Dr Audrey Grace

Research Interests

eHealth Research: Publicly provided healthcare systems, worldwide, are coming under increasing pressures because of aging populations, increased prevalence of chronic disease and spiralling healthcare costs. It is widely recognized that such pressures can be somewhat alleviated by focusing on community-based healthcare and empowering people to manage their own wellness. Information Systems can clearly play a key part in this empowerment and as such represents a particularly fruitful area of research.

Co-Production Research: Service co-production between a service professional and an individual client involves collaborative decision making between these two parties which necessitates high levels of interaction and information sharing between them. This type of collaborative interaction and the role of Information Systems in such settings represents an under-researched area and holds much promise in reducing costs and finding new ways to address the increasingly complex needs of customers/consumers.

E-Government Research: Governments, worldwide, are increasingly recognising the advantages of interacting with their citizens by electronic means and as a result, this area is receiving growing attention both from research and practice. Indeed, the Irish Government has announced plans to implement a design led approach across all public services in Ireland with the aim of ensuring that all services including digital services keep service users at the centre of decision making. Empirical research on how such an approach can best be supported by Information Systems is lacking and needs attention.

Methodological Interests: While much IS research heretofore has concentrated on how information systems facilitate information processing and the decision making of individuals both within and outside of an organizational context, there is a growing need within organisations to analyse and understand how information systems facilitate both internal and external information sharing and collaboration (e.g. with customers, suppliers and partners). I am an advocate of utilizing 'people-centred and action oriented ' organizational theory (e.g. socio-technical systems theory, activity theory) in order to facilitate more holistic and insightful research on how interactions are enabled and work gets done through all elements of IS (people, process, technology).

Research Projects

• Doctor Patient Decision Support System. (Enterprise Irl) €19,410.00 (01-JUL-13 / 30-NOV-13)
• Predict X - A cloud-based predictive analytics service platform for customer retention in publishing (Enterprise Ireland) €142,215.00 (03-SEP-12 / 28-SEP-13)
• Multimorbidity System - Research and Prototype Development (Other: Not Listed) €10,000.00 (04-JUN-12 / 31-AUG-12)

Affiliations

• Governing Council, Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS) (01-JUL-16 / 30-JUN-19)
• member, Healthcare Informatics Society of Ireland (01-OCT-12 /)
• member, Association of Information Systems (02-FEB-04 /)

Modules

• e-Business Strategy Formulation
• Introduction to e-Business Experience and Practice
• Introduction to Information Systems
• Introduction to Corporate Information Systems

Other Activities

• Reviewer Committee for European Conference on Information Systems, Istanbul, June 2016.
• Reviewer Committee for Information Systems Journal, 2016. Evaluation of 8 business plans as an external judge for EU-XCEL, a Horizon 2020 and Startup Europe Project - September 2015.
• Served on the Interview Board for the selection of candidates to fill 2 full-time BIS posts - August 2015.
• Programme Committee of DSS 2.0 Supporting Decision Making with New Technologies, Paris, June 2014.
• Reviewer Committee for International Conference on Information Systems, Milan, Dec 2013.
• Reviewer Committee for IADIS Conference on Computer Science and Information Systems, Prague, July 2013.
• Reviewer Committee for Australian Conference on Information Systems, Geelong, Australia, Dec 2012.
• Reviewer Committee for Pacific Asia Conference on Information Systems, Hochiminh, Vietnam, July 2012.
• Programme Committee of DSS2012 International Conference on Decision Support Systems, Anávissos, Greece, June 2012.
• Reviewer Committee for European Conference on Information Systems, NUI Galway, June 2008.
• Reviewer Committee for European Conference on Information Systems, Turku, Finland, June 2004

Committees

• Member, Business School Group on Academic Standards (2015 /)
• Committee Member, Teaching and Curriculum Development Committee (2012 /)
• Committee Member, Community Academic Research Links (2012 / 2014)

Education

• University College Cork , PHD, Information Systems (2011)
• University College cork , MSc, Management Information Systems (2003)
• University College Cork , Postgraduate Diploma, Management and Marketing (2002)
• Association of Chartered Certified Accountants , Postgraduate Diploma, Accounting and Finance (1995)
• University College Cork , BSC (HONS), Computer Science (1989)

Employment

• Business Development Manager, Vistech Software (01-APR-00 / 01-MAY-01)
• Manager, Vision Consulting (01-NOV-98 / 01-APR-00)
• Oracle Programme Manager, Trinity Technology Group (01-MAY-97 / 01-NOV-98)
• DBA and Technical Support Specialist, AIB Capital Markets (01-OCT-95 / 01-MAY-97)
• Senior Systems Programmer (Mainframe and Midrange Operating Environments), AIB Group (02-NOV-89 / 01-OCT-95)

Teaching Interests

• PhD Supervision : Exploration of the Role of IS Core Capabilities on Co-Production of IS/IT Services
• PhD Supervision: Exploring the Impact of E-government Initiatives on Public Adminisatrators
• Dissertation Supervision: Distance Learning through Blackboard: A Case Study of the MBS in Co-operative and Social Enterprise
• Dissertation Supervision: Standardising the Management Action Plan Process at Janssen Pharmaceuticals Limited.
• Collaborative Industry Research Projects Supervision, MBS Information Systems for Business Performance
• IS Consulting Process, MBS Management Information Systems
• E-Health, MBS Health Services Management
• Database Design and Development, MBS Electronic Commerce
• Supervision of Final Year Innovative System Development projects, Degree in Business Information Systems

Recent Postgrads

• Resego Morakayane (UCC PHD) "Digital Transformation" (2019)

Professional Achievements

Honours and Awards

• PostGrad Ireland: MSc ISBP - Best Postgraduate Course (IT) (2017)
• PostGrad Ireland: MSc ISBP - Best Postgraduate Course (IT) (2016)
• PostGrad Ireland: MSc ISBP - Best Postgraduate Course (Business) (2015)
• PostGrad Ireland: MSc ISBP - Best Postgraduate Course (IT) (2014)
• PostGrad Ireland: MSc ISBP - Best Postgraduate Course (IT) (2013)

Publications