Teaching IS to the Information Society Using an "Informing Science" Perspective

Introduction In a 2003 article, Nicholas Carr argued that, as the availability of information technology (IT) continued to increase and its costs continued to decrease, IT's ability to provide competitive advantage to organizations would diminish and eventually cease to matter (Carr, 2003). Many counter-arguments notwithstanding, it is clear that certain aspects of IT in organizations will indeed change in focus due to commoditization, on the one hand, and disruptive developments such as peer-to-peer computing, cloud and social computing on the other. These developments have already dramatically changed the ways by which IT affects individuals, organizations, and societies, and vice versa. What do these developments mean to the information systems (IS) field? The IS field is no longer just about the effective use of information systems in organizations. Instead, all IS professionals require a deeper level of understanding and proficiency on how to be effective in this complex, networked, information-rich global cyber society facilitated by IT--that some have referred to as the Information Society. (We use the term "IT" interchangeably with "ICT" or Information and Communications Technologies. Today's IT cannot be separated from the communications technologies that enable even the most basic IT implementation). We examine the concept of the Information Society in greater detail in the next section, but argue that the notion of the Information Society--one which permeates all aspects of society--has, in turn, important ramifications for IS education. To be successful in today's Information Society IS graduates must not only know how to design, develop, and maintain information systems; they must also be keenly aware of the societal realities wrought and perpetuated by information technologies. They must be proficient not only with the "mechanics" of their profession, but also on all new developments and related trans-disciplinary aspects. It is critical for IS educators and students alike to recognize the "trans-disciplinary" nature of information systems. We therefore submit that IS education, regardless of geographic location, should take on more of an "informing science" approach as elucidated by Cohen (2009)--that the purpose of IS education is not to focus narrowly on managing information systems within organizations, or on specific topics such as systems analysis or data management, but instead to take a larger, sociotechnical perspective that seeks to inform managers, employees, and individuals about the Information Society in which they are all participants. There is another critical reason for taking this approach to IS education: it has been noted for several years now that the MIS academic discipline is failing in its role as informer to its external clients. This is noted by Gill and Battacherjee (2007), who comprehensively analyzed the impact of MIS academic publication outlets among practitioners. They noted that "observations strongly suggest that the MIS disciplinary informing system supports very limited pathways, at best, from its sender side (researchers) to its practitioner clients" (Gill & Bhattacherjee, 2007. p. 25). The IS graduate, i.e., the output of the MIS discipline, thus becomes an important component--the informer, as well as enabler of organizations and societies. This adds even more imperative to our central idea about making the IS curriculum more rooted in the Informing Science philosophy--i.e., teaching the Information Society. What is the Information Society? First, we need to gain a deeper understanding of what the term Information Society means. There is no single established definition for the phrase Information Society. It has often been used interchangeably with Nico Stehr's "knowledge society" (Stehr, 1999), Manuel Castells' and Jan van Dijk's "network society" (Castells, 1996; van Dijk, 1999), and Alain Touraine's "post-industrial society" (Touraine, 1988). …