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Ralph Westfall's Information Systems Education Research

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The following items relate to information systems education and information technology literacy.

Turban, E., McLean, E., Wetherbe, J, with contributions by Westfall, R. and Rainer, K. (1999) Ch. 13, "Information Technology Economics," Information Technology for Management: Making Connections for Strategic Advantage, 2nd ed., New York: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Chapter in a popular information technology textbook, which was one of the first IS textbooks to devote a whole chapter to the issue of IT economics.

Turban, E., McLean, E., Wetherbe, J, with contributions by Westfall, R. and Rainer, K. (1999) Ch. 14, "Systems Development," Information Technology for Management: Making Connections for Strategic Advantage, 2nd ed., New York: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Another chapter in the same information systems textbook.

Westfall, R. D. (1997) "$200,001--A Space Database Odyssey," in Teaching Cases in IS, Full Length Cases, IT Implementation, R. Taylor (ed.)
A case study of an implementation of a new strategic information system in a property management department of a major financial institution. Also includes an entity-relationship problem that appears deceptively simple, but is actually quite difficult. (The E-R problem was used in an information systems competition at Texas A & M in 2000.)

Westfall, R. D. (1998) "Evaluation and Assimilation Skills As Key Knowledge Aspects Of Information Technology Literacy," in Working Papers of the Workshop on What Everyone Should Know about Information Technology, National Research Council, Computer Science and Telecommunications Board.
This paper initially demonstrates the major differences between information technology and other academic fields. Based on these differences, it identifies technology evaluation and assimilation skills as key components of IT literacy. (The author was one of approximately 30 academics from the United States and other countries who were invited to participate in this workshop.)

Westfall, R. D. (2001) " 'Hello, World' Considered Harmful," Communications of the ACM (44)10, pp. 129-130.
The paper argues that the "Hello, World" program typically used in introductory programming classes is inappropriate for classes in object-oriented languages.

Westfall, R. D. (2000) "Meta-Skills in Information Systems Education," Journal of Computer Information Systems (40)2, pp. 69-73.
This paper provides an updated and expanded version of the "learning needs model" paper cited below. It emphasizes four "meta-skills" that students will need to keep themselves up to date after they complete their formal academic studies. These skills are: technology scanning, evaluation, assimilation, and debugging.

Westfall, R. D. (2000) "Reuse of Web-Based Teaching Materials in IS Courses," Long Beach, CA: AIS Americas Conference, pp. 1855-1857.
This paper explores the parallels between reuse of software and reuse of educational materials. It identifies benefits and disadvantages of educational material reuse in a CIS teaching environment.

Westfall, R. D. (2001) "The DASH-AREA.COM Case: Creating a National Internet Portal as a Class Project," Boston, MA: AIS Americas Conference, pp. 193-198. (8/5/01 PowerPoint presentation.)
A case study on using a constructivist approach in information systems project classes. The students developed various aspects of an Internet portal web site designed to compete with national portal sites. To increase motivation and enhance learning, the project incorporated several prominent aspects of a real business.

Westfall, R. D. (1997) "Using the Learning Needs Model for Introductory Information Systems Classes," San Diego, CA: Decision Sciences Institute (annual meeting).
A study on designing and implementing assignments to develop students' technology evaluation and assimilation skills. Based on the author's experiences in teaching introductory information systems classes.

Other SISPA Members' Information Systems Education Research

Eli Boyd Cohen

Numerous publications on information systems education, has also served on editorial boards of journals and held leadership positions in conferences oriented toward this topic. Also developed the Teach IS web site (see link below).

Other Information Systems Education Links

IS 2002

A model curriculum for undergraduate information systems education, sponsored by the Association for Computing Machinery, The Association for Information Systems, and the Association for Information Technology Professionals. (A more recent version, IT 2005, is in working draft stage.)

AISWorld Net Home Page - Teaching

This page provides a single entry point for material related to teaching and pedagogy, learning support systems and curriculum in the field of information systems.

Informing Science Institute

This site, developed by Eli Cohen, provides on-line resources for advancing the interests of IS education.

Disclaimer. Although Ralph Westfall is a member of the Some Information Systems Professional Association, the information systems education research materials on this page reflect his personal perspectives and are not intended to represent any policies or positions of that organization.

Email: rdwestfall@csupomona.edu     Ralph Westfall'S web page

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