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Subject: TOC: MIS Quarterly 25 (4) December 2001 Date: Sat, 12 Jan 2002 07:55:59 +1000 From: Ron Weber weber@COMMERCE.UQ.EDU.AU To: ISWORLD@LISTSERV.HEANET.IE
MIS Quarterly, Volume 25, Number 4, December 2001
EDITOR'S COMMENTS: Research in Information Systems: What We Haven't Learned, Allen S. Lee
EXECUTIVE OVERVIEWS
RESEARCH ARTICLE 1
Web-Based Virtual Learning Environments: A Research Framework and a Preliminary Assessment of Effectiveness in Basic IT Skills Training, Gabriele Piccoli, Rami Ahmad, and Blake Ives
Internet technologies are having a significant impact on the learning industry. For-profit organizations and traditional institutions of higher education have developed and are using web-based courses, but little is known about their effective-ness compared to traditional classroom education. Our work focuses on the effectiveness of a web-based virtual learning environment (VLE) in the context of basic information technology skills training.
This article provides three main contributions. First, it introduces and defines the concept of VLE, discussing how a VLE differs from the traditional classroom and differentiating it from the related, but narrower, concept of computer aided instruction (CAI). Second, it presents a framework of VLE effectiveness, grounded in the technology-mediated learning literature, which frames the VLE research domain, and addresses the relationship between the main constructs. Finally, it focuses on one essential VLE design variable, learner control, and compares a web-based VLE to a traditional classroom through a longitudinal experimental design.
Our results indicate that, in the context of IT basic skills training in undergraduate education, there are no significant differences in performance between students enrolled in the two environments. However, the VLE leads to higher re-ported computer self-efficacy, while participants report being less satisfied with the learning process.
RESEARCH ARTICLE 2
The Role of Aggregation in the Measurement of IT-Related Organizational Innovation, Robert G. Fichman
The extent of organizational innovation with information technology, an important construct in the IT innovation literature, has been measured in many different ways. Some measures have a narrow focus while others aggregate innovative behaviors across a set of innovations or stages in the assimilation life-cycle. There appear to be some significant tradeoffs involving aggregation: more aggregated measures can be more robust and generalizable and can promote stronger predictive validity, while less aggregated measures allow more context-specific investigations and can preserve clearer theoretical interpretations. This article begins with a conceptual analysis that identifies the circumstances when these tradeoffs are most likely to favor aggregated measures. It is found that aggregation should be favorable when: (1) the researcher's interest is in general innovation or a model that generalizes to a class of innovations, (2) antecedents have effects in the same direction in all assimilation stages, (3) characteristics of organizations can be treated as constant across the innovations in the study, (4) characteristics of innovations can not be treated as constant across organizations in the study, (5) the set of innovations being aggregated includes substitutes or moderate complements, and (6) sources of noise in the measurement of innovation may be present. The article then presents an empirical study using data on the adoption of software process technologies by 608 U.S. based corporations. This study?which had circumstances quite favorable to aggregation? found that aggregating across three innovations within a technology class more than doubled the variance explained compared to single innovation models. Aggregating across assimilation stages also had a slight positive effect on predictive validity. Taken together, these results provide initial confirmation of the conclusions from the conceptual analysis regarding the circumstances favoring aggregation.
RESEARCH NOTE 1
Revolution or Evolution: A Comparison of Object-Oriented and Structured Systems Development Methods, Sumit Sircar, Sridhar P. Nerur, and Radhakanta Mahapatra
This paper examines the changes engendered when moving from a structured to an object-oriented systems development approach and reconciles the differing views concerning whether this represents an evolutionary or revolutionary change. Author co-citation analysis is used to elucidate the ideational and conceptual relationships between the two approaches. The difference in conceptual distance at the analysis and design level compared to that at the programming level is explained using Henderson's framework for organizational change. The conceptual shift during analysis and design is considered architectural, whereas for programming it is deemed merely incremental. The managerial implications of these findings are discussed and suggestions for improving the likelihood of success in the adoption of object-oriented systems development methods are provided.
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Gustaf Neumann