TJTS5604 IS1: Topical Course on Digital Services (JSS31) (5 cr)

This course focuses on digital service research on a selected topical area. This summer we focus on how to improve people’s well-being/health with digital service innovations. The course is organized as a five-week intensive course as part of the 31st Jyväskylä Summer School (JSS31). The course literature is based on the 159 digital innovation articles published at the proceedings of International Conference on Information Systems (2016-2021) and Hawaii International Conference on Systems Sciences (2016-2021) and 117 articles published in Journal of Service Research (2000-2021) on different aspects of service design, development, and innovation. The idea is to give the students a broad understanding of the digital service innovation research as a body of knowledge. The course will be given in an online format.

Content Outline:
Week 1
Online Group Meeting I: Developing the research idea Mon 8th August
How to structure the project, milestones, review work etc.
What is an interesting research idea for improving people’s well-being/health with digital service innovations?

Online Group Meeting II: Problem Clinic Thu 11th August
How to review the literature package
How to write up the article

Week 2
Online Group Meeting III: Problem Clinic Mon 15th August
Full speed on the write-up

Online Group Meeting IV: Problem Clinic Thu 18th August
Finishing the write-up

Independent group work
Submitting the article to the peer review system
Submit deadline Sun 21st August at 10:00 pm

Week 3
Independent individual work
Reading and reviewing the assigned papers by other students
Submit your peer reviews by Sun 28th August at 10:00 pm

Week 4
Independent group work
Revise the article according to the received reviews and submit to Moodle course site (for plagiarism check)
Submit your final version of the article by Sun 4th September at 10:00 pm

Goals of the Course:
The pedagogical goal of the course is to prepare students for doing research in the area of digital services. This course is designed as an advanced course on the topic of digital service innovations. Students need to understand the nature of service and digital innovation research as a discipline and current research issues and themes. The course will also apply the theoretical concepts in practice in order to familiarize the students with the practical problems of digital service innovation research by developing research articles in student groups. The research articles will be published by the students in an academic book edited by the course instructors.

Learning outcomes:

• After the course students will have good knowledge and understanding of the selected topical digital service research area;
• Students are able to acquire knowledge and read critically relevant research articles in some of the leading academic journals and/or conference proceedings;
• Students are able to apply the selected conceptual tools, models and/or methods to develop a research essay on the given topic.

Assessment Methods and Criteria:
Exercises:
Group project deliverable 80%
· Research essay development, write up, and revision based on the received reviews
Individual Assignment 20%
· Peer-reviewing of other students’ essays
Note 1: Please note that you need to have a passing mark for both the group assignment and the individual assignment. Otherwise, the student will fail the course.
Note 2: If the student is late on submitting the assignment(s), individual or group, the student will fail that particular assessment of the course. Please see the above note 1 for requirements for passing the course.

Assessment detail
Group Assignment (80%): Research Article
Group assignment consists of a project work that carries through the course. The group work will be done in teams of 2-4 people. The group assignment consists of developing a research article on the topic of how to improve people’s wellbeing/health with digital service innovations. The reading package includes 270+ articles that the students can use as the basis for developing the article. More specifically, students should choose one of the four pillars of service research (Ostrom et al., 2015) as a foundation for the developed article (Figure 1 in below). Students can use additional readings in addition to the reading package. However, the research article must include a minimum of 15 articles from the reading package.

The online group meetings will assist the students to develop the research article, which will be later published by the students in an academic book edited by the course instructors. The article will be submitted for a peer review where other students will provide feedback to the students (double-blind review process). The course will use EasyChair.org (or similar) online system for this purpose. The course instructors will act as editors for the submitted articles and provide an overview comments and guidance of how to implement the required changes based on the received reviews. The students will then revise the article and submit the final version to course web site in Moodle for plagiarism check.

The final research article should be 5,000 words (including all text, tables, figures, references, and appendixes).
RESEARCH ARTICLE FOR PEER REVIEW SUBMISSION DEADLINE: 21st August at 10:00 pm. If submitted late, a penalty of five (5) of 100 points per hour.
RESEARCH ARTICLE FOR FINAL VERSION SUBMISSION DEADLINE: 4th September 10:00 pm. If submitted late, a penalty of five (5) of 100 points per hour.

Individual Assignment (20%): Peer Reviews
The purpose of the assignments is to write two (2) peer reviews for the research articles written by the course students. Peer review will be written anonymously and the reviewers will not know who are the authors are (i.e. “double blind review”). In below is the description by the MIS Quarterly:
“Peer review” is central to the creation of knowledge. Good reviewers act both as “gatekeepers” – ensuring that poor quality research is not published – and “value-adders.” In this latter role, reviewers are asked to recognize the potential of a piece of research and then, through their written comments, try to help the authors meet that potential. Although adding value is time consuming and often hard work, it can be very rewarding. (https://misq.org/reviews)

A single review should be 400-500 words. Your review should be “virtuous” and value-adding. In other words, you should write constructive and well-balanced feedback that will help your peers to further develop the article. Please see MIS Quarterly’s Editor-in-Chief Arun Rai’s guideline (specifically Table 2, p. vi) for detailed advice for how-to write peer reviews (Rai, 2016). The key points are summarized in below:
· Focus on issues that make or break the paper
· Substantiate claims and suggestions
· Advocate for ambitious and intellectually novel work that may be impactful
· Do not send the authors on a wild goose chase, but think what would help the authors
· Write the review you would want to receive

Full instructions are available at https://misq.org/skin/frontend/default/misq/pdf/EdComments/edcommentsv40n3.pdf
SUBMISSION DEADLINE: 28th August 10:00 pm. If submitted late, a penalty of five (5) of 100 points per hour.

This course assumes that you have completed your bachelor’s studies and you are currently doing your master’s or doctoral studies. Preferably you have already done some courses in the area of digital services, but this is not a mandatory requirement.

To be defined later.