Guri Verne

Do-it-yourself services and work-like chores: on civic duties and digital public services

Doing civic duties is neither paid work nor leisure: it is a private, work-like activity. Digital services enrol customers in doing work tasks. Also digital public services delegate work to citizens, but there are important differences between automation for citizens doing their civic duties and services that customers choose to use. In this paper, we discuss how digitally automated services remove some tasks but also introduce new work tasks for citizens and how citizens handle these. We present a study of citizens’ calls to a public service provider (the tax authorities) requesting help carrying out their civic duties. The analysis of citizens’ problems with doing their taxes is a basis for suggesting an alternative design of digital tax services that can increase citizens’ mastery and autonomy when doing their taxes. We suggest an approach for designing coherent tasks for the citizen, and how doing one’s civic duties can be seen as work—and as a part of life. We argue that designing for automated public services need to apply a citizen-centric perspective in order to maintain a basis for citizens to participate in democratic processes in society.

Disentangling for Autonomy: Understanding the Sociomaterial Practices of Public Services

An ambition for a democratic information society is providing services that maintain and even enhance citizens’ mastery and control of their environment. Analyzing public services from a citizen autonomy perspective can indicate where the service and its IT-systems do not support user autonomy. We analyze a public service and discuss it as a sociomaterial entanglement. Based on our data on citizens’ use of a public service we identify a need to distinguish between entanglements and imbrications and suggest a notion of disentangling in order to characterize the way in which the public service advisors help the citizens. Experiencing the service as an imbrication enables the citizen to see and act, while an entanglement seems impossible to handle without a certain level of competence. Different types of entanglements need different types of competencies to address them. Finally, we discuss how the notion of disentangling tax issues can support citizen autonomy.

Exhibiting caution with use of big data: The case of amphetamine in Iceland's prescription registry

Background: Data from large electronic databases are increasingly used in epidemiological research, but golden standards for database validation remain elusive. The Prescription Registry (IPR) and the National Health Service (NHS) databases in Iceland have not undergone formal validation, and gross errors have repeatedly been found in Icelandic statistics on pharmaceuticals. In 2015, new amphetamine tablets entered the Icelandic market, but were withdrawn half a year later due to being substandard. Return of unused stocks provided knowledge of the exact number of tablets used and hence a case where quality of the data could be assessed. Objective: A case study of the quality of statistics in a national database on pharmaceuticals. Methods: Data on the sales of the substandard amphetamine were obtained from the Prescription Registry and the pharmaceuticals statistics database. Upon the revelation of discrepancies, explanations were sought from the respective institutions, the producer, and dose dispensing companies. Results: The substandard amphetamine was available from 1.9.2015 until 15.3.2016. According to NHS, 73990 tablets were sold to consumers in that period, whereas IPR initially stated 82860 tablets to have been sold, correcting to 74796 upon being notified about errors. The producer stated 72811 tablets to have been sold, and agreed with the dose dispensing companies on sales to those. The producers numbers were confirmed by the Medicines Agency. Conclusion: Over‐registration in the IPR was 13.8% before correction, 2.7% after correction, and 1.6% in the NHS. This case provided a unique opportunity for external validation of sales data for pharmaceuticals in Iceland, revealing enormous quality problems. The case has implications regarding database integrity beyond Iceland.

Does AI make PD obsolete?: exploring challenges from artificial intelligence to participatory design

In this paper1, we explore if and how Artificial Intelligence (AI) challenges Participatory Design (PD). We base our analysis on the basic characteristics of AI and its subfield Machine Learning and discuss how and what kinds of design decisions users are able to participate in when technology that includes AI is designed. We conclude that AI challenges PD but that classic PD methods can be useful for parts of the design process. However, AI poses new challenges to PD all originating in the fact that AI technologies change unpredictably over time.