Panels

Academic Rigor, Applications-Oriented Research and Design Innovation: Where are the boundaries?

(Friday, June 4, 2010)

Design research is a problem solving research methodology whose goal is to come up with a solution to the problem by introducing a novel IT artefact such as algorithms, methods, or an instantiated software system. The academic rigor calls for explaining theories of why a design worked or those principles that can be identified so that the solution can be applied across a class of problems. But simultaneously there are those who are developing solutions to cutting-edge application areas such as healthcare and medicine, global climate, nanotechnology or human-computer interaction design. Added to this mix is design innovation. Most innovations today are coming from industry labs. Innovation requires an environment of free flowing ideas, nurturing those ideas with funding and trying novel experiments. Innovative researchers tend to go where no one has gone before. Such endeavors do not consider theory and can be heavily applications driven. In this panel we shall discuss the issues, challenges and opportunities in this space and present both academic as well as industry perspectives.

In particular this panel will delve into the following questions:

• How much theory should be considered both in the design and building of novel IT artifacts?
• Is application driven research a fruitful path to take?
• What makes innovation tick and how can academic-oriented research be innovative?
• What is the best collaboration model between academia and industry when it comes to innovation and design?
• For graduate students, is working in industry (labs) an important pre-requirement to graduate school? If so why?

Udo Bub, Deutsche Telekom AG Laboratories, Germany
Samir Chatterjee, Claremont Graduate University, USA
Oliver Christ, SAP (Switzerland), Switzerland
Sandeep Purao, Penn State University, USA

Design for Use

(Friday, June 4, 2010)

Many computer science and IS research projects begin with the creation of an IT artifact, and end with a proof of concept experiment demonstrating the feasibility and utility of a prototype. The history of IS/IT research, however,  is replete with tools that work well in experiments, but fail to gain real use in the field. 

This panel will explore the following questions:

• How should researchers design for later use?
• Is there academic value in developing systems beyond proof-of-concept?
• Why don’t more academic IS/IT concepts transition to the workplace?
• Can lessons learned in systems development translate publications?

Gerhard Schwabe. University of Zurich, Switzerland
Henk Sol, University of Groningen, The Netherlands
Robert O. Briggs, University of Nebraska, USA
Jay Nunamaker, University of Arizona, USA

Publishing Design Science Research

(Saturday, June 5, 2010)

In recent years, there has been a significant increase in the number of manuscripts positioned as design science research, submitted to major academic journals in the information technology and management information systems areas. This has raised concerns about whether such research requires a different evaluation model than traditional IT and MIS research. The purpose of this panel is to examine these concerns, and to provide some insights into effective positioning and structuring of design science papers for successful publication in leading journals.

Specific questions that will be addressed include:

• Does it help to explicitly position a manuscript as a “design science paper”?
• What are the key differentiators between design science papers and traditional IT/MIS papers that require a different approach to their review and evaluation?
• How should design science researchers organize and present their work to improve their chances of getting published in journals such as Management Science, Information Systems Research, INFORMS Journal of Computing, IEEE Transactions on Knowledge and Data Engineering, ACM Transactions on the Web, etc.?

Amit Basu, Southern Methodist University, USA
Martin Bichler, Technical University of Munich, Germany
Alan Hevner, University of South Florida, USA
Alexander Tuzhilin, New York University, USA

Organisation of Design Science Research

(Saturday, June 5, 2010)

Since the publication of Hevner et al.‘s well know MISQ paper on Design Science the approach has continued to gain acceptance in the field. However many research institutes and centers have been developing unique and value-added approaches to organizing and carrying out Design Science Research Programs since well before this article shed new light on the subject. Beyond the creation of IT artifacts and prototype tools for laboratory experiments these mature organizational approaches have resulted in the development of information systems that are deployed and adopted in the field. Moreover, these approaches have also led to a large number of high quality publications in the IS literature that have implication for research, theory and practice.

This panel will explore the following questions:

• How has Design Science been successfully organized in IS research centers?
• How do they translate systems and concepts into academic value beyond proof-of-concept, to proof of value and proof of use?
• What aspects of these methods can help academic IS/IT concepts to be    successfully transferred to the workplace?
• Do the approaches have commonalities or are they broadly differentiated?
• What lessons learned from these Design Science organization approaches can help other IS researchers organize, execute and publish their work?

Herwig Mannaert, University of Antwerpen, Belgium
Hubert Österle, University of St.Gallen, Switzerland
Nicholas Romano, SDA Bocconi, Italia & Oklahoma State University, USA
Jan vom Brocke, University of Liechtenstein, Liechtenstein

Workshops

CIAO! Workshop

(Friday, June 4, 2010, whole day)

CIAO! is an initiative whose mission is to stimulate the development of the emerging discipline of enterprise engineering. By an enterprise is understood any kind of enterprise, like commercial, not‐for‐profit, governmental, etc., as well as any kind of alliance between enterprises: enterprise networks, supply chains, etc. The name CIAO! is an acronym for Cooperation, Interoperability, Architecture, and Ontology. The CIAO! Workshop will provide the opportunity for fruitful discussions on various aspects of the topic enterprise engineering.

Antonia Albani, Technical University of Delft, The Netherlands
Jan Dietz, Technical University of Delft, The Netherlands

Enterprise Architecture Management Workshop

(Friday, June 4, 2010)

As companies add new business lines or expand their international presence, rigid, inflexible architectures and the absence of common standards cause complexity, weighing down IT environments that are already under strain from the accelerating pace of business change. McKinsey´s Enterprise Architecture Management (EAM) attempts to reign in such complexity by bringing cohesion
between business requirements and IT capabilities. With a focus on core business requirements, we will present our frameworks to design several information systems (IS). We want to discuss our findings of different cases, esp. how to apply our engineering‐like approaches in practice.

Helge Buckow, McKinsey & Company, Inc.
Jörg H. Mayer, University of St.Gallen
Matthias Roggendorf, McKinsey & Company, Inc.

Business Transformation

(Friday, June 4, 2010)

Business transformation projects create specific challenges for large companies. Design science research can contribute by providing transformation methods, (reference) to-be models, and grounded insights from analysing transformations, just to name few examples. This workshop is intended to exchange ideas between the design science research community and SAP's business transformation academy (BTA). BTA will not only present its current understanding of transformation management concepts and artifacts, but also report on research gaps that arise from its consulting experience with large (SAP user) companies around the world. BTA is currently developing a global thought leadership network on business transformation. BTA is highly interested in learning about transformation project experience, useful artifacts and insights on transformation from the design science community. A potential result of this workshop can be first ideas for studies, novel artifact designs, or other academia-industry collaboration projects in the field of business transformation.

Axel Uhl, Head of Business Transformation Academy, SAP AG