[AISWorld] Information Systems Journal (ISJ) – Special Issue “New Trends in Information Systems Development”

Wed Sep 8 04:14:18 EDT 2010

Information Systems Journal (ISJ) – Special Issue “New Trends in Information Systems Development”

Special Issue Guest Editors

Dr Karlheinz Kautz, Copenhagen Business School, Denmark
Dr Linda Dawson, University of Wollongong, Australia
Dr Peter Axel Nielsen, Aalborg University, Denmark
Dr Nancy L Russo, Northern Illinois University, USA

Aims and Background

Information systems development (ISD) is arguably at the core of the information systems discipline. Despite persistent problems and practices, Information Systems Development (ISD) is an evolving field, which has to deal with rapidly changing social and business environments and continuously emerging new base technologies and technical infrastructures. Developments such the Web 2.0 based on interactivity and graphical multimedia features, mobile application development for handheld devices, business applications based on standardized software architectures and ‘software’ as services offered as part of a ‘cloud’ pose new challenges to the development of IS products. Global, distributed organizations, agile software development, and the reversal of outsourcing, off-shored development (in-sourcing) are new movements concerning the development process proper. These trends lead to new or adapted IS products, which have to be developed under new conditions, and these changes add complexity to an already complex problem space wherein, despite 50 years of ISD experience, the perception of the so-called “software crisis” still persists. Unfinished and run-away projects, systems poorly aligned with businesses and user requirements and the problem of the costs required to develop ISD are still major concerns.

Research in the field is largely fragmented and practice often seems to be ahead of research. Conversely, where research is indeed ahead, industrial uptake of academic research results is often limited. As a consequence, there is an urgent need for a sustainable understanding and integrative theory based on extensive, empirical field research.  The proposed special issue aims at publishing new research, which investigates the new trends in ISD from both a product and a process perspective and which goes beyond surface level considerations. This research might address field investigations of the new contexts of ISD or “proof of concept” tests of new development approaches.

There is a general paucity of ISD research; theory and studies of longitudinal processes of organization, specialization and institutionalization in ISD are needed. Little ISD research goes beyond ISD methods; there is a need for theory and studies about social behaviour and processes of communication, negotiation, and learning and their relation to the broader historical, political and social context of ISD. Finally, there is a paucity of ISD research that relates individual knowledge, learning and sense-making to the broader context; this kind of theory and studies is also needed. We therefore encourage research addressing questions such as: What are the different types of ISD relating to social, commercial, organizational and technological contexts? How is this diversity dealt with? What are the different kinds of knowledge and skills needed in different types of ISD contexts? What new organizational structures have evolved to address the new ISD? What are the individual mechanisms for dealing with the diversity of environments and applications?  How does learning and sense-making take place in the new social, commercial, organizational and technological contexts?  For this special issue we call for rigorous research examining the effectiveness of approaches to ISD, including associated managerial aspects, using sound theoretical frameworks and appropriate research methods.

For the purposes of the special issue, we see the practice of ISD as including activities such as analysis,  including problem formulation and requirements elicitation, design, programming and maintenance. We also include the organizing and management of IS development projects and the creation and use of ISD methods and tools for the development, deployment and organizational and/or societal implementation and utilisation of information technology. This expansive view of ISD covers a multitude of approaches. In addition it accepts notions such as amethodical information systems development, open source software development, extreme programming, service-oriented architecture, component-based development, offshoring, commercial off-the-shelf software, cloud computing (including "private" or enterprise cloud development) and Web services, mobile application development and development for Web 2.0 as ISD practices influencing the wider discourse.

Submission Guidelines
Manuscripts should not normally exceed 7000 words and should be submitted online at http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/isj. Authors will have to select Special Issue Submission as the manuscript type. Author guidelines are available at ‘author guidelines’ at http://www.blackwellpublishing.com/journals/isj/. All submissions will be peer-reviewed following the double-blind review process of ISJ.

Timetable

Full initial paper submission deadline:                                 15 February 2011
First Notification of acceptance to authors:                          30 April 2011
Revised paper submission deadline: (if required)                   30 June 2011
Final Notification of acceptance to authors:                          31 August 2011
Camera-ready paper submission deadline:                           31 October 2011
Publication of special issue:                                                 early 2012

Guest Editors

Dr Karlheinz Kautz
Department Informatics
Copenhagen Business School
Denmark
Karl.Kautz at cbs.dk<mailto:Kautz at cbs.dk>
uk.cbs.dk/staff/kautz<http://uk.cbs.dk/research/departments_centres/institutter/node_8155/menu/staff/menu/academic_staff/videnskabelige_medarbejdere/professors/kautz>

Dr Linda Dawson
School of Information Systems and Technology
University of Wollongong
Australia
lindad at uow.edu.au<mailto:lindad at uow.edu.au>
www.uow.edu.au/~lindad/<http://www.uow.edu.au/~lindad/%20>

Dr Peter Axel Nielsen
Department of Computer Science
Aalborg University
Denmark
pan at cs.aau.dk<mailto:pan at cs.aau.dk>
www.cs.aau.dk/~pan/<http://www.cs.aau.dk/~pan/>

Dr Nancy L Russo
Department of Operations Management & Information Systems
Northern Illinois University
USA
nrusso at niu.edu<mailto:nrusso at niu.edu>
www.cob.niu.edu/faculty/m10nlr1/<http://www.cob.niu.edu/faculty/m10nlr1/>

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