Growing Doctoral Education in Africa: The Story of an Online Course at ICT University in Cameroon

While Africa as a continent has experienced steady economic growth over the last decade, quality of life issues still plague much of the continent. The complexity of these problems requires intellectual capabilities to develop workable and sustainable solutions. Thus, facilitating doctoral education in less developed countries (LDCs) is an important and worthwhile undertaking. This paper tells the tale of how a simple case of serendipitous opportunity to facilitate a doctoral research seminar for an African university became a catalyst in securing the participation of several leading scholars to contribute to the seminar and grow their interest in contributing to doctoral education in LDCs. The seminar garnered strong positive reactions from the students who were spread across Africa and among the scholars who participated. We discuss the lessons we learned with a view toward providing a template for remotely delivering doctoral coursework in LDCs

Geopolitical Factors Impacting ICT4D: Comparing Singapore with Vietnam

ICT4D research orients to the empowerment of underdeveloped populations through the provision of Internet technologies, with an eye toward technology-supported economic development. Any development effort of this sort, however, faces geopolitical barriers to entry. In order to technologically enable a population, governmentally sponsored national infrastructure initiatives are required and these typically involve outside consultation, economic support and direct partnership to succeed. Yet, geopolitical forces may militate against this taking place. We consider the contrasting examples of Singapore and Vietnam as instances of national information infrastructure initiatives that were attempted and either succeeded or failed based upon geopolitical considerations. The result is a cautionary tale for scholars interested in ICT4D, in as much as the success of a particular project is dependent not only upon technological factors, but political and cultural ones as well

Virtual Organization as a Source of Competitive Advantage: A Framework from the Resource-Based View

A framework is developed for viewing the centralization issues of organizations to consider to what degree a virtual organization may help a firm obtain competitive advantage. Utilizing the concepts of flexibility and synergy, the framework can serve as a guide for practitioners to help determine what degree of synergy and flexibility a given organizational form would bring and what its suggested category of competitive advantage would be. Implications and suggestions for future research are also discussed

Exploring U.S. Air Force Online Communities of Practice: An Examination of Content Management Practices

The management of knowledge assets has become increasingly important as organizations recognize the strategic value of knowledge. In an attempt to capitalize on its potential, many organizations have turned to Internet technologies for capturing, managing and disseminating their vast amounts of explicit knowledge. One application of such technology can be found in the use of on-line collaborative workspaces. These virtual workspaces facilitate and promote an environment for capturing and sharing knowledge among members of a particular field, task, or common practice. Despite the implied efficiency of such an approach, an ever-increasing volume of information/knowledge may impede the ability of users to navigate successfully through the workspace thus undermining the user participation and illustrating the importance of effective content management (CM). This exploratory study uses case studies to examine the CM practices of eight U.S. Air Force online communities of practice. The findings suggest that the development of formal CM processes, and procedures may help solve future CM problems as well as increase the benefits associated with on-line CoP usage

IS Faculty Engagement in Pedagogical Research

There is growing interest in pedagogical research in response to demands for accountability in higher education. Major accrediting bodies have also recognized its role in advancing the practice of teaching, with the goal of improving student learning. In this session, we will highlight the benefits of involvement in IS educational research across the full spectrum from reader to reviewer, author, and editorial board member. We will survey publication outlets for IS pedagogy in a range of genres. Guidelines for planning, implementing, and writing up instructional projects will also be discussed

The Next Decade of Online Learning in Higher Education: Blue Ocean Strategies for the Design and Delivery of Graduate IS Programs

The market demand for online learning continues to increase and so do online enrollments in higher education. Online learning is gaining a strategic focus among academic leaders while at the same time we are seeing an emergence of new and innovative models of information systems (IS) graduate programs and instruction delivery methods. Given these trends, what does the future hold? What are our “blue oceans”? The objective is to engage in a conversation about how technology is changing teaching and learning in higher education and specifically, in the design and delivery of graduate degree programs in IS. An international panel with members representing academic administrators, faculty, and online learning researchers will share their perspectives about the progress and direction of online learning. The overarching questions are: How are online technologies transforming higher education for the better or worse? As IS educators, what are our blue oceans

The Internet of Things (IoT): Platforms, Analytics, Security, Business Model, and Human Interaction

According to Consumer Electronics Show (CES) 2017 and a number of recent research reports in 2016 and 2017 from Gartner, Deloitte, McKinsey, and Info-Tech Research Group, the Internet of Things (IoT) is projected to be a multi-trillion dollar opportunity. However, there are numerous issues and requirements in IoT, such as platforms, analytics, gateways and devices (including sensors) management; communication services (i.e., M2M and networking protocols); security and privacy; and user interactions. In addition, various perspectives for monetizing IoT, as a business model, will be considered. The IoT panel proposal will cover IoT platform, gateway and devices; communications services; IoT analytics; security and privacy; business model and business value of IoT; and human interaction with IoT. Each panelist will present the assigned IoT topics

The Internet of Things: Multi-faceted Research Perspectives

Living beyond the hype, the Internet of things (IoT) continues to grow and has clearly emerged as a leading-edge topic in information systems. As the IoT moves beyond novel technologies and exploratory sandbox initiatives to ubiquitous technologies and full production, understanding the phenomenon surrounding IoT challenges and issues has become even more important. In this paper, we explore the critical issues and challenges currently facing IoT adoption and implementation in order to identify areas that require further study. Specifically, we discuss IoT from several key perspectives including IoT connectivity, platforms and 5G, IoT analytics, IoT privacy, security, and litigation risks, IoT business value and monetization, and human interaction with IoT and design considerations Finally, through identifying the current state of IoT and IoT research, we identify potential areas of contribution and future directions for IoT research