austerity measures, and the rising burden of disease. Irrespective of the many existing initiatives in place, a critical challenge is the shortage of necessary resources required to fund, implement, and sustain new interventions. This deprives public hospitals from the efficiencies and quality of service experienced in private hospitals or other business entities. Through a case study strategy, this paper has abstracted two practice contributions. First, it describes and prescribes a low‐cost approach in which business process redesign was applied in a public hospital through a partnership between the hospital and a higher learning institution. The initiative involved third year students majoring in Information Systems performing, as part of their class project, process analysis at the hospital at no cost to the hospital other than their employees' time. The second contribution is a priority list of redesign and lean management principles that were abstracted from these initiatives. These include improving staff training, distributing and adhering to up‐to‐date standard operating procedures, performing tasks in parallel rather than in series, reducing handovers by avoiding certain tasks, incentivizing use of existing mobile software by doctors, developing low‐cost task automation solutions such as Microsoft Office applications, redesigning and standardizing forms, capturing data at source electronically rather than later, redesigning physical spaces, and improved key performance indicators and reporting. The study confirms the usefulness of this collaborative business process redesign approach for public hospitals as stakeholders got relevant information and practical, low‐cost, creative solutions with the potential to improve efficiencies and subsequently service delivery.

This paper is an attempt to position Information Systems (IS) education within the Information and Communications Technologies for Development (ICT4D) research and practice discourse. The motivation for the study comes from an understanding that, while the research on ICT4D theories and practice has grown in popularity, there has been very little effort directed towards establishing the link between university education and ICT4D practices. IS education literature is still preoccupied with discussions on curriculum and pedagogies focused on equipping students with instrumental knowledge grounded on the 'catching up' and 'conformist' IS practices. As a result learners,especially at the undergraduate level, are left with little to no exposure to the IS discourses of reformists and transformists that have been identified as critical to the success of ICT4D. By drawing parallels to other patterns in ICT4D research and practice, this study hopes to shed light on a gap in IS education that, if not addressed, will continue to be a major obstacle to ICT4D initiatives in developing countries.

On the 4th of January 2021, WhatsApp proposed a policy update that required its users to consent to have some of their data on the application linked to Facebook to boost the commercialisation of their users’ data for their insights. The move received widespread attention and criticism from some users, media, regulators, and organisations that have an interest in user data protection. The pervasiveness of WhatsApp meant that close to 2 billion users around the world were likely to be impacted by the policy. The event also caused some further debate about the ethical standards of individuals’ privacy and data security online. This qualitative interpretive case study aims to explore what WhatsApp users based in South Africa knew about the policy, how they perceived it, and how their perceptions influenced their reactions to the policy and WhatsApp usage in general. The results suggest that users who were studied accepted the policy out of necessity, not choice, citing WhatsApp's omnipresence and lack of similarly ubiquitous alternatives as their main reasons for staying with the service.

Aim/Purpose: The aim of this study is to explore the role of service-learning in Information Systems (IS) education. Background: While the use of modern technologies presents many operational benefits, such as the lowering of the costs, it may also aggravate social-economic is-sues. IS professionals should account for these issues as well as exhibit the skills demanded by modern-day employers. Hence, why there is a need for IS educators to adopt a new pedagogy that supports the development of more holistic and socially responsible IS graduates. Methodology: In this qualitative exploratory case study, two IS service-learning courses at a South African university were studied. Interviews, course evaluations, and reflection essays were analyzed to gain insight into the implications that service-learning may have for students. Contribution: This study contributes to IS education research by advancing discussions on the role of service-learning in providing learning outcomes such as the development of important skills in IS, civic-mindedness, and active participation in society. Findings: The findings showed that the courses had different implications for students developing skills that are important in IS and becoming civic-minded due to the variation in their design and implementation. Recommendations for Practitioners: It is recommended that IS educators present their courses in the form of service-learning with a careful selection of readings, projects, and reflection activities. Recommendations for Researchers: IS education researchers are advised to conduct longitudinal studies to gain more insight into the long-term implications that service-learning may have for IS students. Impact on Society: This paper provides insight into how IS students may gain social agency and a better understanding of their role in society. Future Research: It is recommended that future research focus on mediating factors and the implications that service-learning may have for IS students in the long-term.