Digitization has become nearly synonymous with platforms and generativity of information systems. Generativity is associated with growth, fluid and porous boundaries that engender new unforeseen uses and users.
Professor Sirkka Jarvenpaa explores generativity from a data perspective. Specific examples relate to linked health data infrastructures that are being built in various medical genetic initiatives that combine genetic data with health, real world behavioral and sensor data. We examine a number of tensions in these emerging data infrastructures including value capture from data vs. technology, short-term vs. long-term goals, local vs. national vs. global, public vs. private holders/guardians, and centralized vs. distributed design. The return from massive public and private investments in these initiatives requires a better understanding of these tensions and how they both increase and limit data generativity.