MG4C3      Half Unit
Information Technology and Service Innovation

This information is for the 2025/26 session.

Course Convenor

Availability

The course aims to give the students theoretical and practical insights into the key issues informing the design of contemporary digital technology (IT) and their commercialisation. The course relates the diversity of the design challenges facing contemporary IT development including the incorporation of Artificial Intelligence within IT innovation projects. The design challenges relate to constantly shifting possibilities, for example, the use of LLMs as interfaces to digital systems, the use of predictive AI within innovations, the capture and processing of digital data previously beyond reach, the ability to leverage interfaces (APIs, SDKs etc), and the expanding possibilities for reaching end-users in new ways. The course is constructed as the meeting of theory and practice. The former through the presentation and discussion of theoretical themes aimed at sharpening the student's ability to reason about contemporary design challenges and opportunities. The practical design skills are honed through a group design project running throughout the course. Conducting this group design project will engage students in highly detailed and constructive design discussions leading to the submission of a designed IT artifact with a commercialisation plan. The course neither requires, nor teaches detailed software programming techniques, but instead focuses on teaching IT design skills.  

10 hours of seminars and 20 hours of lectures in the Winter Term.

This course has a reading week in Week 6 of Winter Term.

In its Ethics Code, LSE upholds a commitment to intellectual freedom. This means we will protect the freedom of expression of our students and staff and the right to engage in healthy debate in the classroom.

Classes are based around both the design group projects, as well as reading and discussing selected journal articles. Formative feedback is provided on class participation.

• Boden, M. A. (2016). AI: Its nature and future. Oxford University Press.
• Brown, T., & Katz, B. (2009). Change by design: how design thinking transforms organizations and inspires innovation. [New York]: Harper Business.
• Crawford, K. (2021). The Atlas of AI, Yale University Press.
• Cusumano, M. A., et al. (2019). The Business of Platforms: Strategy in the Age of Digital Competition, Innovation, and Power, HarperBusiness.
• Ekbia, H. R. and B. A. Nardi (2017). Heteromation, and Other Stories of Computing and Capitalism, MIT Press.
• Friedman, T. L. (2017). Thank you for being late: An optimist's guide to thriving in the age of accelerations. Picador USA.
•  Gothelf, J., & In Seiden, J. (2013). Lean UX: Applying lean principles to improve user experience. Sebastopol, CA: O'Reilly Media, Inc.
•  Herbert, L. (2017): Digital Transformation: Build Your Organization's Future for the Innovation Age. Bloomsbury Publishing.
• McAfee, A. & E. Brynjolfsson (2017): Machine, Platform, Crowd. WW Norton & Company.
• Norman, D. (1988): The Psychology of Everyday Things. USA: Basic Books.
• Stickdorn, M., & Schneider, J. (2010). This is service design thinking: Basics--tools--cases. Amsterdam: BIS Publishers.
• Susskind, D. (2020). A World Without Work: Technology, Automation, and How We Should Respond, Henry Holt and Company.
• Tiwana, A. (2014). Platform Ecosystems: Aligning Architecture, Governance, and Strategy, Morgan Kaufmann.
• Wachter-Boettcher, S. (2017). Technically Wrong: Sexist Apps, Biased Algorithms, and Other Threats of Toxic Tech. WW Norton & Company.
• Willcocks, L., Venters, W., & Whitley, E. (2014). Moving To The  Cloud Corporation. Palgrave Macmillan.
• Zuboff, S. (2019): The age of surveillance capitalism: The fight for a human future at the new frontier of power.

Project (70%)

Essay (30%, 1500 words)

The course has two summative elements: an individual theoretical essay (30%), and from the group design project, a technical report (50%) and a separate submission of an individual essay reflecting on the group work and on group participation (20%), which jointly comprise one summative component (70%).  

For detailed assessment information, including all deadlines and timings, please see the relevant course Moodle page. Assessment timings will be available at the start of each term.