Legitimate by design: Towards trusted socio-technical systems

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

1-1-2003

Abstract

Legitimacy or 'fairness' seems a key requirement for trust in computer-mediated social environments. Trust in turn seems necessary for productive community interactions like e-commerce. But unless legitimacy is built into social software, achieving trust may not be possible. This means expressing apparently vague social 'rights' as specific information system (IS) requirements, i.e. carrying out a legitimacy analysis. We suggest a framework for the systematic analysis of who 'owns' what in IS design, assuming basic object types and actions. This analysis not only allows social legitimacy concepts to be expressed in IS design terms, but could also reveal socio- technical system design choices for public review. The technique is illustrated by case examples. Legitimacy analysis can apply to wide variety of social software, from chat rooms to virtual realities. It could lead to future global standards for virtual social environment design, perhaps necessary for the emergence of a global online community.

Identifier

0037278884 (Scopus)

Publication Title

Behaviour and Information Technology

External Full Text Location

https://doi.org/10.1080/01449290301783

ISSN

0144929X

First Page

31

Last Page

51

Issue

1

Volume

22

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