Uncovering unintended and shadow practices of users of decision support system dashboards in higher education institutions

Abstract

Higher education institutions' (HEI) have begun to develop decision support system data dashboards (DSS‐DD) to improve the data‐informed decision making practices of institutional decision makers. This qualitative study examines the practices of decision makers as they engage with DSS‐DD at a large U.S. Midwestern university and uncovers the socio‐technical characteristics that lead to limited or non‐use of dashboards. To examine these practices and characteristics, this study presents a framework grounded in socio‐technical interaction networks from social informatics and sociomateriality from information systems that explores the socio‐technical practices of users within organizations, while acknowledging the impact of the users' socio‐technical contexts on their DSS‐DD practices. The results show that during the design and implementation phases of these dashboards the institutional contexts that the dashboards are meant to inform are often ignored; and that as users interact with these systems they develop unintended and shadow practices that lead to limited or non‐use of the dashboards for decision making purposes. Additionally, the study finds that users' practices are influenced by their local socio‐technical networks, which includes their prior experiences using institutional data, other actors within their institutional unit, and the political and social contexts which shape the users' decision making behavior and data‐use practices.

Personal knowledge management and enactment of personal knowledge infrastructures as shadow IT

“…Shadow IT (personal knowledge infrastructure) Information system research has advanced the concept of "shadow IT" to offer a more succinct delineation of an increasing adoption of non-organizational IT by organizational members to support work practices (Behrens, 2009;McCoy and Rosenbaum, 2019;Silic and Back, 2014). These technology uses typically unfold outside the control of the organization and its IT department (Fürstenau and Rothe, 2014).…”

Social informatics of information value cocreation: A case study of xiaomi's online user community

“…We approach the research objective from the social informatics perspective, which involves critically analyzing sociotechnical relationships among people, IT, and context. The relationships are delineated in terms of information practices, following the recommendations of social informatics scholars (Cox, ; Jarrahi & Nelson, ; McCoy & Rosenbaum, ).…”

“…The sociotechnical focus of social informatics can be advanced by attending to people's practices when they interact with IT (Cox, ; Jarrahi & Nelson, ; McCoy & Rosenbaum, ). Incorporating an understanding of sociomaterial practices (micro‐framing) into the social informatics perspective (macro‐framing) “foregrounds the fact that technologies are embedded in networks of people, organizations and other social contexts, and other material artifacts with shifting boundaries, which have consequences for the practices of users” (McCoy & Rosenbaum, , p. 2). Detailing practices also complements social informatics by providing a viable way of representing particular technological features, functions, or behaviors that IT allows, supports, or defers.…”

“…Instead of focusing exclusively on technology, sociotechnical relationships are critically analyzed, often leading to the discovery of unanticipated, paradoxical issues affecting IT design and use. To reveal sociotechnical relationships, social informatics scholars have recommended incorporating sociomaterial practice approaches to understand how people and IT interact (Cox, ; Jarrahi & Nelson, ; McCoy & Rosenbaum, ). Accordingly, we identify sociomaterial information practices in information value cocreation and critically analyze them to uncover unanticipated issues affecting IT design and use.…”

Are We Living In LA (P)LA Land? Reporting on the Practice of 30 STEM Tutors in their Use of a Learning Analytics Implementation at the Open University

“…Rather than viewing LA as a technology that will lead unproblematically to positive outcomes for students, we look at LA as technology-in-use where outcomes emerge from the interaction of the tool with the varied practices of social actors. Our approach is informed by the social informatics tradition of studying information systems (e.g., Kling, 2007;Lamb & Kling, 2003;Orlikowski & Gash, 1994;Sawyer & Hartswood, 2014) and educational technologies (Creanor & Walker, 2012;McCoy & Rosenbaum, 2019;Walker & Creanor, 2009;White & White, 2016). Any outcomes for students are not reliant solely, or even primarily, on LA applications and models, but on the outcomes of the entire sociotechnical network, including tutors, materials authors, academic managers and so on, in which they are located.…”