The Role of the Doctoral Consortium: An Information Systems Signature Pedagogy?

The doctoral consortium is a well-established, widely endorsed event in the information systems (IS) discipline that occurs adjunct to mainstream IS conferences (e.g., ICIS, ECIS, PACIS, AMCIS). Anecdotal evidence suggests that PhD students’ experience of these events is almost universally positive; some have referred to the events as “life changing” or “magical”. Further, both participating students and scholars strongly perceive the events’ value. To extend the experience to more PhD students, doctoral consortia are more recently being run locally and unaffiliated with any conference. By reviewing the literature and historical documents and conducting a series of interviews and email exchanges with past conference co-chairs, we explore the merits of IS doctoral consortia (consortia). We position the IS doctoral consortium as distinct from forms of doctoral student development in other disciplines, a veritable “signature pedagogy” for IS. In examining the practices and motivations underlying doctoral consortia, we explain related phenomena to improving future consortia. In addition, by appending much historical detail, we add to the IS discipline’s organizational memory

Measuring Corporate Intranet Effectiveness: A Conceptual Framework

While research on Intranet effectiveness has been greatly reported in the literature, gaps still exist particularly in the development of a theoretical framework from a user-based perspective. This paper attempts to discuss at a conceptual level on the concept of Intranet effectiveness and further analyze the effectiveness framework with several contributing factors grouped as organizational, technological and individual. Through in-depth review of relevant literature in the information systems and the knowledge management fields the paper proposes a conceptual framework for a study to be conducted on the corporate Intranet effectiveness

A Comparative Analysis of Major ERP Lifecycle Implementation, Management and Support Issues in Queensland Government

This paper reports on a study of ERP lifecycle major issues from the perspectives of individuals with substantial and diverse involvement with SAP Financials in Queensland Government. A survey was conducted of 117 ERP system project participants in five closely related state government agencies. A modified Delphi technique identified, rationalized and weighed perceived major issues in ongoing ERP life cycle implementation, management and support. The five agencies each implemented SAP Financials simultaneously using a common implementation partner. The three survey rounds of the Delphi technique, together with coding and synthesizing procedures, resulted in a set of 10 major issue categories with 38 sub-issues. Relative scores of issue importance are compared across government agencies, roles (client vs implementation partner) and organizational levels (strategic, technical and operational). Study findings confirm the importance of this finer partitioning of the data, and distinctions identified reflect the circumstances of ERP lifecycle implementation, management and support among the stakeholder groups. The study findings should also be of interest to stakeholders who seek to better understand the issues surrounding ERP systems and to better realise the benefits of ERP

Information Systems Success Research: The “20-Year Update?” Panel Report from PACIS, 2011

This article summarizes a panel held at the 15th Pacific Asia Conference on Information Systems (PACIS) in Brisbane, Austrailia, in 2011. The panelists proposed a new research agenda for information systems success research. The DeLone and McLean IS Success Model has been one of the most influential models in Information Systems research. However, the nature of information systems continues to change. Information systems are increasingly implemented across layers of infrastructure and application architecture. The diffusion of information systems into many spheres of life means that information systems success needs to be considered in multiple contexts. Services play a much more prominent role in the economies of countries, making the “service” context of information systems increasingly important. Further, improved understandings of theory and measurement offer new opportunities for novel approaches and new research questions about information systems success

CONCEPTUAL AND OPERATIONAL LIMITATIONS OF EVALUATING IS FOR ENGINEERING ASSET MANAGEMENT

Asset managing organisations utilize a variety of information systems to support the lifecycle of their assets. Traditionally, engineering enterprises take a deterministic approach to technology adoption. Evaluation of these systems, therefore, is an important aspect of managing IT investments in these organisations. Information systems evaluation is not an inert or stagnant activity, in fact it is highly influenced by the organisational environment. There are certain conceptual and operational issues and challenges that impede the employment of an effective evaluation mechanism. This paper provides a discussion on the conceptual and operational dimensions of the evaluation of the information systems utilized in asset lifecycle management. It highlights that an effective approach to information systems evaluation calls for pluralism, which demands qualitative as well as quantitative measures, involving context based cultural, social, economic, political, technical, and organisational aspects

Exploring barriers in expertise seeking : why don\u27t they ask an expert?

This paper reports findings from a research project that explores reasons why some employees prefer to seek expertise to resolve work-related problems from direct colleagues rather than designated internal experts. Several studies suggest that while an expert generally provides a higher quality solution in a shorter time, workers tend to ask friendly or proximate colleagues to help with knowledge-based problems at work. Prior research provides only fragmented insights into understanding the barriers to asking a designated internal expert for help at work. To address this gap, we asked post-graduate students enrolled in a knowledge management subject at a large Australian university to share their perspectives in an online discussion forum. Content analysis of the collected perspectives enabled identification of twenty-one factors that may limit the seeking of expertise from a designated internal expert. The factors are grouped in four categories: environment, accessibility, communication and personality. In addition one context variable is described, determining the extent to which the barriers are influential in a specific situation. By synthesising the results, we have proposed two models of expertise-seeking barriers. A literature review helps validate the barriers identified by the study. Key theoretical and practical implications are also discussed.<br /

On the Assessment of CommercialWebsite - An Expert System Approach

The assessment of commercial website is about the evaluation of websites on the Internet for commercial usage. From an information system perspective, they can be assessed objectively or subjectively. From a business point of view, they can be assessed quantitatively or qualitatively. In this paper we propose an expert system approach to evaluate commercial website in both of these two aspects in order to gain a clear picture of their values

Towards Analytical Approach to Effective Website Designs: A Framework for Modeling, Evaluation and Enhancement

Conference Theme: I.T. and Value CreationEffective website design is critical to the success of electronic commerce and digital government. Most prior website design research has taken a computational or cognitive/behavioral approach which may not yield optimal designs demanded by specific requirements. We consider website design as a structural problem which can be examined using analytical approach, such as mathematical optimization. Specifically, we propose a framework which classifies real-world design problems into generic website design categories and maps each resulting category into a graph model which can be analyzable or solved using appropriate analytical techniques. Our framework consists of generic designs and graph models, together with the necessary mapping. We classify the Web site applications and review their features proposed by previous research. We describe a generic website design category using its objective and key constraints that correspond to important design requirements. By modeling website design problems using well-defined structures and rigorous analysis methods, this framework is able to measure website accessibility in a systematic and quantifiable manner, arguably more desirable than existing qualitative ad-hoc practices. Overall, our framework can facilitate the website design process, enhance design quality, and increase ease of analysis, implementation and continuous improvement.link_to_subscribed_fulltex