Research about Information Systems

It is frequently asked which kind of research is done at CUAS’ computer science ‘s labs in the field of information systems. Therefore,  some general hints about researach in information systems have to be mentioned following leading scientists of Wirtschaftsinformatik (business information systems) who discuss their discipline as a design-oriented  research field. At least in Central and Nothern Europe this is a wide-spread point of view (see  Arnold Picot: Richtungsdiskussionen in der Wirtschaftsinformatik. KONTAKTSTUDIUM, zfbf, September 2010 662-679 or http://memo.iwi.unisg.ch/fileadmin/docs/zfbf.pdf , Nov 26,2013)

In the Anglo –Saxon world “Wirtschaftsinformatik”  corresponds to the discipline “Information Systems Research”. But contrary to Anglo –Saxon’ approaches in Europe information systems are frequently considered  as socio-technical systems consisting of human beings, technology (information and communication technology) and organizations (functions , business processes , structures, and management) and the relations between these three types of objects .
Objectives are the development of guidelines for the construction, the operation and the innovation of information systems. Research results are constructs (concepts, terminology, languages ), models, methods and implementation of prototypes or productive information systems.

The research process follows the phases: The analysis phase collects and describes the problem in practice and formulates the research objectives (research question , design gap). It raises the level of problem-solving approaches in practice and in science. A research plan for the development or improvement of the required artifacts is developed.
Typical research methods in the analysis phase (exploration) are surveys, case studies , in-depth interviews with experts , analysis of information systems (eg databases). Methods for the design of artifacts include the construction of demonstrators and prototypes , the modeling tools and the reference model and the Method Engineering .

The evaluation phase requires a review of the created artifacts against the initially defined objectives and means of the methods chosen in the research plan. To evaluate the artifacts methods are used such as the laboratory experiment , the pilot (application of a prototype) , simulation, testing by experts and the field experiment (use in many subjects) .

Research in the computer science design-oriented economy should follow the principles:
Abstraction: An artifact must be applicable to a class of problems .
Originality: An artifact has to be an innovative contribution to the published knowledge.
Reason: An artifact must be traceable justified and validated.
Benefits: An artifact should produce a benefit for the stakeholders.

From this point of view and in the sense of applied sciences CUAS Information Systems’s activities mainly follow constructive approaches to the fields of IT-Management, ERP systems, database applications and Data Warehousing/BI. Furthermore, research topics has been established about mobile applications, software quality assurance, Human Computer Interaction, Computational Intelligence and Data Mining.