Information Systems Frontiers: Aim & Scope

Focal Attention on Multi-Disciplinary Interfaces

The recent growth in information technology has given rise to several new IS research issues. The roots of this development can be traced to the PC revolution of the early 80's, the arrival of local area networks leading to distributed computing/communication systems, wide area networks that began to link computers across the world, the arrival of the Internet, client/server information systems, several ancillary technologies and applications that grew around these basic technological iinovations, and a daunting array of commercial products and solutions addressing specific as well as generic user needs. As a result, new avenues of IS related research that are critical, exciting, and challenging have arisen. Some examples of these numerous research issues are: distributed systems configuration, interoperability among heterogeneous platforms, infrastructure planning, technology standardization, and several applications of technology that have come to the forefront of IS research. In order to understand the scope and thrust of these emerging research disciplines, we provide a broad conceptual organization of the state-of-the-art IS research in Figure 3. Figure 3 organizes the state-of-the-art IS/IT research into five layers, successively expanding in scope, thrust and interactions: basic IS core tools and techniques, current and emerging IT tools, research disciplines that interface with IS, the specialized tools and techniques of the interfacing disciplines, and the application areas for which systems and solutions are developed using a combination of the tools and techniques of IS, IT and the interfacing disciplines. Much of the cutting edge IS/IT research occurs at these interfaces leading to novel systems and technologies for various application domains. The creativity in these efforts can be seen in the ways the tools of IS, IT and base disciplines are combined in developing systems and solutions.

Typically, the philosophy and research orientation of academic journals and research practices are inextricably tied together. While researchers sometimes tend to focus their efforts along the lines of the orientations of the publication outlets, the orientations themselves evolve and grow with the developments in the field. The IS profession has witnessed significant strides in the practical world and research appears to follow these developments. This current trend is the reverse of such trends in other fields where research usually is way ahead of practice. The primary reasons for this reverse trend are the rapid advances in IS technology and the need for adequate support from journal outlets championing efforts to bridge the gap between practice and academic research. Little of the research and innovation work emanating from industry find their way to academic research outlets. Problems and solutions are common daily encounters in the real world, and some of this work is truly worthy of publication in good research journals. Both success stories and lessons learned from the real world have much to contribute to the research community, and very little of these are currently reported. ISF is specifically intended to serve the above needs within the IS/IT discipline. The objective of ISF is to build a sustained linkage between research and practice, and to sustain this linkage by focusing on the interfaces within the following domain areas: IS, IT, enabling base disciplines and ultimateapplication domains. This will be achieved by dedicating each issue of the journal to a specific interface theme and consolidating academic and industrial contributions to the interface addressed in each issue.
Overview
Orientation
Research Integration
Multi-disciplinary Interfaces
Journal operation

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