Leadership and Motivation in Open Source Projects

There are nearly 75,000 open source projects and over 750,000 registered users on Sourceforge.net. Yet few of them are successful in attracting other developers and users to participate in the design, testing, and use of the intended software package. Why are some project leaders able to grow their project teams and guide their projects toward completion while others are stalled or abandoned? What attracts participants to a project and why do they continue to work on a project from which they can leave at any time? Using a model based on the Path-Goal Theory of Leadership and self-concept theory, this paper attempts to identify both the sources of motivation for participants in open source projects and the leadership behaviors that attract and motivate them to complete the project

Organizational Structure of Open Source Projects: A Life Cycle Approach

The structure of open source project communities is discussed in relation to the organizational life cycle. In lieu of sales figures, the download counts for each project are used to identify the life cycle stage of a random sample of open source projects. A research model is proposed that attempts to measure the fit between the life cycle stage and the specific organizational characteristics of these projects (focus, division of labor, role of the leader, level of commitment, and coordination/control) as an indicator of the success of a project as measured by the satisfaction and involvement of both developers and users

The Promises and Challenges of Innovating Through Big Data and Analytics in Healthcare

In this article, we present the promises and challenges of big data and analytics (BD&A) in healthcare, informed by our observations of and interviews with healthcare providers in the US and European Union (EU). We then provide a set of recommendations for capitalizing on the extraordinary innovation opportunities available through big data

Research Agenda for Studying Open Source II: View Through the Lens of Referent Discipline Theories

In a companion paper [Niederman et al., 2006] we presented a multi-level research agenda for studying information systems using open source software. This paper examines open source in terms of MIS and referent discipline theories that are the base needed for rigorous study of the research agenda

Critical Realm-Based Explanatory Case Study Research in Information Systems

Critical realism has been proposed as an alternative philosophical paradigm to positivism and interpretivism, but few papers have offered guidelines or suggestions for applying this philosophy to actual research methodologies. This article proposes a set of methodological principles for conducting and evaluating critical realism-based explanatory case study research within the information systems (IS) field. The principles are consistent with the ontological and epistemological assumptions of critical realism, which are discussed along with a brief comparison to the contrasting assumptions from positivism and interpretivism. Examples from published case study articles in the IS research literature are discussed in order to demonstrate each principle in more detail

A Research Agenda for Studying Open Source I: A Multi-Level Framework

This paper presents a research agenda for studying information systems using open source software A multi-level research model is developed at five discrete levels of analysis: (1) the artifact; (2) the individual; (3) the team, project, and community; (4) the organization; and (5) society. Each level is discussed in terms of key issues within the level. Examples are based on prior research. In a companion paper, [Niederman, et al 2006], we view the agenda through the lens of referent discipline theories

Recent Advances and Opportunities for Improving Critical Realism-Based Case Study Research in IS

Critical realism (CR) has been proposed as an alternative to positivist and interpretivist research in information systems. In recent years, there have been several articles that describe methodological guidelines for conducting CR-based empirical studies. These guidelines have been used by numerous researchers as the methodological underpinnings for empirical research articles in IS, particularly for case studies. As a result, CR-based research has evolved as these researchers address many of the challenges and issues associated with this approach. In this article, we present a review and synthesis of methodological and recent empirical CR literature. We identify the methodological advances and important gaps in the empirical research and present a set of state-of-the-art recommendations for conducting and evaluating critical realist research studies in IS

Assessing the Emphasis on Information Security in the Systems Analysis and Design Course

Due to several recent highly publicized information breaches, information security has gained a higher profile. Hence, it is reasonable to expect that information security would receive an equally significant emphasis in the education of future systems professionals. A variety of security standards that various entities (e.g., NIST, COSO, ISACA-COBIT, ISO) have put forth emphasize the importance of information security from the very beginning of the system development lifecycle (SDLC) to avoid significant redesign in later phases. To determine the emphasis on security in typical systems analysis and design (SA&D) courses, we examine (1) to what extent security is emphasized in the core SA&D courses and (2) at what phase in the SDLC do most SA&D courses begin to emphasize security. In order to address these questions, we reviewed SA&D textbooks currently on the market to identify how extensively they cover security-related issues. Given the fairly high awareness of information security in practice, we expected to see an equally high emphasis on such matters in the textbooks. However, our review suggests that this is not the case, which suggests a gap in our preparation. To address this gap, we offer a proposal for modifying a portion of the SA&D curricula

Choosing Management Information Systems as a Major: Understanding the smiFactors for MIS

Given declining management information systems (MIS) enrollments at our university, we seek to understand our students‘ selection of a major. Prior studies have found that students choose a major based on a number of factors, with subject matter interest consistently being most important. We contribute to the literature by developing a deeper understanding of what is meant by subject matter interest, which we refer to as smiFactors, for MIS as a major and career. Based on a qualitative analysis of open-ended survey questions completed by undergraduate business students, we confirm a number of smiFactors for MIS gleaned from recent studies and identify three new ones. We also relate our findings to broad categories of vocational interests. Of the newly identified smiFactors, one—linking business and technology—is unique to MIS, whereas the other two—practical application of course work and daily variety—apply to MIS as well as other majors and careers. Our findings provide a more complete foundation for helping students make an informed choice of MIS as a major. We use our findings and an extension of the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) to identify four types of intervention for increasing MIS enrollments

Opening the Classroom

We argue that information systems educators-and others in similarly dynamic professional disciplines-could benefit from an alternative infrastructure for learning. We present an open classroom model of education which expands upon Ferris\u27 (2002) collaborative partnership model of education by integrating open technologies such as Wiki and Open Source Software to create enduring knowledge products that more completely engage the students and provide value to society. We further view this concept through the lens of a social-technical system to demonstrate how such a system represents significant, third order change to traditional classroom environments. We illustrate our model with two successful cases from our personal teaching experiences