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My attendance at the 17^th ACM Conference on Recommender Systems in Singapore was truly enlightening.
This dynamic event featured a mix of industry and academia presentations, covering diverse themes from user-generated video content to HR and music recommendations. Industry talks by Netflix, Google, Amazon and Deezer showcased the field's most challenging problems which was a fresh perspective for me coming from a different research stream. The integration of large language models into recommender systems was a hot topic, offering various approaches for vastly different use cases. In summary, the conference provided valuable insights into the ever-evolving world of recommender systems which I thoroughly enjoyed in my hometown of Singapore.

Support our researchers @WU by signing up for WULABS! Earn money for participating in experiments, on campus and online. Both students and non-students are welcome!

Interested? Please sign up at WULABS

The Institute for Digital Ecosystems is pleased to welcome our students to WU's Master’s in Digital Economy’s Program and congratulate you on your successful admission!

We are delighted that you are joining us for the start of the winter term 2023/24 and wish you all the best for your first semester at WU.

Jorão Gomes Jr published a new paper titled "Fortifying the Blockchain: A Systematic Review and Classification of Post-Quantum Consensus Solutions for Enhanced Security and Resilience" in IEEE Access. The paper explores the intersection of digital ecosystems and blockchain technology, providing a systematic analysis of post-quantum security measures to strengthen blockchain systems against emerging quantum computing threats.
The paper presents a comprehensive overview of the Post-Quantum Blockchain Consensus, analyzes key studies, evaluates methods and enhancements, and outlines future research directions.
This study contributes to advancing blockchain security and privacy, promising a resilient future for digital ecosystems.

Santiago obtained his Bachelor’s degree with a major in Economics at the Universidad Nacional de Colombia. He graduated recently from Toulouse School of Economics with a Master’s degree in Statistics and Data Science for Social Sciences, France.

We are happy to have Santiago join our team!

Verena Dorner (Institute for Digital Ecosystems) and Gerlinde Fellner-Röhling (Department of Economics) are honored to receive the Award for Innovative Teaching 2023 for their course „Research Lab A Experiments on Digital Behavior”. The course is part of the Master Digital Economy.
This year, the innovative teaching award focused on "Teaching together: Innovative Collaborations and Partnerships." Verena Dorner and Gerlinde Fellner-Röhling, always as a team, work together with the students to develop a transdisciplinary view on the phenomena of “Digital Behavior”. Team coaching sessions and integrating external experts create valuable insights for everyone. The award-winning concept enables new perspectives for lecturers as well as students.
Congratulations! Interested in the course concept? Find all details here

I had the opportunity of attending the ASAI Summer School in Artificial Intelligence (AI), hosted by CAIML at TU Wien. The interdisciplinary program offered insightful introductory courses, engaging panel discussions, and inclusive events that explored subjects such as Deep learning, Reinforcement learning, Knowledge graphs, AI's societal impact, and others.
This experience expanded my understanding of AI and its implications in different realms while fostering valuable connections with professionals in the field. I am grateful for this opportunity to learn and collaborate with specialists in this field.

Verena Dorner took part in a panel session on “The digital Euro and its effects on the ecosystem” at the Open Forum Finance organized by the National Bank of Austria.
The panel, with Univ. Prof. Alfred Taudes (WU), Alexander Neumayer (JÖ) and Markus Schwaiger (OeNB), moderated by Wolfgang Haunold (OeNB), discussed how ecosystem actors – in particular retailers and consumers – might be expected to react to different design decisions surrounding the digital Euro. The Open Forum continued with many insightful and thought-provoking talks, discussions and panels.
Thanks for the opportunity to be a part of the Forum! Find the day’s events here

Welcome, Shannon! Shannon Yuen is visiting the Institute for Digital Ecosystems from University Leiden. Shannon is a PhD student in the Developmental and Educational Psychology unit of the Institute of Psychology at Leiden University. Her research focuses on social emotional development in children with hearing loss. 

In May 2023 Verena Dorner was appointed as a member of the WU Ethics Board. The WU Ethics Board was established to provide advice and reviews on the ethicality of research projects that involve the collection or use of data from/about human beings.
Congratulations!

Jorão Gomes Jr. has published two papers in top journals from our department's list:
A Hereditary Attentive Template-based Approach for Complex Knowledge Base Question Answering Systems. Expert Systems with Application
A study of approaches to answering complex questions over knowledge bases. Knowledge and Information Systems
These research papers will be presented at the WU Awards 2023

Verena Dorner, Mercator Fellow of the DFG-funded graduate school KD2School, delivered the keynote address "From inspiration to experimentation and beyond" at the annual KD2School retreat in October. The retreat featured various presentations and a poster exhibition from junior researchers across several universities and disciplines centring around adaptive systems that support decision-making. It was also a great opportunity to network with researchers with different specialisations giving a much broader perspective on the field of information systems.

Our 2022 visiting researcher Anke Greif-Winzrieth presented the paper “Seeing is Feeling: Emotional Cues in Others' Heart Rate Visualizations”, co-authored with Verena Dorner, Fabian Wuest, Paul M. Gorny, and Christof Weinhardt (all Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, KIT), now available in the preprint of the conference proceedings here on page 235. Congrats on a great presentation! Verena Dorner chaired a session with more inspiring presentations, from modelling consumer decision making (p. 215) to replicating impaired vision for more inclusive usability testing (p. 224) and investigating the role of intuition in medical decision-making (p.245).
Thanks to René Riedl, Fred Davis and the team for a great conference. We’re already looking forward to the next Retreat!

Our attendance at the 31st European Conference for Information Systems (ECIS) 2023 in Kristiansand, Norway was a remarkable experience. The conference theme, "Co-creating Sustainable Digital Futures," emphasized the need for collaboration and innovation in addressing societal challenges and achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). We participated in diverse tracks covering data science, social media, digital public goods, AI, and data management.
The conference inspired us with insightful discussions on the environmental impact of digital technologies and the potential they hold in supporting social goods. Engaging with both researchers and practitioners, we left the conference motivated to contribute to the field, seeking to bridge the gap between research and practice for sustainable digital futures.

During my attendance at the workshop on responsible digitalization within the public sector at ECIS 2023, I presented my work-in-progress titled "Closing the Co-Production Gap: Encouraging Citizen Reporting of Public Infrastructure Issues." The workshop highlighted the importance of technology in the public sector and its potential impact on society. I also had the opportunity to learn from other intriguing presentations, including discussions on digital societal responsibility, open data as an anti-corruption tool in Brazil, hackathons for public sector innovation, and smart city governance in China. The workshop provided a valuable platform for exchanging ideas and deepening my understanding of responsible digitalization, inspiring me to explore the intersection of technology, governance, and citizen engagement further.

On May 3-4 2023, the World Bank’s Governance Global Practice organised the first GovTech Forum in Washington, D.C., at the World Bank headquarters. The event hosted lots of inspiring discussions with innovators from the private, public and academic sectors from all around the world. Two of the many highlights were the World Café on Bhutan’s modular approach to building IFMIS (presented by Savinay Grover, Senior Financial Management Specialist, World Bank) and the deep dive session “Building a Data-driven Public Sector” with panellists

- Charlotte van Ooijen, Associate Director Digital Government, Lisbon Council
- Esther Agelan, Supreme Court Judge, Supreme Court of Justice, Dominican Republic
- Catherine Nikolovski, Executive Director, CivicTech Software Foundation
- Yongsuk Lee, Director General of Public Data Policy, Ministry of the Interior and Safety, Republic of Korea
- Chiara Bronchi, Practice Manager, World Bank
and moderated by Nuole (Lula) Chen, Research Scientist, MIT GOV/LAB

Verena Dorner had the honour of speaking on the panel at the deep dive session “Whole-of-Government Approaches for Coherent and Sustainable GovTech Policies” with fellow panellists

- Adrian Fozzard, Practice Manager, World Bank (Opening remarks)
- Olga Tumuruc, Director of e-Governance Agency, Moldova
- Rachel Tsang, Deputy Director, Digital Identity, Government Digital Service
- João Dias, President of the Board, Agency for Administrative Modernization (AMA), Portugal
- Karime Ruibal, Citizens Services Director, Electronic Government and Information and Knowledge Society Agency (AGESIC), Uruguay
and moderated by João Ricardo Vasconcelos, Senior Governance Specialist, World Bank

We are very happy to have been part of the event and look forward to continue the discussions and research ideas that the Forum inspired!
Interested to learn more? See a video of some of the Forum discussions here

The scientific commission for Strategic Management of the German Academic Association of Business Research (VHB) organised the workshop „Strategies for the future in research and teaching“ at EBS Business School, Oestrich-Winkel, Germany (https://vhbonline.org/wk-/-fachgruppen/aktuelle-meldungen).
The opening plenary panel, moderated by Prof. Miriam Flickinger (FU Berlin), sparked lively discussions on the role of AI in teaching and research with panellist Verena Dorner, the future of universities with Dr. Thomas Funke (CEO Tomorrow University) and about the relevance of strategic management research for practice with Marcel Kling (Head of Digital Sales for Lufthansa Cargo).
The beautiful surroundings of the Rheingau valleys and an evening event at famous Kloster Eberbach were a wonderful environment for exchanging experiences and insights on how AI is shaping education and work, and where we as university educators and researchers see benefits and challenges ahead.

Congratulations to now Dr. Hakan Pusmaz for successfully defending his doctoral thesis at KIT, Germany! Verena Dorner co-supervised his thesis “Engineering adaptive interfaces” with Prof. Dr. Christof Weinhardt (KIT) and is proud to have accompanied him all the way to achieving his doctoral degree!
Well done and all the best in your future career as data scientist at dmTECH!

At the first Digital Economy Workshop, we enjoyed many inspiring presentations and lively discussions. Verena Dorner had the pleasure to serve as discussant for the working paper “Complementor Reactions to Platform Control – Evidence from the YouTube “Adpocalypse”” (Lena Abou El-Komboz, Anna Kerkhof and Johannes Loh). A big thank you to Christian Peukert (HEC Lausanne) for organizing the workshop – already looking forward to the next one! In the meantime, check out the regular online talk series of the Digital Economy Network at https://www.digitalecon.org/seminar

The Institute for Digital Ecosystems (Department of Information Systems and Operations Management) hosted the 2^nd iteration with the continued support of the ISOM Department. We also got the opportunity to introduce our visiting researcher Maike Althaus (University of Paderborn, Germany) to the other institutes and departments of WU.
As the weather gets warmer, we are excited for more PhD Network events to come!

We are delighted to announce that Verena Dorner has joined the Journal Decision Support Systems as Associate Editor.

I was very honored to be asked to contribute to the panel discussion on “From e-Government to m-Government” on 13 March 2023 at the launch event for the World Bank “How-to-Note: Establishing Sustainable Mobile Government”. Thank you, Gerhard Embacher-Köhle (BRZ, Note co-author), for the invitation! Together with Florian Tursky (BMF), Arturo Herrera Gutierrez (WB Global Governance Director), and Khuram Farooq (mGov Note co-author), moderated by Roby Senderowitsch (WB), we had an lively discussion on how the digital transformation will change the accessibility, efficiency and effectiveness of public services.

Interested? Watch the video!

Welcome, Maike! Maike Althaus is visiting the Institute for Digital Ecosystems from Paderborn University. Maike is research assistant at the Chair of Business Information Systems, esp. Digital Markets. Her research focuses on Digital platforms and ecosystems.

Verena Dorner was invited to present her research at the CBS workshop on Digital Ecosystems, organized by Prof. Attila Márton. On Jan 19, 2023, she presented her research on individual decision-making and strategic interactions in the domain of (digital) cities, and gave an outlook on future research into cities as (digital) ecosystems. A lively discussion on understanding and designing cities around the needs of its citizens, and how digital ecosystems models and frameworks can help in creating more liveable and lovable cities, followed. Thanks to Prof. Márton for the invitation, and thanks to everyone for the warm welcome, it was a great and thought-provoking experience!

In December, I attended the International Conference on Information Systems 2022 in Copenhagen, Denmark. The conference theme was “Digitization for the Next Generation”. This was the 2nd in-person conference which I attended as a PhD student and I was thrilled to reconnect with the Information Systems community again in person. With over 1600 attendees from 53 countries, it was a truly international conference. I particularly enjoyed the topics presented on live-streaming, user behaviour on online communities and digital marketing.

On December 1, 2022 Verena Dorner was appointed Academic Director of the MBA program in “Digital Transformation & Data Science” at the WU Executive Academy. She brings her expertise in the fields of data science, digital platforms and ecosystems, and human-computer interaction to the program. Congratulations!

As part of the newly founded PhD Network, Kenneth Qua of the Institute for Digital Ecosystems organized the very first Praedoc Christmas Market Crawl. The event brought together new and current praedocs across various institutes and departments at WU for some Glühwein and festive merrymaking!
If you are a new praedoc at WU, feel free to contact Kenneth Qua to get connected with the PhD Network.

BRZ organised a wonderful networking and innovation event at the interdisciplinary research space “Café exchange” (Kassenhalle der alten Postsparkasse), and the Institute for Digital Ecosystems was invited.

Great discussions and new insights, we are looking forward to future events and collaborations!

In November, the colleagues of the Institute for Digital Ecosystems visited the Museum of Illusions. With fun, humor and cell phones we experienced the impossible.

We are happy to welcome Daniel Schnurr, Professor for Machine Learning and Uncertainty Quantification at the University of Regensburg, Germany, and research fellow at the think thank Centre on Regulation in Europe (CERRE). His guest talk on “Do Consumers Benefit from Selling their Data? The Economic Effects of Personal Data Brokers in Digital Markets” will take place on Wednesday, 23 November 2022, 4 pm at TC.0.04
You are very welcome to join us for the talk!

Starting 1 October 2022, Verena Dorner will exchange the role of deputy for program director of the new Master’s program “Digital Economy”.

In 2023, the first master cohort will graduate and the third cohort will start the program. We wish all our students continued success! Apply for the program here

"Contextualising change with social network analysis" was published in first Annual Research issue of EFMD Global Focus "Perspectives on the Impact, Mission and Purpose of the Business School". The article was written by Professor Barbara Sporn (WU) while I contributed as co-author. Social network analysis has been used in a myriad of fields ranging from anthropology, virology and political economy. Our article applies social network analysis to Higher Education Management to understand how two universities navigated the tricky task of designing a multidisciplinary program.

Read full text

The Institute for Digital Ecosystems (Department of Information Systems and Operations Management) organized the very first Praedoc Introductory Research Symposium, with the kind support of the ISOM Department. Set against a view overlooking Prater and the warm sunset glow, the mixer event brought together praedocs and postdocs from varying disciplines across WU to get know each other and our research interests over some pizza.
We look forward to more events like this which are bound to spark new ideas and collaborations in WU.

I attended the “Value Creation from Data Analytics in Research and Teaching” Workshop at the European Conference on Information Systems 2022 (ECIS 2022) helmed by professors Nico Wunderlich and Jonas Valbjørn Andersen, IT-University of Copenhagen, Denmark.
The workshop featured several presentations that covered a wide diversity of data. I particularly enjoyed the presentation by Professor Oliver Müller from the University of Paderborn titled “Will This Job Still Exist?”. Professor Müller and his team use data from job advertisement websites to build a model that aims to predict the risk propensity of a job becoming obsolete due to automation. It highlighted the untapped potential of using public data sources to generate new forms of value.

In June, I reached two of my academic goals as a PhD student, to have a short paper published and to present at a conference. Thanks to my co-author team Fabio Stano and Verena Dorner I got the opportunity to present our paper "The Pulse Of Impulse Buying: An experimental study on the effects of background music tempo on impulse buying" at the European Conference on Information Systems 2022 in Timisoara, Romania. The presentation was well-attended with a riveting discussion from the audience about the growing importance of understanding background music within the context of digital shopping environments.
It was a great experience getting to know the community in the Association of Information Systems in person and I personally enjoyed the presentations in the “Cognition and Human Behavior” and “Social Media and Digital Collaboration” tracks. Notably the presentation “Virtual Influencer Marketing: Anthropomorphism and Its Effect” by Ehsan Dabiran was eye-opening in its discussion of highly successful virtual influencers.

Ellis summer school in Cambridge was a great experience. A week full of excellent lectures by established professionals in various specializations of ML and great scientific discussions with outstanding researchers from international universities.

My favorite sessions were Petar Velickovic's talk “Machine learning and Graphs,” which gave a great insight into GNN and its applications. Another great talk by David Krueger on “AI safety and Alignment” concerned at which stage we are now in AI development and the future safety with AI.

The week ended perfectly with a social networking event with thoughtful discussions with all the colleagues with whom I am so pleased I had the opportunity to meet and connect.

Eleni Ilkou from L3S Research Center at Leibniz University Hannover spent a couple of months as a visiting researcher with Sabrina Kirrane at the Department of Information Systems and Operations Management as part of her MSCA fellowship in Knowgraphs ITN. It was a pleasure to have her here. All the best to Eleni, and we hope you see you again soon!

Cesar Enrique Uribe Ortiz presented the paper “New measurement analysis for emotion detection using ECG data” (with Verena Dorner). Congrats on the first successful conference presentation!
Our visiting scholar from KIT, Anke Greif-Winzrieth, talked about her paper “The View of Participants on the Potential of Conducting NeuroIS Studies in the Wild” (with Christian Peukert, Peyman Toreini, Christof Weinhardt), also to great interest.
It was great meeting the KIT research group, led by Alex Mädche and Christof Weinhardt, again. Thanks to René Riedl, Fred Davis and the team for a great conference. We’re already looking forward to the next Retreat!

After many weeks of great anticipation, our kitchen finally opened its doors! On 17 May, we celebrated this happy event with several VIPs and The King - Elvis Presley.

On 17 May, the colleagues of the Institute for Digital Ecosystems went to practice archery. With fun and humor, the team skills were strengthened despite rainy weather.

Visiting Scholar Anke Greif-Winzrieth (KIT) and Verena Dorner successfully completed the 10K. What a great start to the collaboration!

Am 16. Mai 2022 moderierte Verena Dorner (WU) die Podiumsdiskussion WU Alumni Future Talks 2022 zum Thema „Digitale Plattformen und Datenmonetarisierung“. Sie begrüßte Univ.-Prof. Dr.Christoph Krönke (WU), Mag.a Susanne Stein-Pressl (manz.at), Michael Schramm, MSc. (EY) und Hans Linus Pfau, BSc. (VERBUND). Diskutiert wurde über die Transparenz in digitalen Plattformen - von der Verlagsindustrie über Supply Chains in der Food-Industrie bis zur Energiewirtschaftsowie den neuen EU-Transparenzregeln des Digital Services Acts.

Herzlichen Dank an den WU Alumniclub und besonders Herrn Klaus Christian, für die Organisation dieses interessanten und anregenden Diskurses!

Sie konnten an der Veranstaltung nicht teilnehmen? Einen ausführlichen Rückblick finden Sie hier.

Verena Dorner moderiert am Montag, 16.5.2022 um 12:45 ein Panel zur „Digital Economy“ mit Fokus auf der Regulierung von Datenmonetarisierung und Digitalen Plattformen. Podiumsgäste sind Univ.Prof. Christoph Krönke (WU Wien), Michael Schramm, MSc. (E&Y), Mag.a Susanne Stein-Pressl (manz.at) und Hans Linus Pfau, BSc. (VERBUND). Wir freuen uns auf einen spannenden Austausch! Die Veranstaltung „WU Alumni Future Talks 2022“ beginnt um 12 Uhr mit einem Impulsvortrag von Dr. Helmut Reisinger (CEO EMEA und LATAM, Palo Alto Networks). Read more
 

Welcome, Anke! Anke Greif-Winzrieth is visiting the Institute for Digital Ecosystems from KIT (Karlsruher Institute of Technology), Germany.
Anke is the lab manager of the Karlsruhe Decision & Design Lab (KD²Lab) at KIT. Her research focuses on behavioral economics, immersive systems, and Digital Citizen Science.

We are very happy to have her at the Institute, and wish her a productive stay!

The WIP „The Pulse Of Impulse Buying: An experimental study on the effects of background music tempo on impulse buying” has been accepted for presentation at the European Conference on Information Systems 2022.

Congratulations, Kenneth Qua and Fabio Stano (KIT, Germany) who co-authored the paper with Verena Dorner.

The paper “New measurement analysis for emotion detection using ECG data” has been accepted for presentation at the NeuroIS retreat 2022! Congratulations, Cesar Enrique Uribe Ortiz and Verena Dorner!

In October 2021, KIT introduces the KD2School – an interdisciplinary and structured PhD program – that fosters the training of aspiring young scholars in the research area “Designing Adaptive Systems for Economic Decision-Making”. For these purposes 12 renowned professors from five disciplines (Information Systems, Computer Science, Psychology, Economics, and Management) have conceptualized an attractive research and training program. As Mercator fellow, Verena Dorner will pursue an intensive and long-term exchange with the researchers in KD2School.

Interested? Find additional information at: https://kd2school.info

Verena Dorner & Julia Landgraf.

Prof. Dr. Verena Dorner talks about her upcoming lecture “Digital Ecosystems – Nature versus nurture” on October 21, 2020, as part of the lecture series WU matters. WU talks. Interested?

live-stream

WU welcomes Verena Dorner who has joined our team of the Department of Information Systems and Operations. Her research focus is Digital aids in decision-making. She will also be the deputy academic director of the new English-taught Master's Program on the Digital Economy.

Read more.