Oliver Burmeister

Professorial Staff

Professor Oliver Burmeister

Professor in Information Systems and Presiding Officer of the Human Research Ethics Committee
Orange
Building 1013 Room 102

“Technology is not value neutral, and technologists must take responsibility for the ethical and social impact of their work” (DeepMind, world leader in artificial intelligence research, https://deepmind.com/blog/why-we-launched-deepmind-ethics-society/). I agree with this statement. My research is focused on health information systems in the area of ageing using an approach called value sensitive design (VSD), which puts ethics into practice.

Aside from my personal research, I am a Senior Research Fellow, co-leading the CSU “Flourishing Communities” research sphere; one of the three research spheres in the CSU strategic plan. This means that I have a senior research leadership role focused on helping CSU researchers to connect with communities, in ways which demonstrate the social impacts of research outcomes.

Thus, like the DeepMind quote, my work is about facilitating multi-disciplinary, community-based, socially impacting research, whilst pursuing a personal research agenda which promotes ethical information systems design in healthcare.

Professional Activities

  • Australian representative to the International Federation of Information Processing, Technical Committee 9 'ICT and Society', which is concerned with the social impacts of technology.
  • Member, Australian Computer Society, Ethics Committee.
  • On the editorial boards of three journals:
    • Journal of Information, Communication and Ethics in Society
    • Australasian Journal of Information Systems
    • Australian Journal of Rural Health.
  • Co-editor for the following upcoming special issues:
    • Pacific Asia Journal of the Association for Information Systems
      “Mobile Decision Support and Analytics for Healthcare: Citizen, Organization, Governmental and Technological Perspectives”
    • Australasian Journal of Information Systems
      “First Nations Peoples’ Sovereignty”
    • Australian Journal of Rural Health
      “Co-production”
  • Upcoming conference activities:
    • Track Chair, Ethicomp 2020, Track 7 “Meeting Societal Challenges in Intelligent Communities Through Value Sensitive Design”, June 2020.
    • Organising Committee member, 9th Australasian Institute of Computer Ethics Conference, December 2020.
  • Member, Western Regional Advisory Council (RAC) on Multiculturalism; RACs provide policy advice to the NSW state Minister.
  • Leader, Health Services Research Area, CSU.

Awards

  • 2015 Vice Chancellor’s Award for Professional Excellence, CSU.
    For “leadership in Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Ethics, and the significant, sustained contribution he has demonstrated to the ICT profession in this area”.
  • 2013 Team Leadership Excellence Award, Faculty of Business, CSU.
    I was the team leader for a team of eight people who received the award for our work on improving the Doctor of Information Technology course over several years.

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