Interdisciplinary Collaboration Of Engineers And Social Researchers To Face Societal Challenges: Designing An E-Recruitment System For Disadvantaged Groups

Abstract

Inclusion of disadvantaged parts of the society to the labor market is now becoming a major task for the policy makers. This task has multiple dimensions requiring integration of complex societal and engineering decisions. In this study, we will present G@together, a Urban Europe project funded by TUBITAK as an exemplary for an international, multi-stakeholder and interdisciplinary approach for finding solutions to societal challenges. This project aims facilitating the inclusion of qualified but disadvantaged individuals labor markets. We will particularly focus on the collaboration of engineers and social researchers to engage the users into the system design process. Our purpose is to develop a role management system that does not discriminate against any user group. For this purpose, we incorporate system design approach with social research process that involves a variety of methods. With this, we target to overcome the shortcomings of top-down designed expert systems which might have rule management features discriminating against disadvantaged groups. All stakeholders have participated to the design process to voice their concerns about user roles and management of the digital rights. After a series of consulting sessions involving engineers, stakeholders and social researchers and interviews with potential users, we have discovered that depersonalized application procedures would solve the asymmetrical rights management issue. (C) 2015 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.