Design with Simon's Inner and Outer Environments: Theoretical Foundations for Design Science Research Methods for Digital Science

Abstract

Design science research has traditionally been applied to complex real-world problems to produce an artifact to address such problems. Although design science research efforts have been applied traditionally to business or related problems, there is a large set of problems in the area of digital science that also require important, digital artifacts. The digitalization of science has resulted in the need to develop essential, specialized, devices and software before it is feasible for scientists to carry out their work. This research examines digital science to identify its challenges and demonstrate how it can be possible to progress digital science with design science research, thereby establishing digital science as an important area of transdisciplinary inquiry. These areas of research are examined for their synergies and explained by positioning artifact development challenges with respect to Simon's inner and outer environments, and the interface between them.