Ali Sunyaev

Karlsruhe Institute of Technology | KIT · Institute of Applied Informatics and Formal Description Methods

Background: Mobile health (mHealth) apps aim at providing seamless access to tailored health information technology and have the potential to alleviate global health burdens. Yet, they bear risks to information security and privacy because users need to reveal private, sensitive medical information to redeem certain benefits. Due to the plethora an...

Cloud computing (CC) is an emerging form of IT outsourcing (ITO) that requires organizations to adjust their sourcing processes. Although ITO researchers have established an extensive knowledge base on the determinant factors that drive sourcing decisions from various theoretical perspectives, the majority of research on cloud-sourcing decisions fo...

Mobile health (mHealth) customers shopping for applications (apps) should be aware of app privacy practices so they can make informed decisions about purchase and use. We sought to assess the availability, scope, and transparency of mHealth app privacy policies on iOS and Android. Over 35 000 mHealth apps are available for iOS and Android. Of the 6...

Chronic medical conditions take a huge toll on lives of a growing number of people and are a major contributor to the rising costs in healthcare. As patients are increasingly willing to take an active part in managing their conditions, chronic disease self-management programs and information systems that support them are recognized for their potent...

Cloud computing is an evolving paradigm that affects a large part of the IT industry, in particular the way hardware and software are deployed: as a service. Despite advantages of cloud computing, small and medium enterprises in particular remain cautious implementing cloud service solutions. Promoting transparent information exchange between cloud...

Fog computing has evolved as a promising paradigm to overcome challenges of edge and cloud computing for use cases such as autonomous driving and virtual reality demanding low latency and the handling of large data loads. The design of fog systems between the cloud and edge opens a large space of possible tasks that fog nodes can take, such as (pre...

Large language models (LLMs) like ChatGPT recently gained interest across all walks of life with their human-like quality in textual responses. Despite their success in research, healthcare, or education, LLMs frequently include incorrect information, called hallucinations, in their responses. These hallucinations could influence users to trust fak...

Decentralized applications are increasingly recognized as efficient tools to overcome security challenges in the management of highly sensitive health information. However, research still lacks the understanding of how to address the complex security challenges in the design of health data management applications (HDMAs). In this study, we structur...

Information systems (IS) research has largely treated IS certifications (i.e., graphical cues that prove the endorsement of independent third parties) as universally effective at improving website visitors’ perceptions of trustworthiness. However, inconclusive findings on the effectiveness of IS certifications on websites have emerged, critically c...

Mobility-as-A-Service (MaaS) is a concept for combining different transport modes, including diverse mobility services, while facilitating their use through customer centricity (e.g., pay-as-you-go tariffs, unified interfaces). MaaS platforms offer access to different mobility services of various providers via MaaS ticket systems. IT governance of...

Advanced programmatic hyperparameter optimization (HPO) methods, such as Bayesian optimization, have high sample efficiency in reproducibly finding optimal hyperparameter values of machine learning (ML) models. Yet, ML practitioners often apply less sample-efficient HPO methods, such as grid search, which often results in under-optimized ML models....

The rising diffusion of information systems (IS) throughout society poses an increasingly serious threat to privacy as a social value. One approach to alleviating this threat is to establish transparency of information privacy practices (TIPP) so that consumers can better understand how their information is processed. However, the design of transpa...

Mobility-as-A-Service (MaaS) is a concept for combining different transport modes, including diverse mobility services, while facilitating their use through customer centricity (e.g., pay-as-you-go tariffs, unified interfaces). MaaS platforms offer access to different mobility services of various providers via MaaS ticket systems. IT governance of...

Existing research on data valuation in federated and swarm learning focuses on valuing client contributions and works best when data across clients is independent and identically distributed (IID). In practice, data is rarely distributed IID. We develop an approach called DDVal for decentralized data valuation, capable of valuing individual data po...

Decentralized applications are increasingly recognized as efficient tools to overcome security challenges in the management of highly sensitive health information. However, research still lacks the understanding of how to address the complex security challenges in the design of health data management applications (HDMAs). In this study, we structur...

Gamification refers to the use of game design elements in non-game contexts to evoke both instrumental and experiential outcomes within users. Although narratives are an integral part of most video games, little academic attention has been paid toward narratives as part of gamification design. In this research, we investigate two distinct aspects o...

Multiorganizational, multistakeholder (MO-MS) collaborations that may span organizational and national boundaries, present design challenges beyond those of smaller-scale collaborations. This study opens an exploratory research stream to discover and document design concerns for MO-MS collaboration systems beyond those of the single-task collaborat...

One way to reduce privacy risks for consumers when using the internet is to inform them better about the privacy practices they will encounter. Tailored privacy information provision could outperform the current practice where information system providers do not much more than posting unwieldy privacy notices. Paradoxically, this would require addi...

AI-driven convergence describes how innovative products emerge from the interplay of embedded artificial intelligence (AI) in existing technologies. Trust transfer theory provides an excellent opportunity to deepen prevailing discussions about trust in such converged products. However, AI-driven convergence challenges existing theoretical assumptio...

This minitrack provides a venue for all work (qualitative, quantitative, computational, and design) in relation to better understanding health data platforms, data repositories, data sharing, data governance, and ecosystems. It highlights various perspectives, including technical, organizational, social, and regulatory ones and considers multiple l...

Mindfulness practices are valuable exercises for physical and mental health. Various digital applications exist that support individuals in practicing mindfulness. Following the trend of gamifying utilitarian systems, many mindfulness applications (MAs) incorporate game design elements (GDEs). However, little is known about users' GDE preferences i...

To improve contemporary machine learning (ML) models, research is increasingly looking at tapping in and incorporating the knowledge of domain experts. However, expert knowledge often relies on intuition, which is difficult to formalize for incorporation into ML models. Against this backdrop, we investigate the role of intuition in the context of e...

Vehicular Fog Computing (VFC) facilitates the deployment of distributed, latency-aware services, residing between smart vehicles and cloud services. However, VFC systems are exposed to manifold security threats, putting human life at risk. Knowledge on such threats is scattered and lacks empirical validation. We performed an extensive threat assess...

Smart contracts are a promising means of formalizing and reliably enforcing agreements between entities using distributed ledger technology (DLT). Research has revealed that a significant number of smart contracts are subject to programming flaws, making them vulnerable to attacks and leading to detrimental effects, such as asset loss. Researchers...

Digital transformation continues to profoundly impact employees in organizations in many industries. While past research has extensively investigated the impact of digital transformation on organizations, we still lack a comprehensive understanding of the factors that are relevant to examine how employees perceive digital transformation and its eff...

Zusammenfassung Das Training von Künstliche Intelligenz (KI)-Modellen, die auf maschinellem Lernen (ML) beruhen, erfordert eine große Menge qualitativ hochwertiger Daten. Besonders im Gesundheitswesen mit seinen hochsensiblen Daten und hohen Anforderungen an den Datenschutz besitzen einzelne Akteur:innen oft jedoch nicht ausreichend hochwertige Dat...

Background: With direct-to-consumer (DTC) genetic testing enabling self-responsible access to novel information on ancestry, traits, or health, consumers often turn to social media for assistance and discussion. YouTube, the largest social media platform for videos, offers an abundance of DTC genetic testing–related videos. Nevertheless, user disco...

This document provides supplementary information for the paper “Be Mindful of User Preferences: An Explorative Study on Game Design Elements in Mindfulness Applications” submitted to HICSS-56.

This document provides supplementary material for the article "Understanding the Role of Expert Intuition in Medical Image Annotation: A Cognitive Task Analysis Approach" accepted at HICSS-56.

Whereas the importance of information system (IS) certifications is increasing to prove compliance with regulatory and industry requirements, research reveals inconsistent findings concerning the effectiveness of IS certifications. Prior studies have concluded that such inconsistent findings stem partly from users’ limited understanding of the natu...

Token economy instances can be built on a variety of protocols, such as distributed ledger technology (DLT) protocols. DLT protocols are used to operate DLT systems that perform, in a decentralized way, several tasks (e.g., the prevention of double-spending) that are usually handled by central actors, such as banks. Using DLT can be subject to chal...

Emerging technologies in healthcare such as wearables, robotics, nanotech, connected health, and genomics technologies produce increasing amounts of data, which fuel artificial intelligence-powered algorithms to actively react to, predict, and prevent diseases and steer scarce healthcare resources. Currently, while digitalization in the healthcare...

Although consumers and experts often express concerns regarding the questionable business practices of direct-to-consumer (DTC) genetic testing services (e.g., reselling of consumers' genetic data), the DTC genetic testing market keeps expanding rapidly. We employ retail fairness as our theoretical lens to address this seeming paradox and conduct a...

While the importance of information system (IS) certifications to demonstrate compliance with security and personal data protection requirements is constantly increasing, competing (theoretical) viewpoints exist that outline the rationales for organizations to adopt certifica-tions. The results of these competing perspectives are inconclusive resea...

Zusammenfassung Der DigitalPakt Schule soll das deutsche Bildungswesen flächendeckend modernisieren, zeigt jedoch bisher Anlaufschwierigkeiten. Die bereitgestellten Fördermittel werden zögerlich abgerufen und die Kritiker:innen des Programms werden immer lauter. Diese Arbeit setzt genau an diesem Punkt an und diskutiert Ursachen und Einflüsse, die...

Poorly annotated data is a common problem for data-intensive applications like supervised machine learning. In domains like healthcare, annotation tasks require specific domain knowledge and are thus often done manually by experts, which is error-prone, time-intensive, and tedious. In this study, we investigate gamification as a means to foster ann...

Objective Rising interests in distributed ledger technology (DLT) and genomics have sparked various interdisciplinary research streams with a proliferating number of scattered publications investigating the application of DLT in genomics. This review aims to uncover the current state of research on DLT in genomics, in terms of focal research themes...

Federated learning (FL) has received high interest from researchers and practitioners to train machine learning (ML) models for healthcare. Ensuring the trustworthiness of these models is essential. Especially bias, defined as a disparity in the model's predictive performance across different subgroups, may cause unfairness against specific subgrou...

BACKGROUND With direct-to-consumer (DTC) genetic testing allowing consumers self-responsible access to novel information on their ancestry, traits, or health, consumers often turn to social media for assistance and discussion. While YouTube, the largest social media platform for videos, offers an abundance of DTC genetic testing-related videos, use...

Prior information system research remains inconsistent of the effects of system certifications. In their current use, certifications are often reduced to graphical seals. This approach fails to incorporate detailed assurance information emanating from the certification process. To address this gap, we adopt a design science approach and deploy a fo...

In the emerging information economy, data evolves as an essential asset and personal data in particular is used for data-driven business models. However, companies frequently leverage personal data without considering individuals’ data sovereignty. Therefore, we strive to strengthen individuals’ position in data ecosystems by combining concepts of...

Converging hedonic and utilitarian elements under the label of gamification has become an important phenomenon in information systems over the last decade. Yet, academic discourse on narratives in gamified IS remains scarce. To advance scholarly engagement, this study recontextualizes the concept of narratives for gamified IS. Based on the theoreti...

Continuous service certification (CSC) recently emerged as a promising means to provide ongoing assurances and disrupt pertinent certification approaches. CSC involves the consistent gathering and assessing of certification-relevant data by certification authorities about service operation to validate ongoing adherence to certification criteria. Wh...

Trust transfer is a promising perspective on prevalent discussions about trust in AI-capable technologies. However, the convergence of AI with other technologies challenges existing theoretical assumptions. First, it remains unanswered whether both trust in AI and the base technology is necessary for trust transfer. Second, a nu-anced view on trust...

During interaction with today’s internet services and platform ecosystems, consumer data is often harvested and shared without their consent; that is, consumers seized to be the sovereigns of their own data with the proliferation of the internet. Due to the rapid and abundant nature of interactions in today’s platform ecosystems, manual consent man...

One barrier to more widespread adoption of differentially private neural networks is the entailed accuracy loss. To address this issue, the relationship between neural network architectures and model accuracy under differential privacy constraints needs to be better understood. As a first step, we test whether extant knowledge on architecture desig...

Contemporary research focuses on examining trustworthy AI but neglects to consider trust transfer processes, proposing that users' established trust in a familiar source (e.g., a technology or person) may transfer to a novel target. We argue that such trust transfer processes also occur in the case of novel AI-capable technologies, as they are the...

One barrier to more widespread adoption of differentially private neural networks is the entailed accuracy loss. To address this issue, the relationship between neural network architectures and model accuracy under differential privacy constraints needs to be better understood. As a first step, we test whether extant knowledge on architecture desig...

Patient-centered health care information systems (PHSs) enable patients to take control and become knowledgeable about their own health, preferably in a secure environment. Current and emerging PHSs use either a centralized database, peer-to-peer (P2P) technology, or distributed ledger technology for PHS deployment. The evolving COVID-19 decentrali...

Driven by economic advantages and the idea of disintermediation of business processes, the decentralization of technical and economic systems has become a highly discussed topic in recent years. Extant research primarily investigated the technical implementations of decentralized information systems (IS) and their use by firms in business networks....

Smart contracts are a promising means of formalizing and reliably enforcing agreements between entities using distributed ledger technology (DLT). Research has revealed that a significant number of smart contracts are subject to programming flaws, making them vulnerable to attacks and leading to detrimental effects, such as asset loss. Researchers...

Open multi-agent systems (OMASs) allow autonomous agents (AAs) to collaborate in coalitions to accomplish complex tasks (e.g., swarm robots exploring new terrain). In OMASs, AAs can arbitrarily join and leave the network. Thus, AAs must often collaborate with unknown AAs that may corrupt coalitions, leading to less robust systems. However, measures...

Background: In health care, the use of game-based interventions to increase motivation, engagement, and overall sustainability of health behaviors is steadily becoming more common. The most prevalent types of game-based interventions in health care research are gamification and serious games. Various researchers have discussed substantial conceptua...

Catchword Article: Classification and Research Directions

Despite various security features offered by distributed ledger technology (DLT), distributed ledgers are vulnerable to a variety of malicious attacks (e.g., selfish-mining and block withholding). While such vulnerabilities have been thoroughly investigated in extant research, understanding and development of appropriate countermeasures is still in...

In a thought-provoking paper published in EJIS more than a decade ago, Lyytinen and colleagues asked the question, why does the “old world” perform poorly in high academic impact publishing? This triggered a lively debate on the epistemological and methodological traditions, preferences, and research practices of Europeans versus North Americans th...

Information system (IS) certifications are considered as a powerful tool for improving the security and trustworthiness of an IS. However, organizations struggle to evaluate and finally adopt appropriate IS certifications. To enhance our understanding of the evaluation of IS certifications, we iteratively develop a taxonomy of key characteristics o...

BACKGROUND In healthcare, using game-based intervention approaches to increase motivation, engagement, and overall sustainability of health behaviors is steadily becoming more common. The most prevailing approaches for such game-based interventions in healthcare research are gamification and serious games. Various researchers have discussed substan...

To combat the COVID-19 pandemic, many countries around the globe have adopted digital contact tracing apps. Various technologies exist to trace contacts that are potentially prone to different types of tracing errors. Here, we study the impact of different proximity detection ranges on the effectiveness and efficiency of digital contact tracing app...

Blockchain is a term that has been increasingly encountered in recent years in connection with digitization. The concept became known mainly through the cryptocurrency Bitcoin, which was introduced in 2008 and implemented in 2009. But what is the blockchain actually and why could it soon have a big influence on our everyday life?

Blockchain is a radical innovation with a unique value proposition that shifts trust from institutions to algorithms. Still, the potential of blockchains remains elusive due to knowledge gaps between computer science research and socio-economic research. Building on information technology governance literature and the theory of coevolution, this st...

Collecting data from many sources is an essential approach to generate large data sets required for the training of machine learning models. Trustworthy machine learning requires incentives, guarantees of data quality, and information privacy. Applying recent advancements in data valuation methods for machine learning can help to enable these. In t...

Communication between vehicles and their environment (i.e., vehicle-to-everything or V2X communication) in vehicular ad hoc networks (VANETs) has become of particular importance for smart cities. Howe