This year I started developing some course material for a course on information systems. It has helped me that I lecture on several courses on this area (for many people this is not an area, it is a discipline, for others it is a field). I began searching for appropriate textbooks. My findings so far is that there are very good best seller books in information systems, with authors producing a new version almost every year including new topics, exercises, case studies and of course, online aid tools.
However, I have not found yet what I think reflects where we are now. Where we are in my view is that we have a landscape full of information systems applications, certifications, and research in both profit and non profit sectors. We are full of models and approaches that tell us about information systems maturity in stages, information systems adoption in stages, acceptance and satisfaction of information systems through different factors and elements (and their linkages). This is the ground level of the landscape.
The hills and mountains of the landscape are the ones being described by many of these best seller books. They talk about the pervasiveness of information systems in daily life, their key presence in organisations, their help to competitiveness. These books show lots of cases of successful organisations adopting and using e-commerce systems, ERP systems, CRM systems, decision support systems. They talk about database management, project management and security management. They prescribe ways of using all these systems and technologies. Of course there are many ways and approaches to do so. But the basic premise that information systems are here to stay remains, together with the assumption that they become assets in an organisation, which, like costly football players, need to be maintained, developed and protected, because at some point in time, they will deliver what they promise; and it is only a few organisations which will play by the book. Whether our students will then climb to these hills (and many will also fall down after discovering that there is more to see), or if they will remain in the grounds of the IS world, I think we are not appreciating the richness of the IS landscape.
So it seems, we have forgotten the basics of information, knowledge, and systems, oer if you include them in text books they seem to come first and never to be repeated (well you should know by now these things). You do not talk about these things when you are selecting a costly ERP or CRM system, or when you are developing web-based software which will also be accessed via mobile phones. You now need to learn the language of usability, cloud computing, social networking, e-government, e-commerce, e-marketing. You need to talk about end users, tiers of architectures, hosts and providers. The user will then see how this language can be adapted to their own realities in organisations. We know you will do that in practice.
Pity really. We need to constantly remind ourselves that only a tiny proportion of the world population has access to information technologies, and that even so, the basics should be learned so that we can use technologies better. Courses should be designed to take anyone who has an interest in information systems and technologies. They should also learn the definitions of what they are going to be dealing with. They should also be provided with a learning environment to try different things, engage in projects, and learn from what they do.
Tutors can also have the opportunity to provide context for information systems. Ideas of sociology or critical theory can help us here. Systems seem to have emerged out of the need of human communication. In organisations this communication has a dominant purpose and orientation (profit). But people need other things, we also communicate to develop ourselves and help others develop. We should also learn how to implement systems with the idea of communication in mind.
The message goes also for researchers. We seem to have adopted different models and approaches to map the context of information systems and guide action to ensure smoother or more humanly oriented systems implementation and use. We keep identifying factors, issues and criteria to know what is best to do when things do not go according to plan. We test lots of hypotheses. So what? What is happening afterwards? Are we informing managers of what to do? Are we then incorporating these findings in our textbooks or courses? Can we then venture into telling our students what is official (according to the text books) and what is really the case in organisations? Are we trying to develop them as critical and ethical individuals?
So here is the suggestion for an information systems course and textbook. It starts with basics on data, knowledge, information. It then provides a sociological context for the emergence of information systems and technologies. It then describes how is that managers think, and how this thinking is influenced by systems. Then we present official and unofficial ways of establishing IS functions and doing things like IS strategy, IS development and IS evaluation. We then move into particular applications in the supply and demand side of organisations. We continously encourage students to investigate how these ideas really happen, and how for instance a methodology like PRINCE2 is adopted in organisations. We promote group work and use simulations, the beer game, some practice with spreadsheets and databases. We assess students on their competences to develop a solution to a problem, but also on their personal take on what is the usefulness of models and approaches. We ask them to continously keep an eye on the profit and non-profit orientation given to information systems.
And we keep telliing them that they are very fortunate to be able to study and use systems and technologies. We remind them that the world out there is not what is like in the text books. We need to nurture grounded individuals.
Off to write my course material then!
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