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The low percentage of women pursuing Information Technology (IT) education is a concern in many countries worldwide. This exploratory study is motivated by the experimental introduction of an elective programming course in a selected number of Norwegian Lower Secondary schools, now recently extended to include any interested school. Though there is a growing body of knowledge in the area, we believe this study is important to understand the situation in a moment of great change in the national curriculum. Given the nature of our investigation, we have adopted multiple methods to collect a variety of data and get an overview of the practice. The main reasons not to choose IT education include: the poor reputation of programming, lack of information about the course, lack of knowledge about programming and technology and what it could be used for, the impression that programming is not useful to help society, the negative influence of parents and friends, and the disinterest in programming. To a large extent, these results are not surprising in that they confirm results from similar studies worldwide. However, the results are unexpected considering the social and economic conditions of Norway. This paper mainly wants to act as a warning pointing out that despite the high gender balance in Norwegian society, this does not automatically solve the gender gap in IT education, with important consequences on the longer term for the job market. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Right now, thousands of students in higher education worldwide are experiencing computer programming for the first time through an introductory programming course. After the final exam, approximately one third of these students will realize that they failed to pass the course. At the university college Westerdals Oslo ACT in Norway, we welcome 200 of these programming prospects each year. And each year, too many of them fail to pass the course. This article gives a brief overview of some of the existing research describing the phenomena before we provide our own contribution. We try to investigate the problem by interviewing students that recently participated in the course and failed. What are their stories, and what can we learn from them? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many organisations are undertaking substantial efforts to implement Enterprise Architecture (EA). EA is seen as instrumental to align ICT and business strategy. It is therefore important to drive the digital strategy, identifying innovative new business models and technologies, and realising more business value of technology investments. Recent work, however, suggest that it is a challenging task to implement enterprise architecture in an organisation. There is also very limited research on this issue, particularly related to the public sector. This study explores the implementation of enterprise architecture (EA) in the Norwegian health sector. We found a number of challenges that impeded the process toward a common EA: unclear enterprise architecture roles, ineffective communication, low EA maturity and commitment, and complicated EA tools. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Achieving inclusive eSocieties has prompted a focus on universally designed ICT-solutions. In order to ensure aims and legislations are interpreted in a similar manner, there should be a general consensus on universal design and disability definitions in the professional field. This paper investigates views on disability and universal design in Norwegian expert communities on universal design of ICT through survey research, including which users receive attention. Domain experts are asked on their models (interpretations) of disability, which marginalized user groups they focus on in their work and how they understand "universal design" and related terms. The findings indicate that terminology related to universal design is used differently in the sample. The field "universal design of ICT" is also interpreted in various ways. Further, there seems to be an acquiesce response to most disability views, with rightbased disability views being dominant. Unexpectedly, the charity model is also common, as is the social adapted model. The survey measure opposing views related to who should be in charge of assessing a person's need for treatment and assistance: a divergence is indicated between those agreeing with the expert model (professional intervention assessment) versus the empowering model (individual intervention control) with a moderate highly significant negative correlation. Another interesting finding is that three out of the four user groups reported as the most excluded from the Norwegian eSociety receive quite infrequent attention from experts, with median values for receiving focus in "sometimes" or "seldom" categories. The paper contributes with insights into the existing varying interpretations of disability and universal design definitions among Norwegian domain experts, and discusses how different interpretations may affect how inclusion work is implemented. The paper also points out possibly neglected user groups in current practices. Future studies will continue investigations nationally and internationally; particularly on exploring disability focuses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The kind of information systems in use today is at first sight very different from those that were developed 20 years ago. On the other hand, it seems that we are still struggling with many of the same problems as before, including late or abandoned projects and unfilled customer demands. In this article we present selected data from survey investigations performed by us in 1993, 1998, 2003, 2008 and 2013 among Norwegian organizations on how they conduct information systems development and maintenance. In particular we compare the data from 2008 and 2013. A major finding is that even if we witness large changes in the underlying implementation technology and methods used, a number of aspects such as overall percentage of time uses for maintaining and evolving systems in production compared to time used for development and the distribution of time on different maintenance activities is remarkably stable, although some trends can be witnessed. On the other hand, because of the more complex infrastructures supporting the application portfolio, and the increasing number of in particular external users an increasing amount of resources is used for other tasks such as operations and user-support than in the first investigations, although also this seems to have stabilised. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many rich countries experience two opposite demographic trends: a growing number of elderly who will need care over a long period of time - and a decreasing work force of young people. This "gap" represents an economic and organisational challenge, and politicians in many countries expect welfare technologies - especially digital technologies - to contribute to bridging it. In this paper we report from a multi-level study conducted in 2013-14, were we compared the current status of the field in Norway and Japan. Our findings reveal similarities between the two countries, which are echoed in many other countries: Although government expectations are high, the field of welfare technology is in its infancy, and only rather simple solutions (such as safety alarms) are widely used. However, our findings also highlight key differences in innovation strategies for welfare for the two countries, where Japan seem to be aiming for vertical integration through large corporations' solutions, while Norway aims for a more open innovation arena, through standardization. We think the two countries have something to learn from each other, but in particular, we recommend them both a more platform-oriented approach. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The video game industry (VGI) is a highly creative and fast-paced industry where innovation is a necessity to stay ahead. The innovation processes in the VGI are not rigorously explored and often treated like a "black-box". Much attention has been towards game design and function, on the product innovation, not on the process. In this paper, patterns of interaction supporting innovation in the VGI are investigated through an engaged scholarship approach through interviews and observations with video game companies and informants in Norway. The findings show there are four identifiable patterns of interaction influencing the innovation process by reinforcing or hindering it. By understanding how the complex VGI environment and its actors interact, the company can increase its innovation capability and thereby its competitive advantage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]