Editorial: Critical Applications of Information Systems

NEW OWNERSHIP AND EDITORIAL CHANGES We are delighted to announce that starting with this first issue of volume 10, JITTA is an official publication of the Association for Information Systems (AIS). Since its inaugural issue in 1999, JITTA has been a unique journal for the Information Systems community in that it encourages submissions using all methodologies and research approaches that exist in our discipline; among others, we encourage the submission of positivist research, interpretive or exploratory studies, design science papers, research agenda articles, speculative research, research essays, normative papers, and case studies. During the last decade, JITTA has become the outlet of choice for many important contributions to our field. Being part of the select group of AIS journals will ensure that JITTA is going to continue its success story. The journal is listed in Cabell's Directory and accessible through ABI/Inform. As an AIS Journal, all new issues will be published on the AIS Electronic Library and the back issues will soon be available on the AIS Electronic Library. Further, the journal has switched to a new review system that is closely integrated with the AIS Electronic library as well. Access to the journal's issues and the submission and review system is on one integrated web site hosted by the AIS at http://jitta.aisnet. org. With the beginning of Volume 10, there also have been changes to the editorial board of the journal. The Editors-in-Chief Ken Peffers and Rajiv Kishore have completed their terms and have passed on the leadership of the journal to Marcus Rothenberger (University of Nevada Las Vegas), Mark Srite (University of Wisconsin - Milwaukee), and Tuure Tuunanen (The University of Auckland). Ken Peffers is the founding Editor-in-Chief of JITTA and has led the journal since its inception; Rajiv Kishore has joined JITTA as a Co-Editor-in-Chief in 2005. As the new Editors-in-Chief, we would like to thank Ken and Rajiv for their dedicated work and for making JITTA the well regarded journal that it is today. We are happy that Ken and Rajiv will continue serving the journal with their advice and experience as Emeritus Editors-in-Chief. With the transition of JITTA to the Association for Information Systems (AIS) and the AIS Electronic Library, the journal has changed the publication layout to be consistent with the other AIS journals. The new layout is in a single column format, which is particularly appropriate for an online journal, as it improves the on-screen readability of the articles. Other JITTA-specific features, such as the contribution section, as well as the citation and reference styles will be continued in the new layout. This is the first issue that appears in the new format. THE CURRENT ISSUE This issue includes three papers that discuss and investigate critical applications of information systems. The research of the first two papers in this issue was motivated by recent incidents that illustrated the need for an effective emergency response, such as Hurricane Katrina, the Virginia Tech shooting, and the SARS outbreak in Asia. Both papers contribute to different aspects of the design of emergency response systems. Yang, Prasanna, and King (2009) discuss design requirements for emergency first responders. They investigate how an array of specific technologies may aid in the retrieval of and access to on-site information in case of emergencies. The paper focuses on requirements specifications for fire emergency responses. A prototype system for emergency first responders is used to discuss and illustrate the requirements presented in the paper. The study provides detailed design insights into an emergency response system that utilizes RFID and wireless sensor networks for information retrieval and wireless communication technologies for on-site information sharing. Thomas, Andoh-Baidoo, Redmond, and Yoon (2009) investigate how to facilitate Emergency Response Notifications with VoiceXML. …