Course book
Crang and Cook (2007): Doing Ethnographies (Chapters 1-5, 7-9), Sage Publications. ISBN: 978-0-7619-4446-1.
The course book is complemented with articles/chapters focusing on relevant debates, approaches and examples from the informatics field, mainly Information Systems Research, Design, and Computer Supported Collaborative Work (CSCW).
Book chapters and papers marked as ADDITIONAL or EXTRA will not be required for the exam; they are meant as suggestions for further reading.
Articles and Book Chapters
Introduction to qualitative research
ADDITIONAL resources for assignments
Kalleberg, R. (1992) A constructive Turn in Sociology, ISO Rapportserie, Report Nr. 19, Department of Sociology, UiO
Kalleberg, R. (2002) Forskningsopplegget og samfunnsforskningens dobbeltdialog, Kvalitative metoder i samfunnsforskning. H. Holter and R. Kalleberg, Universitetsforlaget, Oslo, p. 26-55.
Latour, B. (1999): Circulating Reference: Sampling the Soil in the Amazon Forest, In Pandoras Hope. Essays on the Reality of Science Studies. Harvard University Press. Chap. 2, pp. 24-79.
Nygaard, Kristen (1992): How Many Choices Do We Make? How Many Are Difficult? In: Floyd et al (eds.) Proceedings from Software Development and Reality Construction, Springer-Verlag, Berlin, pp. 52-59
Overview of the field and introduction to research paradigms
Mandatory readings
Myers, M.D., Section Editor (living version): Qualitative Research in Information Systems, The University of Auckland, New Zealand. Originally published in MISQ Discovery, June 1997. Available online.
Walsham, Geoff (2006): Doing interpretive research, European Journal of Information Systems, Volume 15, Issue 3, pp 320–330.
Recommended EXTRA readings
Klein, H. K. and Myers, M. D. (1999): A set of principles for conducting and evaluating interpretive field studies in information systems, MIS Quarterly, vol. 23, no. 1, pp. 67-94. Available online.
Myers, M. D. & Klein, H. K. (2011): A set of Principles for Conducting Critical Research in Information Systems. MIS Quarterly, vol. 35, no. 1, pp. 17-36.
Walsham, Geoff (2012): Are we making a better world with ICTs? Reflections on a future agenda for the IS field, Journal of Information Technology, Volume 27, Issue 2, pp 87–93.
ADDITIONAL resources for assignments
McGrath, K. (2005), Doing critical research in information systems: a case of theory and practice not informing each other. Information Systems Journal, 15: 85-101.
Orlikowski, W.J., and J.J. Baroudi (1991): “Studying Information Technology in Organizations: Research Approaches and Assumptions.” Information Systems Research 2 (1): 1–28. Available online.
Myers, M. (2019). Qualitative research in business & management (3rd ed.). Los Angeles: SAGE Publications.
Conducting fieldwork. Generating material
Mandatory readings
Crang & Cook (2007): Doing Ethnographies, Chapter 4, 5, 6.
Recommended EXTRA readings
Lobe, Morgan & Hoffman, 2020: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/1609406920937875
Cohen Miller et al., 2020: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/1609406920963782 (“failing” within a qualitative research study)
Van Manen (kap 2)
ADDITIONAL resources for assignments
Blauhut, D. & Buur, J. (2009): What video styles can do for user research. Paper at The Nordes Conference 2009 "Engaging Artifacts", Oslo, Norway. Available online.
Crang and Cook (2007): Doing Ethnographies, "Chapter 6: Focus groups", Sage Publications.
Edwards, R. & Holland J., (2013) What is Qualitative Interviewing?, London: Bloomsbury, . 127 pp.
Fujii, Lee Ann J., (2015) Five stories of accidental ethnography: turning unplanned moments in the field into data. Qualitative Research 15(4):525-539.
Flewit, R. (2006): Using video to investigate preschool classroom interaction: education research assumptions and methodological practices. Visual Communication 2006 5, pp. 25-50. Available online.
Graver, B., Dunne, T. and Pacenti, E. (1999) Cultural Probes: Cultural Probes, In Interactions. Jan+Feb. 1999, pp. 21-29. Available online.
Suri, J. F. (2011): Poetic Observation: What Designers Make of What They See. In Clarke, A. J. (ed.) Design Anthropology. Object Culture In the 21st Century. SpringerWienNewYork. pp. 16-32. Available online
Case Studies
Mandatory readings
Flyvbjerg, B. (2006): Five Misunderstandings About Case-Study Research, Qualitative Inquiry, Vol. 12, no. 2. Sage Publications, pp. 219-245. Available online.
Stake, R. E. (2005): Qualitative Case Studies, In Denzin, N. & Lincoln, Y. (eds.) (2005): The Sage Handbook of Qualitative Research. Sage Publications. Chap. 17, pp. 443-466.
Walsham, G. (2002): Interpretive Case Study in IS Research, Sage. Ch 6 in Myers and Avison (eds) "Qualitative Research in Information Systems".
Recommended EXTRA readings
Walsham, G. and Sahay, S. (1999): GIS for District-Level Administration in India: Problems and Opportunities, MIS Quarterly, Vol. 23, No. 1 (Mar., 1999), pp. 39-65.
ADDITIONAL resources for assignments
Baxter, P. & Jack, S. (2008): Qualitative Case Study Methodology: Study Design and Implementation for Novice Researchers. The Qualitative Report Volume 13 Number 4 December 2008: 544-599. . Online access.
Geertz, C. (1972): Deep play: Notes on the Balinese Cockfight, In Geertz, C. The interpretation of cultures. New York: Basic Books
Lee, A. and Baskerville, R. (2003): Generalizing Generalizability, Information Systems Research. Vol 14, no 3, pp. 221-243.
Ethnography
Mandatory readings
Murphey, K. M. & Marcus, G. E. (2013): Epilogue: Ethnography and Design, Ethnography in Design... Ethnography by Design. In Gunn, W., Otto, T. & Smith, R. C. (eds.) Design Anthropology. Theory and Practice. Bloomsbury Academic, pp. 251-268.
Verne, G. (2020) Adapting to a Robot: Adapting gardening and the garden to fit a robot lawn mower. In Companion of the 2020 ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction (HRI ’20 Companion), March 23–26, 2020, Cambridge, United Kingdom. ACM, New York, NY, USA, 9 pages.
Recommended EXTRA readings
Blomberg, J., Giacomi, J. Mosher, A. and Swenton-Wall, P. (1993): Ethnographic Field Methods and Their Relation to Design, In Schuler, D. & A. Namioka (eds.) Participatory Design: Principles and Practices. Hillsdale, N.J.: Erlbaum. Pp. 123-156.
Nardi, B., Harris, J. (2006): Strangers and friends: collaborative play in world of warcraft, Proceedings of CSCW '06 Proceedings of the 2006 20th anniversary conference on Computer supported cooperative work, Pages 149-158, ACM New York,
Randall, D., Harper, R. & Rouncefield, M. (2007a): Chap. 6 "Ethnography and How to Do It". In Fieldwork for Design. Theory and Practice. Springer. pp. 169-197. Available online.
Suchman, L. and E. Wynn (1984) Procedures and problems in the office Office: Technology and People(2): 133-154. Online access.
Wasson, C. (2000): Ethnography in the field of design. Human Organization 59.4. Available online
ADDITIONAL resources for assignments
Christiansen, E. & Andersen, V. K. (2013): Digital Living at Home – User Voices about Home Automation and Home-Keeping Design Discourse. Aanestad & Bratteteig (eds.): SCIS 2013, pp. 40-52. Available online.
Forsythe, D. (1999): It's Just a Matter of Common Sense: Ethnography as Invisible Work, Journal of Computer-Supported Cooperative Work. vol. 8, no. 1-2, pp. 127-145. Available online.
Hughes J., King, V., Rodden, T., Andersen, H. (1994): Moving out from the control room: Ethnography in systems design, In Proceedings from CSCW’94, Chapel Hill, North Carolina. Available online.
Harper, R. (2000): The Organization in Ethnography. A discussion of Ethnographic Fieldwork Programs in CSCW, Journal of Computer Supported Cooperative Work. Vol. 9, no. 2, pp. 239-264. Available online.
Monahan, T. (2008): Picturing technological change: the materiality of information infrastructures in public education, 2008. Technology, Pedagogy and Education. Vol. 17, No. 2, July 2008, 89-101. Available online.
Schultze, U. (2002): A Confessional Account of an Ethnography about Knowledge Work, MIS Quarterly. Vol. 24, No. 1, pp. 3- 41. .
Star, S. L. (1999): The Ethnography of Infrastructure. American Behavioral Scientist, Vol. 43, No. 3, pp. 377-391. Online access.
van der Waal, K. (2009): Getting going: Organizing ethnographic fieldwork. In Ybema, S., Yanow, D., Wels, H. & Kamsteeg, F. (edt.): Organizational Ethnography. Studying Complexities of Everyday Life., Sage. Chap. 1, pp. 23-39. ISBN: 978-1-84787-046-9.
Grounded theory
Mandatory readings
Mills, J., Bonner, A. & Francis K. (2006): The Development of Constructivist Grounded Theory. International Journal of Qualitative Methods, 5(1). Online access.
Urquhart, Cathy and Fernandez, Walter, "Grounded Theory Method: The Researcher as Blank Slate and Other Myths" (2006). ICIS 2006 Proceedings. 31.
Recommended EXTRA readings
Charmaz, K. (2005): Grounded Theory in The 21st Century. In Denzin, N. & Lincoln, Y. (eds.) (2005): The Sage Handbook of Qualitative Research. Sage Publications. Chap. 20, pp. 507-535.
White, J. & Weatherall, A. (2000): A Grounded Theory Analysis of Older Adults and Information Technology. Educational Gerontology, 26:4, pp. 371-386. Online access
ADDITIONAL resources for assignments
Birks, M., Hoare, K., & Mills, J. (2019). Grounded Theory: The FAQs. International Journal of Qualitative Methods. https://doi.org/10.1177/1609406919882535
David F Birks, Walter Fernandez, Natalia Levina & Syed Nasirin (2013) Grounded theory method in information systems research: its nature, diversity and opportunities, European Journal of Information Systems, 22:1, 1-8.
Klaas-Jan Stol, Paul Ralph, and Brian Fitzgerald. 2016. Grounded theory in software engineering research: a critical review and guidelines. In Proceedings of the 38th International Conference on Software Engineering (ICSE ’16). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, 120–131.
Chun Tie, Y., Birks, M., & Francis, K. (2019). Grounded theory research: A design framework for novice researchers. SAGE Open Medicine.
Thoresen, K. (1999): Appendix D: Grounded Theory, PhD Thesis: Computer Use. University of Oslo, Department of Informatics. ADDITIONAL.
Urquhart, C., Fernández, W. (2013) Using grounded theory method in information systems: the researcher as blank slate and other myths. J Inf Technol 28, 224–236.
Action research
Mandatory readings
Davison, R., Martinsons, M.G. and Kock, N. (2004), Principles of canonical action research. Information Systems Journal, 14: 65-86.
Checkland, P., and Holwell, S. (1998): Action Research: Its Nature and Validity, Systemic Practice and Action Research. vol 11, no. 1, pp. 9-21.
Recommended EXTRA readings
Mathiassen, Lars and Nielsen, Peter Axel (2008) "Engaged Scholarship in IS Research," Scandinavian Journal of Information Systems: Vol. 20 : Iss. 2 , Article 1.
Davison, R., Martinsons, M., & Ou, C. (2012). The Roles of Theory in Canonical Action Research. MIS Quarterly, 36(3), 763-786. Retrieved February 15, 2021.
Baskerville, R. and Wood-Harper, T. (2002): A Critical Perspective on Action Research as a Method for Information Systems Research, In Myers and Avison (eds) Qualitative Research in Information Systems. Chap. 8. vol 23, no. 1, pp. 39-66.
Sykes, C. & Treleaven (2009): Critical action research and organizational ethnography. In Ybema, S., Yanow, D., Wels, H. & Kamsteeg, F. (edt.): Organizational Ethnography. Studying Complexities of Everyday Life.. Sage, Chap. 11, pp. 215-230. ISBN: 978-1-84787-046-9.
ADDITIONAL resources for assignments
Avison, D., Lau, F., Myers, M., and Nielsen, P. A. (1999): Action Research, Communications of the ACM. ISBN: Jan 1999, vol 42, no. 1, pp. 94-97. Available online.
Callén, B., Doménech, M., López, D. & Tirado, F. (2009): Telecare research. (Cosmo)politicizing metodology, ALTER, European Journal of Disability Research 3 (2009), pp. 110-122. Online access.
Davison, Robert M.; Martinsons, Maris G.; and Malaurent, Julien (2021) "Research Perspectives: Improving Action Research by Integrating Methods," Journal of the Association for Information Systems, 22(3).
Foth, M. (2006): Network action research. Action Research 2006 4:205: Sage. Online access.
Mumford (2006) The story of socio‐technical design: reflections on its successes, failures and potential, Information Systems Journal, 16: 317-342.
Nielsen, P. A., & Persson, J. S. (2016). Engaged Problem Formulation in IS Research. Communications of the Association for Information Systems, 38, pp-pp.
Design methodologies
Mandatory readings
Frayling, Christopher (1994): Research in Art and Design, Royal College of Art Research Papers, Vol 1, No 1, 1993/4, Royal College of Art, London. Available online.
Guri Verne and Tone Bratteteig (2018) Inquiry when doing research and design: wearing two hats, Interaction Design and Architecture(s) Journal - IxD&A, N.38, 2018, pp. 89 - 106.
ADDITIONAL resources for assignments
Gaver, W (2012): What should we expect from research through design?, CHI'12, Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, Pages 937-946
Blythe, M. (2014) Research Through Design Fiction: Narrative in Real and Imaginary Abstracts. CHI 2014, ACM: 703-712.
Höök, K. and Löwgren, J. (2012): Strong Concepts: Intermediate-Level Knowledge in Interaction Design Research, ACM ToCHI 19 (3): 23:1-18.
Zimmerman, J. and Forlizzi, J. (2014) Research Through Design in HCI, Olson, J.S. and Kellogg, W.A. (eds): Ways of Knowing in HCI, Springer: 167-189.
Zimmerman, J., Forlizzi, J. and Evenson, S. (2007) Research through design as a method for interaction design research in HCI, Proc. CHI’07, ACM: 493-502.
Privacy and NSD
ADDITIONAL resources
Vike, H., & Furst, E. (2020). Forskningsetikk og forskningens frihet: Utfordringer for antropologifaget (Research ethics and freedom of research: challenges for anthropology). Norsk Antropologisk Tidsskrift, 31(3), 165-176.
Ada I. Engebrigtsen, Peter I. Crawford, Halvard Vike, & Elisabeth L’orange Fürst. (2020). Redaksjonelt. Norsk Antropologisk Tidsskrift, 31(3), 163-164.
Analysis and writing
Malterud, Kirsti. 2012. “Systematic Text Condensation: A Strategy for Qualitative Analysis.” Scandinavian Journal of Public Health 40 (8): 795–805. https://doi.org/10.1177/1403494812465030.
Recommended EXTRA reading
Braun, V., & Clarke, V. (2012). Thematic analysis. In H. Cooper (Ed.), APA handbook of research methods in psychology: Vol. 2: Research designs (pp. 57–71).
ADDITIONAL resources
Beck, Jordan, and Erik Stolterman. 2016. “Examining Practical, Everyday Theory Use in Design Research.” She Ji: The Journal of Design, Economics, and Innovation 2 (2): 125–40. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sheji.2016.01.010.
Braun, Virginia, and Victoria Clarke. 2006. “Using Thematic Analysis in Psychology.” Qualitative Research in Psychology 3 (2): 77–101. https://doi.org/10.1191/1478088706qp063oa.
Emerson, R. M., Fretz, R. I. and Shaw, L. L. (1995): Processing Fieldnotes: Coding and Memoing, In Emerson, Fretz and Shaw Writing Ethnographic Fieldnotes. Chap. 6, pp. 142-168. The University of Chicago Press. ADDITIONAL.
van Maanen, J. (1995): Style As Theory, Organization Science, Vol. 6, No. 1, pp. 133- 143.
van Maanen, M. (2006): Writing Qualitatively, or the Demands of Writing, QUALITATIVE HEALTH RESEARCH, Vol. 16 No. 5, p. 713-722
Nygaard, L. (2017): Writing your master's thesis : From A to Zen. Los Angeles, Calif: SAGE Publications.
Sørensen, C. 2002): This is Not an Article - just some food for thought on how to write one, Working Paper. Department of Information Systems, The London School of Economics and Political Science. No. 121. Available online.
Films
Bent Hamer (2003): "Salmer fra Kjøkkenet". SF Norge AS.
English title: " Kitchen Stories". A DVD is available at the library.