Why Can't We Practice What We Teach?

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Why Can't We Practice What We Teach?

• Ralph Westfall Cal Poly, Pomona
  rdwestfall_at_csupomona.edu
• www.csupomona.edu/rdwestfall/metenemy.ppt

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Do as We Say ...

• we teach
• just in time, rapid response, time to market
• context "Internet time," machines with clock
  cycles in billionths of a second
• adaptation, flexibility, mass customization
• knowledge management
• innovation, diffusion of of new technologies
• importance of technical competence

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Not as We Do

• however, our field is characterized by
• slow research publishing cycles
• institutional disincentives to adaptation to
  needs of our constituents
• ever hear of people not getting tenure due to
  out-of-date IT technological skills?
• poor dissemination of research findings
• intellectual access stylistic problems
• physical access not much available online

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"We Have Met The Enemy ..."

• "And He Is Us"
• Pogo Possum

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Indicators of the Problem

• 1999 "flame war" on ISWorld, initiated by a call
  for papers on Redefining the Organizational Roles
  of Information Technology in the Information Age,
  to be published in two years
• spirited discussion in 2001 on similar issues

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Westfall Responses to Issues

• An IS Research Relevance Manifesto (CAIS, 1999)
• Dare to Be Relevant (CAIS, 2001)
• project HTML code generator to help IS
  researchers set up web sites to make their
  research more accessible to organizations and the
  general public
• Vote With Your Feet paper (in progress)

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IS Research Relevance Manifesto

• 1999 paper in CAIS
• ranked 34 in a recent survey of "Exemplary Works
  on Information Systems Research"
• main point of article was that, given our
  strengths and weaknesses vis a vis competitors,
  we should focus on areas where we realistically
  can make a viable contribution

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Relevance Manifesto - 2

• IS faculty competitive advantage areas
• issues contrary to commercial interests
• unsolved problems
• issues economically unattractive to commercial
  researchers
• issues where management aspects are more
  important than technical aspects
• research on teaching IS

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Dare to Be Relevant

• 2001 paper in CAIS
• sellers market for IS academics provides
  opportunities to influence institutional systems
  toward greater recognition of relevant research
• the Internet makes it much easier to disseminate
  IS research to external audiences, so that our
  stature is not just based on recognition in
  academia

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IS Research Web Site Generator

• commented exemplar
• FAQs
• current model (under development)

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Vote With Your Feet for IS Publishing Reform

• paper under development
• PowerPoint summary presentation