OVERVIEW of EXPERTISE, CONTRIBUTION AND LEADERSHIP

This is most of the text of the Statement I was required to make when I applied for a post at University of Salford. Please forgive the 'selling' tone it adopts; it is included here so you may gain a quick overview of my research etc.

My research and teaching is based on thirty years' involvement with information systems, half of it in an academic setting and half in medical records, the chemical industry and in a short relationship with the surveying profession. During the whole of that time I have adopted the role of 'reflective practitioner' and sought to make innovative contributions to both theory and practice. These number around two dozen, outlined in the Research section (where 'innovation' is defined to be genuinely new ideas or approaches of three types), and have been wide ranging:

  1. to the technologies with which I have been involved: computer aided design, software architectures, data bases, artificial intelligence, knowledge based systems (KBS), geographic information systems, cognitive mappers, drawing software, user interfaces and virtual environments,
  2. in the realm of methodology: knowledge acquisition, knowledge analysis and the Client Centred Approach to whole system development
  3. to the realm of human and social factors: the 'Proximal User Interface' paradigm, a model of Usage, Benefits and Impact, and a means of differentiating success from failure of information systems in a multi-stakeholder context.

In this way I have gained an holistic picture of the technology and contextual usage of information systems, and believe that philosophy is the key to maintaining the integrity and coherence of the whole picture. For this reason, in the last few years years, I have been exploring and developing, and in turn contributing to

  1. the theoretical and philosophical underpinnings of information systems issues.

The focus of my work in the near future will shift towards (d) while maintaining close involvement, as appropriate, with the other areas discussed above. This is because, in (d), I am exploring the application to information systems of the philosophical framework proposed by the Dutch thinker, >Herman Dooyeweerd (1955). Being based on a radically different set of presuppositions than is conventional philosophy, it is better able to account for interdisciplinarity, the integration of human with technical issues, and the integration of theory with practice, but it is also relatively unknown and requires testing and refinement by the whole intellectual community. To this end I have created The Dooyeweerd Pages, a website devoted to understanding, explaining and debating Dooyeweerdian ideas, and have started to contribute to academic debate within philosophy itself.

An area of interest from my private life is now becoming a formal research area in which I am making contributions:

  1. understanding the nature of, and achieving, environmental sustainability.

This work has enriched my research in information systems, especially areas (b) and (c), and I am developing the hypothesis that sustainability can be understood by reference to Dooyeweerd's ideas. See the Research section for details.

My leadership in these areas has been manifested in a number of ways, so that I was able to contribute significantly to the early development of one of the University's most successful 5* research areas. An early example was the unusually high level of success I achieved in applying KBS technology, notably in ELSIE, which became, at the time, the most successful KBS worldwide, and on the basis of which a company was formed and a structured methodology was developed. Over the years, as well as leading funded research projects, and supervising research students, I have written a number of works that propose new perspectives or draw attention to significant aspects not widely recognised as important and that have led to continuing invitations to lecture or write (Basden 1983, Basden, 1993, Basden, Watson and Brandon, 1995, Basden and Hibberd, 1996, Basden, Brown, Tetlow and Hibberd, 1996, Kuosa and Basden, 2000). My concept of Proximal User Interface is attracting increasing attention in the human factors community.

My Dooyeweerd Pages website is regularly described by the international Dooyeweerdian community as "impressive", "eloquent", "inspiring", etc. and is increasingly used as a resource. I am in discussion with the Dooyeweerd Center and the Herman Dooyeweerd Foundation, USA, about starting an English language academic journal and, because there is at present no major academic Introduction to Dooyeweerdian philosophy in the English language, I am in discussion about writing one. I am also planning the U.K.'s first research centre to explore Dooyeweerdian philosophy, at Salford. I was a founder member, in 1995, of the Centre for Technology and Social Systems, an international collaboration for research and teaching informed by Dooyeweerdian ideas, and am deeply involved in creating a unique International Master's Course in Philosophical Management and Systems Science. My proposal that environmental sustainability can be understood by reference to Dooyeweerd's ideas has been taken and developed by at least one other researcher (Lombardi, 1999).

My leadership has been recognised in a number of ways. My success in building knowledge based systems formed the focus of the £1M EPSRC/DTI EDESIRL project, which structured my expertise into the Client Centred methodology. In 1992 I gained a prize for best Expert Systems 92 presentation. Over the years, I have been asked for invited papers and contributions (see my Curriculum Vitae for details), and was asked for two papers which were incorporated into the U.K. Government's Technology Foresight Programme. My ideas have been sought and reported by the Media. In recognition of my broad yet deep understanding of and experience with information systems, I was seconded to the University of Luleå in 1997 and then to the Centre for Virtual Environments, University of Salford, from 1997-1999, in order to help in starting innovative new courses. In recognition of the value of my application of Dooyeweerdian philosohpy to information systems, I was given a visiting Chair by the University of Tampere in 1998.


This page is a section of the Curriculum Vitae of Dr. Andrew Basden.

Copyright (c) Andrew Basden 2000. Comments, queries welcome.

Last updated: 1 November 2000. 18 February 2006 links.