Vol 18, No. 3, September, 1994
Department
of Management
University of Georgia
Athens, GA 30602-6256
rwatson@uga.cc.uga.edu
Note: the copyright for this document is owned by the
MISQuarterly.
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without permission.
Abstract
We have an opportunity to transform the basic infrastructure of the MIS community. By changing the way we store, process, and distribute information, we can create a broader, more collaborative, and more productive community of MIS scholars, students, and practitioners.
This paper first briefly traces the history of scholarly communities and examines their development of an infrastructure for knowledge creation and distribution. After the shortcomings of our present infrastructure are addressed, some of the possibilities and the consequences of creating an MIS electronic community are discussed. In particular, the redesign opportunities made possible by the Internet [Kehoe, 1993] are investigated.
A community of scholars is essential for the cumulative process of research and learning. The intellectual debate and dialogue that occur in scholarly settings provoke insights, challenge to conventional thinking, and stimulate discovery - key ingredients for the advancement of knowledge. Communities of scholars emerged as vital institutions in the ancient civilizations of China, Greece, and Rome. After the Dark Ages, they re-surfaced, in the form of universities[1], in medieval Europe in the 11th and 12th centuries.
At the time, printing was still unknown in Europe. The Chinese had invented printing at the beginning of the 8th century AD, but printing did not appear in the West until Gutenberg's invention of the printing press in the middle of the 15th century. Prior to Gutenberg's innovation, information distribution, reliant on hand copying of manuscripts, was costly and constrained. Information could not be readily disseminated, leaving lectures as the main form of knowledge transfer. Scholars settled at locations where information had accumulated in the scholarly minds, libraries, and universities of the period. Communities of scholars were information rich, discontinuities in an otherwise extremely information poor, feudal society.
Information distribution became less costly with the development of printing. Paper became the medium of choice for the storage and distribution of knowledge. Gutenberg's press provided the first low-cost distribution medium. However, books are essentially a broadcasting system. One person sends a message to many, but few, if any, readers reply. Letter writing, which flourished with the introduction of a low-cost, universal postal system in the 19th century, is a two-way communication system, with reader and writer often exchanging roles in a continuing conversation. Together, the printing press and a postal system gave scholars an efficient means of sharing their thoughts and discoveries.
Scientific societies, now an important feature of a community of scholars, first appeared in the 16th and 17th centuries in Naples, Rome, London, and Paris. For example, the Royal Society was chartered in London by Charles II in 1662. Scientific societies facilitated academic communications through their journals, such as the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, beginning in 1665, and the Memoires of the Paris Academy, beginning in 1699.
Until recently, communities of scholars have been sustained by an infrastructure deeply rooted in printed matter (books, journals, newsletters, bibliographies), the postal system (correspondence, distribution of articles for comment and review), and physical knowledge stores (libraries). This system has several important shortcomings. First, humans are slow searchers of printed matter. Although we have developed some devices (e.g., abstracting services, printed indexes, bibliographies, and electronic indexes) to accelerate the finding of information stored in printed material, searching can be time consuming. Electronic indexes of printed materials have certainly accelerated information searching, but the success of an electronic search is dependent on finding a keyword match in an item's title, its associated list of keywords, or correctly identifying its classification codes. Electronic searching of the full text is desirable in many situations. Second, the postal system is a particularly slow way of transporting ideas and knowledge. Its dilatory nature is amplified in a global society where scholars have an increasing need to interact frequently with peers outside national or regional boundaries. Third, knowledge is partially replicated in many physical locations, both public and personal libraries. We spend considerable public and private money to maintain these libraries. But does every research library need to have a physical copy of MIS Quarterly? It is technically feasible to have a single electronic copy accessible to all libraries and all readers.
The shortcomings of this system have profound implications. Developments such as the printing press and universal postal system have extended the boundary of scholarly communities, which moved from cities to regions (e.g., Europe and North America). However, scholars living outside major regional communities have far less opportunity to participate, for personal development, or to contribute to the advancement of the discipline. Furthermore, the slowness of the international postal system and the high cost of air transport limit participation across regions. Researchers, particularly those who work at institutions without substantial libraries, may spend considerable time traveling to gain access to the information they seek. Also, they may find their work and opportunities severely constrained because of limited access to accumulated knowledge.
Our goal should be to create a broader community of scholars, students, and practitioners. A community that gives all members, irrespective of location and position, an equal opportunity to participate in creating and sharing information. We need a healthy, stimulating academy that embraces fresh ideas, different perspectives, and divergent experiences. We must plan consciously how to use information technology to overcome the shortcomings of the present system so as to permit greater participation by those who have previously been on the extremity.
The Internet tears at the tyrannies of time, distance, and the printed page. We can now effectively cooperate over the Internet using bulletin boards, electronic newsletters, and electronic exchange of messages, papers, and files. However, we have only begun to exploit the Internet's potential to move us from a series of loosely connected regional communities of academics and practitioners into a fully interacting and participating society. We can create a highly dynamic web of interactions that have no boundaries. We can use the Internet to weave scholars and practitioners into an MIS electronic community.
Building and sustaining a global MIS community requires that we redesign an intellectual infrastructure that has remained so firmly wedded to the knowledge dissemination technology of past centuries. To do so we must challenge the preeminence of paper as the transport and storage medium of knowledge.
There are many opportunities to take advantage of information technology to redesign knowledge creation and dissemination.[2] Consider how we can use the Internet and associated technologies to redesign some of the fundamental processes of our community.
Electronic communication enables researchers to extend their reach. For example, researchers in Georgia, U.S.A., and Singapore have been involved in collaborative research on cultural differences since 1988. They regularly transport papers and files across the Internet. Data might be collected in Singapore and the analysis completed in the U.S. Because of the 12-hour time difference, they can work round the clock on a paper.
Electronic bulletin boards support collaborative research. For example, RMNET (research methods network) is available to members of the research methods division of the Academy of Management. As the name implies, the board focuses on questions about research methods (e.g., How do I handle this statistics problem?). A question posted to the board may receive a response from a scholar half-way round the world.
The opportunity to use the Internet to collaborate with scholars outside regional boundaries lets us test the generalizability of our theories across cultures. Cultural diversity can even be a "magnifying glass" for scientific study. For instance, we can study variables, such as power distance and uncertainty avoidance, in societies where these cultural differences are more pronounced and therefore possibly more observable. Also, using the Internet, a group of scholars can simultaneously study the same phenomenon in several countries. A virtual research team can rapidly exchange findings and insights and collectively advance knowledge on a global frontier. We can move from serial replication of a study to parallel research. For example, the popular key issues study first conducted by Dickson, et al. [1984] has been replicated in many countries and regions. Unfortunately, comparison of these studies is problematic because of differences in research instruments and timing. A truly global key issues study would be conducted in many countries at the same time using the same questionnaires. The Internet is ideal for coordinating such a study .
Colleague commentary is often an important phase in the conversion of a scholar's research into a journal article. Because of postal delays, authors usually rely on local colleagues for critical evaluation of their work. However, the Internet supports the ready transfer of files, allowing scholarship to instantly cross national boundaries.[3] Unfortunately, the Quarterly's own initial experiments with electronic reviewing demonstrates that too many of us are still uncomfortable or unfamiliar with these new electronic tools. This problem is exacerbated by the lack of user-friendly, seamless interfaces between tools.
Until better tools appear, there are opportunities for us to take advantage of existing information technology. The Internet could be used to distribute a course on how to transfer documents. An associated bulletin board could provide answers to questions from novice users. We could create and test a clear set of instructions for use of a standard set of tools and make these instructions and tools available to the MIS community. The goal is clear - we must harness the Internet to increase our community's capacity for collaboration.
Electronic journals have arrived [Maddox, 1993]. Academic societies are already active. For example, the Electronic Journal of Combinatorics is a refereed all-electronic journal published in cooperation with the American Mathematical Society. Papers can be electronically submitted. The refereeing process has not been changed, aside from being carried out via electronic mail. Publication is immediate following paper acceptance and completion of copyright forms.
Paper can be replaced as the storage and transport mechanism. We can move to electronic publishing and distribution of journals, newsletters, indexes, bibliographies, and so forth. This transition will increase the speed and lower the cost of dissemination. There are already several hundred newsletters and journals published electronically.[4] One recent initiative is InfoSys, an information systems newsletter edited by a faculty member at a University in New Zealand (d.viehland@massey.ac.nz). Started in January of 1994, seven months later InfoSys had more than 3,000 direct subscribers in at least 50 countries.
The journey from electronic publishing to multi-media publishing is short. Journal articles of the future could include audio and video clips when they are appropriate for the situation. Imagine a GSS article that includes a two-minute video clip showing a critical moment in a group's life, a case study that contains portions of interviews with key informants, or a live video link to "visit" the factory described in a paper.
Of course, the very possibility of changing the format of publishing research is likely to foster considerable debate. However, the editor of a refereed scholarly electronic journal, Psycoloquy, observes:
The scholarly communicative potential of electronic networks is revolutionary. There is only one sector in which the Net will have to be traditional, and that is in the validation of scholarly ideas and findings by peer review. Refereeing can be implemented much more rapidly, equitably and efficiently on the Net, but it cannot be dispensed with, ... Harnard [1993]
It is a major step for an established, peer-reviewed journal such as the MIS Quarterly to move to full-scale electronic publishing. A move that must be approached with both caution and a sense of urgency. Such a revolutionary transformation requires careful consideration of the financial, behavioral, and legal implications. As leaders in the application of information technology, we have no choice but to investigate electronic publishing. Our exploration should be guided by experiments that give us electronic publishing experience without risking the hard-won reputation of our leading journals. We must experiment, we must study the consequences, and we must help others to prepare for the transition.
Journal editors and article reviewers are the gatekeepers of a scholarly community. Unfortunately, a paper-based reviewing and editing system can restrict a journal's choice of editors and reviewers.[5] Too many non-regional editors and reviewers can substantially increase mailing costs and, some will allege, cycle time, a concern of some editors (e.g., Ives, 1993). Given our current dependence on the mail service, imagine the additional delays that would be incurred if a North American-based journal appointed a senior editor living in Asia.[6] Ideally, the best qualified people should be selected for reviewing, but journals must always be mindful of the costs and delays of using substantial numbers of non-regional reviewers.
A paper-based reviewing process can tend to force a journal to be regionally focused in its selection of gatekeepers. Consequently, an international MIS journal based in North America, for example, is exposed to the danger of becoming an archive of North American MIS theory and research. In addition, if its gatekeepers are primarily from one culture, a single cultural lens is used to view most research. The gatekeepers of an international MIS journal should be representative of the global MIS community.
The selection of gatekeepers is too often based on an editor's memory or awareness of research published in those journals with which the editor is most familiar. Few journals have an effective information system for identifying the "best" reviewers for a particular article; instead, editors typically select from their existing pool. Editors need a database that records details of reviewers and their self-reported expertise. This database must be available via the Internet, so editors can consult it when selecting reviewers.[7] The Internet offers the opportunity of bringing more scholars into the review process and selecting reviewers on a broader and more systematic basis [Harnard, 1993].[8] Formalizing the reviewer evaluation process can also be expected to improve the quality of reviewing.
The bricks and mortar required to build a new community already exist. With the Internet and associated services, we can readily create an infrastructure to support a global community. Some possible Internet resources, and their potential uses and gains are listed in Table 1. Internet is a dynamic system, and new resources are continually being added. For example, Mosaic, a World Wide Web (Berners-Lee, et al., 1994) client, was released in September 1993. CU-SeeMe, which supports video conferencing on the Internet, appeared in early 1994. New resources will continue to appear, and we must remain vigilant for opportunities to use these additions to nurture and extend our community. Fortunately, the Internet itself makes it possible for us to quickly bring these tools to the attention of the community.
Table 1. Internet resources for creating a global community of scholars
|
Internet resource |
Description and potential uses |
Potential gains |
|
Electronic mail |
Electronic communication |
Increase equality of participation |
|
FTP (File Transfer Protocol) |
Transfer of electronic files |
Reduce cycle time |
|
Discussion lists |
Bulletin boards for special interest groups |
Increase equality of participation |
|
Gopher |
A public access distributed document search and retrieval
system |
Improve quality of research |
|
Veronica |
Keyword searching of document titles available at Gopher
sites |
Improve quality of research |
|
WAIS |
A public access distributed document search and retrieval
system |
Improve quality of research |
|
Telnet |
Access to a remote machine that can be restricted to
authorized users |
Increase speed of dissemination of research |
|
World Wide Web (W3) |
A public access distributed hypertext and multimedia
document search and retrieval system. W3 clients can access
Gopher and WAIS servers |
Multimedia articles (text, graphics, sound, video) |
|
CU-SeeMe |
Video conferencing (ftp.gated.cornell.edu) |
Facilitate international research projects |
Exploiting the New Infrastructure
First, the overall research cycle can be reduced. Researchers will be able to search the literature more rapidly and exhaustively (e.g., electronic full-text searches), tap expertise more efficiently and effectively (e.g., electronic mail and bulletin boards), and have papers reviewed more rapidly. As a result, the quality of research will improve, and published research will be more current.
Second, the cost of accessing information will be lowered. Electronic distribution can lower the tangible costs of information acquisition as paper and postal costs are avoided. More importantly, the intangible costs of traveling to libraries, searching for journals, requesting interlibrary loans, and so forth can be substantially bypassed. Most researchers will be able to connect to Internet resources from their office and home.
Third, the productivity of editors, editorial staff, and reviewers can be improved. These people are critical to the adoption of new technology because they are major stakeholders in the present system. Any change must be more convenient for this group and must increase its productivity. We will have to redesign the reviewing process to reduce the workload of editors, perhaps one of the key bottlenecks in the existing system.
Electronic reviewing needs to be more than just using the Internet to receive articles and transmit reviews. There must also be productivity improvements. Reviewers must be able to annotate articles - an electronic version of notes in the margin - so that both the editor and the author can quickly see which sentence or paragraph prompted the comment. It must also be possible for reviewers, editors, and authors to "cut" and "paste" manuscript text or reviewers' comments to illustrate a point. Also, editors need support for integrating comments from multiple reviewers. An electronic reviewing system must support merging of reviewers' annotations, with little human intervention but with the identities of the reviewers still known to editor but not to the author. The editor will still have to integrate logically the comments, but this should be an easier task when all relevant comments can be examined together.
Even if we successfully make the transition from paper to electronic storage, one extremely significant barrier will remain - language. Our next challenge is to enable scholars to read an article in the language of their choice. By moving to electronic publishing, we will be well positioned to take advantage of machine translation.[9]
A new intellectual infrastructure can lay the groundwork for a fundamental shift in the way scholarship is created and disseminated and transform our basic notion of a university. If other scholarly communities make the same transition, and there is every likelihood they will, what are the larger social consequences? What happens to a community that is no longer constrained by geography? Where is my sense of belonging when I have no colleagues in the university that employs me? Is my binding loyalty to my research network - the colleagues who sustain my academic career and with whom I communicate more often that the person in the next office? How will the dean judge electronic publications that have many authors from foreign universities, the names of which he or she hardly recognizes? The introduction of new technology frequently causes social change. As MIS scholars we need to ponder and investigate the potential of changes within our community.
Scholarly societies have evolved from communities centered around a medieval European city or town to loosely coupled regional networks. While there are some signs of the emergence of an international community, the considerable barriers of time and distance will be essentially insurmountable while we remain wedded to a technology, printed matter, developed over one thousand years ago in China. Academic communities, particularly those that study business, need to parallel the development of business. They need to become global and diverse. The MIS community can, and should, take the lead in using technology to create a broad, dynamic, productive community.
