Information technology (IT) enables social and economic innovations and they open up far-reaching individual and social opportunities and trigger major changes. The ITeG is focusing on the values and the social responsibility of IT system design with the aim of enabling these innovations and making it possible to use their potential in the long term.
The ITeG is conducting research into the interdisciplinary configuration of socially desirable information technology processes from a socio-technical perspective.
This means that an IT system has been designed in a socially desirable manner, if the results not only create a sense of acceptance, but also meet standard conditions of acceptability.
Acceptance is related to an empirically identifiable readiness on the part of consumers to use the IT application that has been evaluated.
Acceptability involves combining the forecast effects of IT with values and standards that have to be democratically negotiated.
Based on in-depth academic analyses of acceptance and acceptability, the ITeG is drawing up and evaluating system design principles for information technology and social innovations – and is critically examining contradictory values, standards and interests.
The central research focus at the ITeG is therefore the issue of how IT needs to be designed to create socially desirable innovations and which methods should be used to achieve these structural goals.
