Can the field of MIS be disciplined?
Communications of the ACM
The challenge of relating IS research to practice
Information Resources Management Journal - Special issue on the role of business in information technology research
Information Ages: Literacy, Numeracy, and the Computer Revolution
Information Ages: Literacy, Numeracy, and the Computer Revolution
Information systems as a reference discipline
MIS Quarterly
Neolithic informatics: The nature of information
International Journal of Information Management: The Journal for Information Professionals
The 'language' of informatics: The nature of information systems
International Journal of Information Management: The Journal for Information Professionals
Formated technology and informated action: The nature of information technology
International Journal of Information Management: The Journal for Information Professionals
In-formation on the prairie: Signs, patterns, systems and prairie dogs
International Journal of Information Management: The Journal for Information Professionals
Significant threads: The nature of data
International Journal of Information Management: The Journal for Information Professionals
International Journal of Information Management: The Journal for Information Professionals
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In this paper the term informatics is used as a convenient umbrella term to stand for the overlapping disciplinary areas of information systems, information management and information technology. Much debate has occurred over the last few years surrounding the status of informatics as a discipline. We argue that this debate revolves around the issue of the most appropriate locus for the discipline and that this debate may be informed by a better definition for the central concept of information system. We describe the case of the Inca civilisation, their use of information specialists and a distinct 'information technology' and use this as a reflective lens for highlighting the core features of this central concept. What is fascinating about this particular case is that whereas the 'information system' described was critical to the effective operation of a large and successful Amer-Indian empire, the 'information technology' at its core did not even utilise written language. An examination of this case therefore provides a necessary intellectual distance but also grounding to our discussion of the centrality of the concept of information system to the discipline of informatics.