Vetle Alvenes Utvik

• Utvik, Vetle Alvenes; Sæbø, Johan Ivar; Amarakoon, Pamod Madusanka & Nielsen, Petter (2025). Digital public goods: understanding the role of generativity in fostering digital innovation for development. Information Technology for Development. ISSN 0268-1102. 31(4), p. 1791–1809. doi: 10.1080/02681102.2025.2531494. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  This paper examines how digital public goods foster digital innovation. DPGs are understood as open digital technologies designed to contribute to sustainable development goals, which indicates a potential for enabling resource-scarce countries to innovate without the constraints of proprietary technologies. However, little is known about how DPGs foster innovation. We draw on a case study of digital innovation during the COVID-19 pandemic with the software platform, District Health Information Software 2 (DHIS2), considered a DPG. We use the concept of generativity to examine how DHIS2’s architecture, governance, and community shaped the case. We found that DHIS2 fostered innovation in a distributed and recursive way. This insight implies that DPGs with generative capacities realize their value through recurring sharing of benefits from their distributed utilization. This research contributes to the ICT4D literature on DPGs by conceptualizing the generativity of DPGs and positioning the study in a digital-for-development paradigm.

• Utvik, Vetle Alvenes & Thunes, Johanne (2025). Distributing The Value Of Digital Innovation: A Digital Public Goods Lens. In Grisot, Miria; Sæbø, Johan Ivar & Kempton, Alexander Moltubakk (Ed.), Selected Papers of the 48th Information Systems Research Seminar in Scandinavia. Association for Information Systems (AIS). Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  The value created from digital innovation are increasingly being centralized and monopolized by a few large tech platform companies. The promise of democratized innovation through digital technology has instead been overshadowed by platform companies controlling markets and the resources for innovation. Scholars are calling for research that explores fairer approaches to value creation and capture value from digital innovation. This paper aims to contribute to this call by exploring how the concept of digital public goods (DPGs) can serve as a lens to understand value creation and capture from digital innovation. We draw on the notion of public goods from economics, which describes goods that are non-excludable and non-rivalrous. Then, we apply the concept of DPGs to an empirical case of the Norwegian Altinn platform, which aims to support digital innovation of public services, targeting citizens, private businesses, and public organizations. We specifically examine how value created and captured from the innovation of a funeral administration system using the Altinn platform. We contribute to the literature on digital innovation and digital public goods with an exploration of how a lens of DPGs can play a role in future research on digital innovation.

• Amarakoon, Pamod Madusanka; Gundersen, Ragnhild Bassøe; Muhire, Andrew; Utvik, Vetle Alvenes & Braa, Jørn Anders (2023). Exploring health information system resilience during COVID-19 pandemic: case studies from Norway, Sri Lanka & Rwanda. BMC Health Services Research. 23(1). doi: 10.1186/s12913-023-10232-0. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  The study aims at exploring health system resilience by defining the scope on health information systems, one of the six building blocks of the health system. The empirical evidence is derived using qualitative data collection and analysis in the context of Norway, Sri Lanka and Rwanda during the COVID-19 pandemic. The case studies elicit bounce back and bounce forward properties as well as the agility as major attributes of resilience present across the countries. Existing local capacity, networking and collaborations, flexible digital platforms and enabling antecedent conditions are identified as socio-technical determinants of information system resilience based on the case studies across the countries.

• Thunes, Johanne; Ulshagen, Andrea & Utvik, Vetle Alvenes (2023). Information Systems Resilience: The Role of Flexibility and Stability. In Anderson, Richard; Vannini, Sara; Ahmed, Syed Ishtiaque; Vashistha, Aditya & Raza, Agha Ali (Ed.), ICTD '22: Proceedings of the 2022 International Conference on Information and Communication Technologies and Development. Association for Computing Machinery (ACM). ISSN 9781450397872. doi: 10.1145/3572334.3572382. Full text in Research Archive
• Gundersen, Ragnhild Bassøe; Utvik, Vetle Alvenes; Thorseng, Anne Asmyr; Sæbø, Johan Ivar & Nielsen, Petter (2021). AN INSTITUTIONAL ANALYSIS OF DIGITAL TRANSFOR-MATION OF COVID-19 CONTACT TRACING DURING A PANDEMIC. IRIS Selected Papers of the Information Systems Research Seminar in Scandinavia. ISSN 1891-9863. 12(4). Full text in Research Archive
• Gundersen, Ragnhild Bassøe; Dynestøl, Emilie Bauck; Nielsen, Petter; Sæbø, Johan Ivar; Thorseng, Anne Asmyr & Ulshagen, Andrea [Show all 7 contributors for this article] (2020). Digital Transformation under a pandemic: A case study of Covid-19 contact tracing in Norway. NOKOBIT: Norsk konferanse for organisasjoners bruk av informasjonsteknologi. ISSN 1892-0748. 28(1). Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  In March 2020 the number of confirmed COVID-19 cases in Norway increased rapidly, and the efforts to trace contacts of positive cases were under severe pressure. Contact tracing in Norway is the responsibility of the municipalities, and no standardized or coordinated contact tracing practices were at the time in place on the national level. The afflicted municipalities did their best to cope with the chaotic situation and did contact tracing using excel spreadsheets or pen and paper. These approaches have their flaws, and in particular, failed to scale in several municipalities. In this paper, we report from a case study of collaborative efforts made to address this challenging situation by the University of Oslo (UiO), the Norwegian Association of Local and Regional Authorities (KS), the Norwegian Public Health Institute (NPHI), and several municipalities. The DHIS2 software platform and experiences implementing DHIS2 for contact tracing in other countries were the basis for these efforts. We describe the process of designing and implementing DHIS2 to date and the experiences so far. We pay particular attention to the potential long-term implications of this process, which we see as a digital transformation of contact tracing in particular and disease surveillance in general in Norway. Our contribution is a rich case description as well as the identification of themes relevant to the further development of DHIS2 for contact tracing as well as other systems in a similar context. These themes include cross-municipal collaboration and information sharing across judicial/legal boundaries, standardisation and centralization of support structures, and potentially transformation of contact tracing practices.

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• Sjøvoll, Espen; Utvik, Vetle Alvenes; Kempton, Alexander Moltubakk & Sanner, Terje Aksel (2026). Mindre avhengighet av tek-gigantene krever mer enn å bytte ut Office-pakken. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  En politikk for åpen kildekode må være basert på åpne økosystemer.

• Gundersen, Ragnhild Bassøe; Utvik, Vetle Alvenes; Thorseng, Anne Asmyr; Sæbø, Johan Ivar & Nielsen, Petter (2021). AN INSTITUTIONAL ANALYSIS OF DIGITAL TRANSFOR-MATION OF COVID-19 CONTACT TRACING DURING A PANDEMIC. Full text in Research Archive
• Utvik, Vetle Alvenes; Nielsen, Petter & Sæbø, Johan Ivar (2026). Digital Platform Ecosystems as Innovation Commons. Universitetet i Oslo. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  How can digital platform ecosystems be governed to facilitate cooperative digital innovation for public value? Digital platforms are often understood as technologies for business in how they can be used to orchestrate markets for production of apps. However, not all digital platforms are business oriented. Some digital platforms aim for public value creation through digital innovation. However, we currently have a limited understanding of their nature and how they are governed. This doctoral dissertation outlines an understanding of digital platform ecosystems as innovation commons. Specifically, I develop the concept of platform-based innovation commons and explain how digital innovation unfolds through iterations of use, contribution, and reuse of shared resources. I further explain how platform governance can sustain collective action by widening participation, enabling diverse forms of contributions, and aligning actors around common good goals. By reframing digital platform ecosystems beyond market-centric assumptions, I contribute with a novel theoretical perspective on how digital platforms can organize distributed and cooperative digital innovation for societal benefit across organizational and national contexts.

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