Faculty of information technology  will open a new doctoral course ”Information Systems Research 3 ECTS”.  The course will be given as an independent study course and the course materials will be available in the Moodle course site. The course will run throughout the academic year and the assessment is based on online take home exam. The take home exam submission has no specific deadline.

Course Description & Goals

The course focuses on information systems (IS) research and the nature of the discipline. Students will start by looking at the nature of the field. This is then followed by a critical examination and evaluation of contemporary IS research on a variety of topics, including ontology and epistemology. The idea is to give you a broad understanding of how design and conduct your own PhD research in the IS field.

This course is designed to introduce doctoral students to IS research in general, but specifically to ontological and epistemological issues related to research design. In addition, students need to understand the nature of IS as a discipline and current research issues and themes.

Registration

Open until April 15.

After registration please fill the following form and send it by email to office@inforte.jyu.fi: https://www.jyu.fi/it/fi/hae-opiskelemaan/avoin-opiskelu-it-tiedekunnassa/registration_form_2020-2021.pdf/. 

Learning Outcomes

1) The student will have a good knowledge and understanding of how research within the field of information systems is conducted

2) The student will gain competence in critiquing IS research articles published in some of the leading academic journals and conference proceedings

3) The student will have a good knowledge and understanding of ontological and epistemological issues related to information systems research and can apply these to their own PhD research proposal

4) The student will gain competence in critical thinking, and analysis and synthesis of academic sources

Lectures

No lectures will be given. The course is offered as an independent study and materials are available in the Moodle site.

Assessment

The purpose of the take home exam is to familiarize the doctoral students to a wider range ofknowledge in the area of information systems research, which has been covered in class. The extended reading list is provided in the appendix of this course outline. The exam will be ‘take home’ exam and it will assess how well the students have understood the given material and how they can apply the theories and concepts for a given research problem or objective. The take home exam is available in Moodle course site and it can be submitted throughout the academic year. There is no specific deadline for submission.

Course Advice and Prerequisite

It is advisable for students to have completed several research methods courses (cf. INFORTE’s course offerings etc.) and/or in the process of completing a course in philosophy of science before enrolling to this course. Information Systems Research course is a substantive overview of research in information systems, not a research methods course. Students should also be enrolled (or have already completed) to Postgraduate Seminar during the academic year when taking the course (at their home university).