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Research staff
The way in which the IS research group defines Information Science research necessitates a broad orientation in competences and open attitude to ease communication within the research group as well as with external peers. Amongst our staff, cross linking is very much encouraged, leading to “cross-fertilization” in ideas and consequently to original publications.

For a complete list of all ISG staff members have a look at the Pure database for a full reference of up-to-date publications.

Full professors

Portretfoto Rob Kusters

Prof.dr. Rob J. Kusters, Head of department Information Sciences, Program leader MSc Business Process Management and IT Rob.kusters@ou.nl Research themes: Strategic design research, Governance research, Process research He obtained his master degree in econometrics at Tilburg University in 1982 and his Phd. in operations management at Eindhoven University of Technology in 1988. He is professor of 'ICT and Business Processes' at the Dutch Open Universiteit in Heerlen where he is responsible for the master of science program 'Business Process Management and IT' and chairs the information systems department. He published over 100 papers in international journals and conference proceedings and co-authored six books. Research takes mainly place within the theme software management which is aimed at the supporting the complex field of software strategy, development, implementation, and maintenance. IT-portfolio management and project management are important aspects within this field. The aim is to develop and validate frameworks and approaches to support systematically analysis of business situations and proposing, planning, and managing rigorous software development strategies and efforts to fulfill (organizational) objectives.

Portretfoto Stef Joosten

Prof.dr.ir. Stef Joosten, Professor

Research themes: design of information systems, Business&IT architecture.

Prof. S.M.M. (Stef) Joosten has a master’s degree in Electronics Engineering (University of Twente, NL) and a PhD degree in Computer Science (University of Twente, NL). He is a part-time full professor at the Open Universiteit since 1999. He has been a visiting associate professor at Georgia State University (1995-1996), entrepreneur (1996-2000), and has been working in the IT industry as a consultant and architect ever since.
To advance the correctness of software and reduce the complexity of IT projects, Stef has developed a system (Ampersand) that can generate information systems completely. As an architect, Stef has authored multiple IT-systems (e.g. RAP, Indigo, Ampersand, Archichecker, DTP, and others). He has taught workflow management, business rules, software engineering, semantic theory, design of information systems. His current research lies in the field of enterprise architecture, where Stef is analyzing architecture models to find inconsistencies wrt. Corporate policies.

Portretfoto Remko Helms

Prof.dr.ir. Remko (R.W.) Helms
 

Prof. dr. Rogier van de Wetering

Research themes: innovation, learning, strategic design

Rogier van de Wetering is an Associate Professor in information sciences at the Sciences Faculty of the Open Universiteit.
Rogier moved into academia after a decade of managing IT/business transformations in Deloitte’s Strategy & Operations practice. Rogier holds both a Master’s Degree from Utrecht University and a Ph.D. in Information Sciences and Medical Informatics. His research interests focus on understanding how organizations can gain organizational benefits from IS/IT alignment, dynamic capabilities, big data and enterprise architecture competencies and capabilities

Associated professors

Portretfoto Arno Nuijten

 

Prof. dr. Arno Nuijten, Professor of Information Science
 
Research themes: Innovation, Resilience, Learning
 
Dr. Arno L.P. Nuijten is extraordinary professor of Information Science at the Open Universiteit in the Netherlands, where he holds a chair on Behavioral IT Governance. He currently is also academic director of the Expert Center on Behavioral Risk at the Erasmus School of Accounting and Assurance, Erasmus University Rotterdam, where he was academic director of the IT-auditing & Advisory programs earlier. His research interests are in the area of IT auditing, internal auditing and managerial decision making on IT risks in general and IT projects in particular. For over 25 years he has consulted with large companies throughout Europe on a variety of business problems. On an interim basis, he fulfilled various positions such as Chief Information Security Officer, Project Portfolio Director and IT program manager. Arno has a PhD in Information Science and Economics from Erasmus University. He holds his MSc in Information Science from Tilburg University and his BSc in Computer Science from Eindhoven University of Applied Sciences. He is member of the organizing committee of the annually European Academic Conference on Internal Audit and Corporate Governance. He is a visiting researcher and lecturer at the University of Pretoria and Georgia State University. He performs contract research for the Institute of Internal Auditing and for Dutch Ministry of Internal Affairs.
 

prof.dr.ir Johan Versendaal

Research staff

Portretfoto Laury Bollen

 

 

Dr. Laury Bollen

Research themes: IT Governance, Governance frameworks, AI Governance.

Dr. Laury Bollen is an associate professor of Information Management and member of the Information Systems department within the Sciences faculty. He studied Business Informatics and holds a PhD in Business Economics from Maastricht University, where he has worked for over 30 years. His research covers a variety of topics all of which are broadly related to IT Governance. Most recently he has focused on projects studying the relationship between board-level characteristics and IT Governance and on Governance frameworks in the context of Artificial Intelligence (AI Governance). His research activities have resulted in publications in a broad range of international academic journals including Information & Management, the Journal of Information Systems, the Journal of Cleaner Production, the European Accounting Review and the Journal of Business Ethics. Also, he has been active in various roles in conferences such as ICIS, ECIS and the annual conference of the European Accounting Association (EAA). He is a (co-)author of various teaching books on Information management.

Portretfoto Rik Bos

Dr. Rik Bos

Research themes: Information Systems Requirements, Enterprise architecture.

Dr. R. (Rik) Bos has a Master’s degree and a PhD degree in Mathematics (both University of Utrecht, the Netherlands). He is assistant professor of the Department of Information Science at the Faculty of Science of the Open Universiteit. His teaching and research activities are focused on information systems requirements and enterprise architecture.
 

Portretfoto Rachelle Bosua

Dr. Rachelle Bosua

Research themes: data privacy, the IoT, knowledge leakage, IP management, knowledge sharing and knowledge strategy, mobility in work and the use of the IT artefacts to facilitate remote and co-located workers.

Dr. Rachelle Bosua has an undergraduate degree in Computer Science (University of Pretoria) and a Master’s in Information Systems and Software Engineering (University of South Africa). She acquired her PhD in 2008 from the University of Melbourne. She has worked on three continents (South Africa, Australia and Europe) and currently works at the Open Universiteit, while she also holds a Senior Honorary Fellow position in the Computing and Information Systems (CIS) School of the University of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia.

Her research interests are as varied as her undergraduate- and post-graduate studies, with recent research concentrating on the consequences and the value of adopting and using the IT artefact (i.e. the IoT, Social Media Platforms) in many different settings and contexts. The latter includes mobile work, Communities of Practice, remote and co-located work teams, chronic illness, and regional small and medium enterprises. In addition, her work explores the impact of using the IT artefact from an individual privacy and GDPR perspective, chronic illness management and as an enabling mechanism that underpins knowledge sharing and transfer. She has acquired over 500,000$ competitive research grant funding in Australia. She is co-author of the text titled ‘Knowledge Management in Organizations: A critical introduction’. She has 7 PhD completions and currently supervises two PhD students and 8 Masters students. Her teaching includes Data Governance, Business Analytics and Knowledge Management at the undergraduate and postgraduate levels.

Portretfoto Vanessa Dirksen

Vanessa Dirksen

Research themes: critical data studies; work and organizing in the digital age; digital methods

Vanessa has a Master’s degree in Social Anthropology and a PhD in the Social Sciences (both from the University of Amsterdam). Her work as a researcher and lecturer at various European universities saw her at departments of sociology, economics and of informatics.

Her research activities are directed towards the investigation of the epistemological underpinnings of the ‘new’ methods and techniques of the Big Data era. In so doing, she aims to understand the ways in which the application of online social network analysis, social simulation and artificial intelligence may enhance (or hinder) social scientific knowing. In a study Vanessa is currently conducting at the Dutch National Police, she is investigating the kinds of knowledge claims made possible by ethnographic social simulation and the extent to which this method may be better equipped to ‘capture’ the highly complex and rapidly changing nature of organized crime in general and of drugs trafficking in particular. Her teaching includes Business Intelligence and Digital Transformation at the postgraduate level and Introduction to Information Studies (Inleiding Informatiekunde) at the undergraduate level.

Portretfoto Tim Huygh

Dr. Tim Huygh

Research themes: IT governance, strategic IT management

dr. Tim Huygh has a Master’s degree in Business Engineering: Management Information Systems (University of Antwerp, BE), an advanced Master’s degree in Advanced Business Studies (University of Leuven, BE), and a PhD degree in Applied Economics (University of Antwerp, BE). He is Assistant Professor of Information Science at the Open Universiteit. He is also a visiting Professor at the Antwerp Management School (Antwerp, Belgium). As such, he is actively engaged in teaching at the undergraduate, graduate, and executive level in the domains of IT governance, and strategic management of IT.

His research interests include the governance and management of information and technology, business/IT alignment, and IT business value. An important part of his work includes the conceptualization of IT governance to account for agility and evolutionary dynamics. He is currently co-supervising a PhD student (at the University of Antwerp, BE) on the topic of board-level IT governance. His research got published in multiple SCI-indexed journals and conference proceedings. He also co-authored two books on the topic of IT governance (published by Springer). He is co-chairing the minitrack “IT governance and its mechanisms” at the HICSS conference since 2020.

Portretfoto Guy Janssens

Dr. ir. Guy Janssens

Research themes: His research and teaching focuses on project management and the complexity and control of implementation of ERP systems.

 

Portretfoto Harry Martin

Dr. ir. Harry Martin

Research themes: strategic IT sourcing, performance management, business process management

Dr. Ir. H. Martin holds a degree in Industrial Engineering. In 1988 he was appointed an assistant professor at the faculty of Technology Management of the Technical University of Eindhoven. During that time he specialized in maintenance management and wrote his PhD thesis in 1994 on the selection of maintenance software packages. In 1999 he was appointed associate professor at the Open Universiteit in Heerlen, where he concentrates on the design of distant learning material and research on business process (re)design, performance and operation management. He also is a research fellow at the CIB at the KU Leuven and has contributed as an external examiner in several PhD assessment committees in the UK, Sweden, Belgium and Australia.
Currently, he is active research on (strategic) cooperation of organizations and outsourcing in relation with a focus on measuring qualitative process performance.

Portretfoto Montserrat Prats Lopez

Dr. Montserrat Prats Lopez

Research themes: Crowdsourcing, Knowledge Management, Learning

dr. Montserrat Prats López has a PhD degree in Business Administration (Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, NL). She is assistant professor of Information Science and thesis coordinator of the Master BPMIT at the Open Universiteit. She is also affiliated researcher at the research group Institutions for Collective Action (Utrecht University). Her teaching and research activities focus on the use of technology for knowledge management, organizational learning and new forms of organizing work, including phenomena such as telework and crowdsourcing. Her doctoral research focused on public participation in scholarly research, also known as citizen or crowd science. She has contributed to the KNAW project group on citizen science and she continues doing research on the crowdsourcing phenomenon in collaboration with the group Institutions for Collective Action. She is also involved in the ‘Veilige Stad’ research program together with the faculty of psychology, studying the use of social media by the elderly. Recently she started a research project on telework with students from the Master BPMIT of the Open Universiteit.

Portretfoto Ben Roelens

Dr. Ben Roelens

Research themes: Conceptual Modeling, Business Ontology, and Enterprise Architecture

Dr. Ben Roelens (Belgium, °1987) has a Master’s degree in Business Engineering. He obtained his doctoral degree in Applied Economics in 2015 (Ghent University, BE), which dealt with the use of conceptual models to realize strategic fit. He is an assistant professor at the Open Universiteit. As a voluntary post-doctoral researcher, he is also member of the UGentMIS Business Informatics research group (Ghent University, BE). He is currently co-supervisor of 3 PhD students and (co-)authored 9 publications listed in Web of Science, including articles in the BISE and SoSyM journals. His main research interests lie in the fields of Conceptual Modeling, Business Ontology, and Enterprise Architecture.

 

Dr. Ir. Ella (E.E.) Roubtsova

Portretfoto Lloyd Rutledge

Lloyd Rutledge

Research themes: assisted generation of end-user interfaces from models and rules, usually with semantic wikis as form-based user interfaces for data structures and rules implemented on the Semantic Web.

Dr. Lloyd Rutledge has a Master’s degree and a Sc.D. in Computer Science from the University of Massachusetts at Lowell. His is an assistant professor in the Information Science department of the Faculty of Science at the Open Universiteit. He teaches the Master’s courses Business Intelligence and Rule-based Design. An overlap between these topics forms his core research interest: that of analyzing the data, documents and processes of an organization to make rules to guide it even better towards its goals. A core approach in this work is the use of design patterns for the data models and logical rules of a business that contribute more efficiently to business system development. This is an ongoing theme for Master’s theses he supervises, which often implement the models and logic with technologies from the Semantic Web. He also guides research on mining data and processes for models and rules that drive system improvement. His own direct research focusses on assisted generation of end-user interfaces from models and rules, usually with semantic wikis as form-based user interfaces for data structures and rules implemented on the Semantic Web.

Portretfoto Pien Walraven

Pien Walraven

Research themes: Co-evolutionary Information Systems Alignment, Dynamic Capabilities, Health IT, Enterprise Architecture

Pien Walraven has a background in Information Systems (MSc.), Information Science (BSc.) and Business Communication (B.A.). Her PhD research addresses an imperative problem for contemporary hospitals and professional organizations: How to enhance and improve (different aspects of) performance while operating in turbulent environments. Particularly, her research focuses on the process of co-evolutionary alignment of Electronic Medical Records with hospital goals, needs and strategies of hospitals, both during implementations and in operations. Her research explicitly addresses the challenge of multiple stakeholder perspectives and differing, possibly even conflicting, goals and needs within the hospital, using a complex adaptive systems view on organizations as a foundation.
Her teaching activities are focused around Enterprise Architecture, Business-IT alignment and Digital transformation in the MSc. BPMIT program. Furthermore, Pien is the internal PhD representative in the board of the OU Graduate School.

Supervisors: dr. Rogier van de Wetering, prof. dr. ir. Remko Helms, prof. dr. ir. Johan Versendaal, prof. dr. Marjolein Caniëls

Portretfoto Irene Vanderfeesten

dr. ir. Irene Vanderfeesten

Research themes: Resilience

Dr.ir. Irene Vanderfeesten has a Master’s degree in Computer Science (2004) and a PhD degree in Technology Management (2009) both from Eindhoven University of Technology. She is an associate professor in Information Sciences at the department of Science of the Open Universiteit. She also holds a part time associate professor position in Information systems at the department of Industrial Engineering and Innovation Sciences at Eindhoven University of Technology. Her teaching and research activities are mainly focused on business process management and business information systems engineering. Her research interest include: business process (re)design methodologies, process modeling and process model quality, process automation, process performance analysis, process compliance and process maturity. It is her ambition to innovate business processes from a human perspective, developing human centric business information technology, tools and techniques to support the design, analysis, and execution of business processes, driven by challenges from practice. She is currently involved in two large EU H2020 research projects (HORSE and SHOP4CF) in which business process management concepts and technology are applied in high tech manufacturing. Other application domains include banking and insurance, healthcare, and government.