Nations are rapidly transforming by leveraging on information and communication technologies (ICTs). The access to information and knowledge across the web enables new innovations and the creation of smart cities. Organisations and governments at all levels initiate ICT-driven programmes to stimulate innovation and address the needs of the key stakeholders. This results in radical changes in the way nations are organized.

In “Digital India” the Government of India is implementing a national transformation enabled by ICTs. A major focus in such transformation is the access and provisioning of digital services (including e-government services) across the urban and rural citizens of the country through the Internet. Another such notable initiative is the Smart City projects. Initiatives, like Smart Cities, are likely to play a critical role (hence is a core component of) in urbanisation and such transformation across the nation. Other examples of such regional and national level initiatives are the European Innovation Partnership on Smart Cities and Communities and the Smart Cities plan of Australia.

In the era of smart technologies, like Internet of things and big data analytics, these are becoming essential components for creating Smart Cities. These technologies are changing the way organisations leverage on their information assets in the wake of digitisation of products and processes. Sensors embedded in smart devices, like mobile phones and wearables, used by consumers are creating a wealth of data which can be used for social welfare. There has been a huge focus on the emergence of innovative business models, service models and offerings, through which the stakeholder’s value is being maximised.

Sustainability of the key assets for any nation, like water resources, energy and green resources, can also be addressed using technology-enabled transformation initiatives. Pollution can be measured, energy markets created and goods can be traced. With the emergence of such innovation and technology-driven transformation, the interests of the different stakeholders needs to be balanced. The different stakeholders are gradually engaging in public life participation using social media platforms. For example, social initiatives like MyGov in India and Australia, REACH in Singapore and Mann ki Baat in India, are enabled through Telephony, Web 2.0 and Mobile Apps, are taking inputs from concerned citizens for actually improving the provisioning of public utilities and services envisioned from the government. Public policymakers need to respond to these changing dynamics of digital nations, for creating an ecosystem which will be sustainable, resilient and addresses the social, economic and digital needs of the society.

This special issue of ISF aims to bring together a variety of disciplines for the advancement of knowledge regarding the adoption, use, impact and potential cases to pave the path for Digital Nations. To achieve this goal, literature review, theoretical and empirical papers employing quantitative, qualitative, and/or critical methods are welcomed for consideration.

Themes of submission may include but are not limited to the following:

  • Social media and Web 3.0 for public participation
  • ICTs for enabling smart cities
  • Digital and Internet policy for urbanization
  • Cyber security, privacy and Information risk management
  • Big data analytics for enabling digital nations
  • Innovation driven urbanisation
  • Digital services management
  • Critical information infrastructure management
  • Smart supply chain management
  • Smart logistics and mobility
  • M2M and M2H intelligence in urbanization
  • Public policy for supporting digital transformation
  • Socio-economic and digital inclusion and transformation
  • Smart ICT adoption studies
  • Public policy for digital economies
  • Emerging ICTs like IoT, Blockchains, smart contracts, etc
  • Innovative models for E-Business and M-Business
  • Sustainability amidst digitization and urbanization
  • Open innovation and open data initiatives
  • Electronic and mobile governance
  • Management of smart grids, energy, renewables, using ICTs
  • Service science and cloud computing for digital transformation
  • Innovative case studies.

Forms of submission

This special issue will consist of 1) the best papers from an open call selected on a competitive basis from the 16th IFIP-I3E; and 2) invited papers that are requested from the editorial members. All submitted papers and invited papers will go through peer review; if an invited paper does not receive a satisfactory review, the paper will not be considered for the special issue.

Submission Instruction

Manuscripts must be submitted in word or latex format to the ISF-Springer online submission system at http://www.editorialmanager.com/isfi/. Paper submissions must conform to the format and submission guidelines of ISF, which is available at http://www.springer.com/business/business+information+systems/journal/10796. Submissions should be approximately up to 32 pages double spaced including references.

About Information Systems Frontiers

Information Systems Frontiers (ISF) is a high-ranking, international scholarly journal designed to bridge the contributing academic disciplines and provide a link between academia and industry. The central objective of ISF is to publish original, well-written, self-contained contributions that elucidate novel research and innovation in IS/IT which advance the field fundamentally and significantly.

ISF is Abstracted/Indexed in ABI inform, CompuMath Citation Index, Computer Literature Index, Current Contents/Engineering, Computing and Technology, Information Science & Technology Abstracts (ISTA), Inspec, ISI Alerting Services, ISI Web of Science, Risk Abstracts, Science Citation Index Expanded, SCOPUS, Zentralblatt Math.

Guest Editors

Prof. Arpan Kumar Kar

Department of Management Studies, IIT Delhi, India

Email: [email protected] / [email protected]

Prof. Vigneswara Ilavarasan

Department of Management Studies, IIT Delhi.

Email: [email protected]

 

Prof. MP Gupta

Department of Management Studies, IIT Delhi, India

Email: [email protected]

 

Prof. Marijn Janssen

Delft University of Technology, Netherlands

Email: [email protected]

 

Dr. Ravi Kothari

IBM India Research Laboratory

Email: [email protected]

Important Dates

Paper submission deadline 30th May 2018
Initial review report 30th Aug 2018
Revised manuscript due 15th Dec 2018
Second round of review report 30th Jan 2019
Final acceptance notification 28th Feb 2019

 

About the Guest Editors

Dr. Arpan Kumar Kar teaches in the Department of Management Studies in Indian Institute of Technology Delhi, India. His research interests are in the domain of e-business, social media, e-governance, data analytics and technology management. He has published over 70 articles in reputed journals and conferences which are available in Elsevier, IEEE, Springer, Taylor & Francis and Emerald. He is Managing Editor of Global Journal of e-Business & Knowledge Management and Associate Editor of Global Journal of Flexible Systems Management. He has earlier worked for Indian Institute of Management Rohtak, IBM Research Laboratory and Cognizant Business Consulting. He has handled multiple major research and consulting projects for private and public organizations under Government of India. He has also received multiple awards and recognitions for his research from reputed organizations like Association of Indian Management Schools, Tata Consultancy Services, Project Management Institute, IIM Rohtak.

Dr. Vigneswara Ilavarasan is Associate Professor at the Dept. of Management Studies, Indian Institute of Technology Delhi. He researches and teaches about production and consumption of information and communication technologies (ICTs) with a special focus on India. His specific research interests are Information and Communication Technologies & Development (ICTD); Indian IT industry; and Social Media. He is an active contributor to the international journals and conferences of repute. He has been a Visiting Research Fellow at United Nations University – School of Computing and Society (Macau). He is a recipient of the Outstanding Young Faculty Fellowship Award at IIT Delhi and Prof. M.N. Srinivas Memorial Prize of the Indian Sociological Society. He is also a Research Fellow at LIRNEasia, a regional ICT policy and regulation think-tank. He has received large research grants from IDRC (Canada), Govt. of India, Oxford Analytica (UK), IPTS (European Commission) and IdeaCorp (Philippines).

Prof. MP Gupta is Professor and Head at Management Department, Indian Institute of Technology Delhi; Chairman of Information Systems Area and also Dhananjaya Chair Professor. Known for pioneering works in the area of e-governance, he has been spending significant amount of resources in developing cases, tools and frameworks to promote e-governance research. These included 24 Doctoral thesis, 17 sponsored mega-projects, co-authored / edited 4 books and 200+ research papers. He has been closely following Government of India (GoI) National Plan on E-governance which developed subsequently into an umbrella program of ‘Digital India’. His studies have suitably fed into these programs in general and ‘Cyber Security Policy of India’ in particular. His recent interest lies into exploring some the issues of smart cities. He is also steering an European Union funded (Horizon-2020) project, which deals with the setting up of cluster to cluster partnerships between India and EU for the convergence of Future of Internet & Digital Media (FI-MEDIA).

Prof. Dr. Marijn Janssen is a full Professor in ICT & Governance and chair of the Information and Communication Technology section of the Technology, Policy and Management Faculty of Delft University of Technology. He is also honorary visiting professor at Brunel University, London, UK since September 2015.  His research interests are in the field of orchestration, shared services arrangements, and open and big data and infrastructures. He is co-editor-in-chief of Government Information Quarterly (GIQ), associate editor of International Journal of E-business Research (IJEBR), international Journal of E-Government Research (IJEGR), Decision Support Systems (DSS) and on the editorial board of Information Systems Frontiers (ISF), Transforming Government: People, Process & Policy (TGPPP) and Information Polity (IP), and  conference chair of IFIP EGOV series and is chairing mini-tracks at the DG.o, ICEGOV, HICCS and AMCIS conferences. He was ranked as one of the leading e-government researchers in surveys in 2009, 2014 and 2016, and has published over 400 refereed publications. More information: www.tbm.tudelft.nl/marijnj.

Dr. Ravi Kothari is an IBM Distinguished Engineer and the Chief Scientist of IBM Research – India. Prior to joining IBM, he was an Associate Professor (tenured) and Director of the Artificial Neural Systems Laboratory at the University of Cincinnati, OH (USA).
Dr. Kothari has served as an Associate Editor of the IEEE Transactions on Neural Networks, IEEE Transactions on Knowledge and Data Engineering, Pattern Analysis and Applications (Springer) as well as on the program committees of various conferences. He was an IEEE Distinguished Visitor and is a member of the IBM Academy of Technology and the IBM Industry Academy. He was a recipient of the 2008 Gerstner Award (IBM’s highest team award) and is a fellow of the Indian National Academy of Engineering.

By Kar

Dr. Kar works in the interface of digital transformation and data science. Professionally a professor in one of the top B-Schools of Asia and an alumni of XLRI, he has extensive experience in teaching, training, consultancy and research in reputed institutes. He is a regular contributor of Business Fundas and a frequent author in research platforms. He is widely cited as a researcher. Note: The articles authored in this blog are his personal views and does not reflect that of his affiliations.