Motivation for Writing the Paper What an Information System Is, and Why Is It Important to Know This : Why I Give Lectures and Seminars

This paper discusses the author’s motivations for writing the paper “What an Information System is, and Why it is Important to Know This”, and how this relates to the approach taken in general in his lectures and seminars too. An explanation is given as to the motivation for this particular content of the quoted paper, and this paper then closes with a plea for simple explanations.</p

What an Information System Is, and Why Is It Important to Know This

There are many different views on what the term Information Systems means. This paper provides a simple explanation of what an Information System is in practice to assist in clarifying the confusion. If this simple explanation were widely understood, then current difficulties with Information Systems development, practical problems with ongoing Information Systems, the applicability of much Information System’s research, and a general lack of awareness of the potential for the academic study of Information Systems, could all be improved upon. The description of what a practical Information System turns out to be is given, and the reasons why its major features exist and are important are discussed. Implications arising from the acceptance of this definition are offered.</p

Research Quality Matters

This paper discusses issues that arise when considering what is meant by the expression ‘research quality’ in universities. Popular measures of research quality are often based on determining the quality of a published journal paper, or of using these to publish journal league tables based on the assumption that the journal quality represents the quality of the papers published by the journal. This paper argues that measuring the quality of a research publication cannot be done. Therefore a journal league table also has no meaning. The issue of the use of the surrogate of Journal League Tables is used to exemplify some of the issues that need to be addressed by the community to avoid the inequality quality trap. A number of suggestions are made to establish a sounder basis for dealing with real quality properly. This is not an information systems crisis paper or similar nonsense, but one possible positive way forward