Information Systems: To Be, or Not To Be, a Science? Is that the Question?

In this commentary, we complement McBride’s (2018) paper by setting the debate in its historical context and building on the “rite of passage” notion that Chughtai and Myers (2017) introduced to denote the process of researchers entering a field of practice. We first summarize McBride’s (2018) main point concerning whether or not IS is a science and pick up on the systemic nature of IS. In doing so, we incorporate how researchers have historically treated the debate and distinguish science per se from the scientific method. We turn then to reflect on the point that this debate apparently refuses to die. We conclude with a forward-thinking section in which we consider the implications of our considering the topic not for the field as a whole but for individual IS researchers. We end with our own modest call for action in terms of focusing on the everyday practices of IS researchers— specifically, the rites of passage or transitions (and lack of them) we (should?) go through in how we practice our research

Images of Quantum Computing: Taking Stock and Moving Forward

Quantum computing is attracting increasing attention due to both the threats and the opportunities it may present. Nonetheless, the technology is still nascent and thus far lacks substantive commercial applications that can demonstrate, let alone validate, its potential impact. This uncertainty challenges organizations’ ability to make strategic decisions concerning quantum computing. In this study, we explored the practitioners’ discourse about quantum computing and the metaphors used to describe the technology and its prospective value. Building on a thematic analysis of 140 video presentations by quantum computing practitioners, we identified ten distinct metaphors of quantum computing. Subsequently, we sorted the metaphors based on the perceived feasibility and strategic potential of the technology to reveal four ways quantum computing may impact the prevailing digital logic. These findings shed light on the alternative development paths of quantum computing business applications and extend the theoretical foundation of this incipient discourse

Editorial: The History and Philosophy Department

Amid social and political upheavals and economic uncertainties and the increasingly pivotal role of information and communications technologies in society, the information systems (IS) field is perfectly positioned to address the social and technical implications stemming from these developments. One can find such discussions in historical and philosophical papers that have always attracted IS researchers’ attention but that have not received a formal channel to grow and thrive. The history and philosophy department of the Communications of the Association for Information Systems provides such a channel. By providing an avenue to analyze historic events and past successes and failures and to encourage new philosophical thinking for the present and the future, the history and philosophy department seeks to achieve what Peter Keen (1991, p. 27) once prognosticated: for the IS field to be at the “forefront of intellectual debate and investigation about the application of IT across every aspect of…society”. With this lofty goal in mind and to encourage a shift towards writing more historical and philosophical research, I describe these two intricately related genres of research that are distinct from the hypothetico-deductive research that crowds the pages of our journals but that perhaps hold the most potential for moving the IS field towards becoming an intellectually and socially influential discipline

Enacting Accountability in IS Research after the Sociomaterial Turn(ing)

Sociomateriality represents an emergent philosophical stance that instantiates an ontological turn towards relationality and materiality in information systems (IS) research. As an emergent perspective or way of seeing, sociomateriality has significant implications for researchers and the practices they employ. If we accept that the ontological, epistemological, and methodological assumptions we enact in our research shape the realities we perceive and create, questions around researchers’ accountability for the realities they produce need to be addressed. The sociomaterial turn(ing) in IS challenges our deeply held assumptions about what constitutes reality. What are these challenges, and how are they being addressed in sociomaterial research? And what implications for accountability in IS research more generally does a turn towards relationality and materiality hold? The objectives of this editorial are: (1) to sensitize IS researchers, irrespective of their ontological and epistemological persuasions, to the field’s turn(ing) toward relationality and materiality; (2) to provide insight into the practices of data generation, analysis, and presentation through which this turn(ing) is being enacted in sociomaterial theorizing; and (3) to contemplate the implications of this turn(ing) for the accountability of IS research more generally

Philosophy and Information Systems: Where are We and Where Should We Go?

The file attached to this record is the author's final peer reviewed version

Information Approach to Evaluating Effectiveness of the Marine Surface Monitoring System Functioning

The article shows that the main purpose of the Border Guard Agency's marine surface monitoring system is the information support of the decision making. To achieve this purpose such tasks were performed: provided rationale for the indicators of the marine surface monitoring system effectiveness; developed the analytical models for determining indicators of reliability, completeness, operational efficiency processed by the marine surface monitoring system; developed an analytical model of the integral indicator of evaluating the efficiency of the marine surface monitoring system functioning; investigated the results of applying the information approach to evaluating the effectiveness of the marine surface monitoring system in different circumstances. The choice of system effectiveness indicators has been justified. It is stated that the composion of indicators of reliability, completeness and operational efficiency corresponds to the properties of the information resource of the marine surface monitoring system. A formal description of these indicators has been made and an integral indicator of the effective functioning of the marine surface monitoring system has been formed. The obtained value of the integral effectiveness indicator allowed to compare the results of modeling with the standard value of the effectiveness indicator and justified the managerial solution on the use of operational resources at the maritime border area.</p

Designing a Thrifty Approach for SME Business Continuity: Practices for Transparency of the Design Process

Business continuity (BC) management is an organizational approach to preparing information systems (IS) for incidents, but such approaches are uncommon among small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). Past research has indicated a gap in approaches that are designed for SMEs since BC management approaches tend to originate from larger organizations and SMEs lack the resources to implement them. To fill this gap, and to respond to a practical need by an IT consultancy company, we employed design science research (DSR) to develop a BC approach for SMEs coined as the thrifty BC management approach. Jointly with the company’s practitioners, we developed a set of meta-requirements for BC approaches for SMEs anchored in prior BC literature, practitioners’ practical expertise, and the theories of collective mindfulness and sociotechnical systems. We evaluated our thrifty BC management approach with multiple SMEs. These evaluations suggest that the designed approach mostly meets the defined meta-requirements. Moreover, the evaluations offered ample opportunities for learning. The design process, unfolding in a real-world setting, was precarious, rife with contingencies and ad hoc decisions. To render the design process transparent, we adapted four writing conventions from the confessional research genre familiar to ethnographic research but novel to DSR. We offer a threefold contribution. First, we contribute to SMEs’ BC with meta-requirements and their instantiation in a new BC approach (artifact); second, we contribute with four practices of confessional writing for transparency of DSR research; and third, we contribute with reflections on our theoretical learning from throughout the design process

Genre innovation and multimodal expression in scholarly communication: Video methods articles in experimental biology

Digital media have the potential to foster genre innovation and change in scholarly communication, by 1) opening up new, diversified audiences to academics, and 2) facilitating the use of a range of multimodal semiotic resources, that combine word and image, in academic writing. However, relatively little applied linguistic research has investigated innovation in research genres, especially high stakes genres like the research article. In addition, some of the existing literature on the topic has concluded that the addition of digital elements to research articles (for example, embedded video) fails to add significant meaning to the genre, perhaps indicating a poor match between the affordances of digital media and the communicative purposes of the academic writers. This exploratory study provides a multi-dimensional genre analysis of a new research genre in the field of science: the video methods article (VMA), published online by the Journal of Visualized Experiments (JoVE). In order to understand the intertextual communicative context of this genre, community documents were reviewed and two specialist informants were interviewed. A sample of eleven VMAs from JoVE, one per year of publication from 2006-2016, was examined. The multimodal analysis shows how the VMA genre draws on the affordances of digital video in order to meet genuine needs of academic writers. The findings also show some innovation and development in the genre over time, which moves through an initial period of experimentation before settling on a stable generic structure

Designing a Thrifty Approach for SME Business Continuity: Practices for Transparency of the Design Process

Business continuity (BC) management is an organizational approach to preparing information systems (IS) for incidents, but such approaches are uncommon among small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). Past research has indicated a gap in approaches that are designed for SMEs since BC management approaches tend to originate from larger organizations and SMEs lack the resources to implement them. To fill this gap, and to respond to a practical need by an IT consultancy company, we employed design science research (DSR) to develop a BC approach for SMEs coined as the thrifty BC management approach. Jointly with the company’s practitioners, we developed a set of meta-requirements for BC approaches for SMEs anchored in prior BC literature, practitioners’ practical expertise, and the theories of collective mindfulness and sociotechnical systems. We evaluated our thrifty BC management approach with multiple SMEs. These evaluations suggest that the designed approach mostly meets the defined meta-requirements. Moreover, the evaluations offered ample opportunities for learning. The design process, unfolding in a real-world setting, was precarious, rife with contingencies and ad hoc decisions. To render the design process transparent, we adapted four writing conventions from the confessional research genre familiar to ethnographic research but novel to DSR. We offer a threefold contribution. First, we contribute to SMEs’ BC with meta-requirements and their instantiation in a new BC approach (artifact); second, we contribute with four practices of confessional writing for transparency of DSR research; and third, we contribute with reflections on our theoretical learning from throughout the design process.</p