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1 – 10 of over 93000Looking back over the 1990s, it is easy to see the widespread troubles of many ventures that depended upon advanced IT applications, including business process re‐engineering…
Abstract
Looking back over the 1990s, it is easy to see the widespread troubles of many ventures that depended upon advanced IT applications, including business process re‐engineering projects, enterprise systems, knowledge management projects, online distance education courses, and, famously, some of the dot‐com businesses. These “troubles” vary from substantial underperformance (i.e. projects that were much more costly and/or produced much less social or business value than most of the participating IT professionals anticipated) and many outright failures. Many of these “troubles” could have been avoided (or at least ameliorated) if the participating IT professionals had much more reliable and critical understanding of the relationships between IT configurations, socio‐technical interventions, social behavior of other participants in different roles, and the dynamics of organizational and social change. Social informatics is the name of the field that studies and theorizes this topic, and is discussed in more detail in this paper. The key issue addressed in this paper is who will produce social informatics research for IT professionals, and where will they learn about important findings, theories, design approaches, etc.? The paper examines the record of computer science in the US as a major contributor to the relevant research and teaching. It also examines the possibilities for new kinds of academic programs – sometimes called “information schools” and “IT schools” – that are being developed to expand beyond the self‐imposed boundaries of computer science and to integrate some organizational and social research as sites for social informatics.
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Andreas Zendler, O. William McClung and Dieter Klaudt
The development of a K-12 computer science curriculum based on constructivist principles needs to be informed by knowledge of content and process concepts that are central to the…
Abstract
Purpose
The development of a K-12 computer science curriculum based on constructivist principles needs to be informed by knowledge of content and process concepts that are central to the discipline of computer science. The paper aims to discuss this issue.
Design/methodology/approach
Taking a cross-cultural approach and using an experimental design (a SPF-2•15×16 split-plot design), this study compares the combinations of content and process concepts identified as important in Germany with those considered relevant in the US context.
Findings
First, the combinations of content and process concepts identified in the German context can be generalized to the US context. Second, it is possible to identify combinations of content and process concepts in the US context that are also important in the German context. Third, content and process concepts identified in the two contexts can be integrated to generate a broader perspective that is valid for both contexts.
Practical implications
The results can be used for consolidating available curricular drafts for computer science as a teaching subject at school of the type available in many. The present findings are of great relevance for research-based approaches to the pre- and in-service education of computer science teachers. The methodological approach taken is important in efforts to consolidate curricular models of computer science education, as have been initiated by the Bologna process in Europe and by the organizations Association for Computing Machinery, Association for Information Systems, and Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers-Computer Society in the USA.
Originality/value
Results show that competence areas of central concepts identified in the two contexts can be integrated to generate a broader perspective that is valid for both contexts.
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The purpose of this paper is to trace the knowledge diffusion patterns between the publications of top journals of computer science and physics to uncover the knowledge diffusion…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to trace the knowledge diffusion patterns between the publications of top journals of computer science and physics to uncover the knowledge diffusion trends.
Design/methodology/approach
The degree of information flow between the disciplines is a measure of entropy and received citations. The entropy gives the uncertainty in the citation distribution of a journal; the more a journal is involved in spreading information or affected by other journals, its entropy increases. The citations from outside category give the degree of inter-disciplinarity index as the percentage of references made to papers of another discipline. In this study, the topic-related diffusion across computer science and physics scholarly communication network is studied to examine how the same research topic is studied and shared across disciplines.
Findings
For three indicators, Shannon entropy, citations outside category (COC) and research keywords, a global view of information flow at the journal level between both disciplines is obtained. It is observed that computer science mostly cites knowledge published in physics journals as compared to physics journals that cite knowledge within the field.
Originality/value
To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study that traces knowledge diffusion trends between computer science and physics publications at journal level using entropy, COC and research keywords.
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Kalervo Järvelin and Pertti Vakkari
The purpose of this paper is to find out which research topics and methods in information science (IS) articles are used in other disciplines as indicated by citations.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to find out which research topics and methods in information science (IS) articles are used in other disciplines as indicated by citations.
Design/methodology/approach
The study analyzes citations to articles in IS published in 31 scholarly IS journals in 2015. The study employs content analysis of articles published in 2015 receiving citations from publication venues representing IS and other disciplines in the citation window 2015–2021. The unit of analysis is the article-citing discipline pair. The data set consists of 1178 IS articles cited altogether 25 K times through 5 K publication venues. Each citation is seen as a contribution to the citing document’s discipline by the cited article, which represents some IS subareas and methodologies, and the author team's disciplinary composition, which is inferred from the authors’ affiliations.
Findings
The results show that the citation profiles of disciplines vary depending on research topics, methods and author disciplines. Disciplines external to IS are typically cited in IS articles authored by scholars with the same background. Thus, the export of ideas from IS to other disciplines is evidently smaller than the earlier findings claim. IS should not be credited for contributions by other disciplines published in IS literature.
Originality/value
This study is the first to analyze which research topics and methods in the articles of IS are of use in other disciplines as indicated by citations.
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Kun Shao and Peter Maher
Teaching advanced technical concepts in a computer science program to students of different technical backgrounds presents many challenges. The purpose of this paper is to present…
Abstract
Purpose
Teaching advanced technical concepts in a computer science program to students of different technical backgrounds presents many challenges. The purpose of this paper is to present a detailed experimental pedagogy in teaching advanced computer science topics, such as computer networking, telecommunications and data structures using interactive technologies involving live exercises on Windows networking, the Web 2.0 technologies YouTube and Wiki PBworks, the network simulation software Wireshark, and a Data Structure Visualizer (DSV).
Design/methodology/approach
The paper adopts an empirical approach. A novel method for teaching and learning using interactive technologies is demonstrated. Experiments are made through actual classroom teaching, students' participation and their team‐oriented research projects. The assessments come from evaluations and analysis of each technology applied in the learning and teaching process.
Findings
Using traditional teaching methodologies for advanced computer science topics such as networking, telecommunications and data structures present a great challenge to both instructors and students. Incorporating multiple interactive technologies into the computer science curriculum proves to be beneficial in bringing real‐world applications to the classroom, enhancing understanding of abstraction, making advanced computer science topics easier to comprehend and more accessible to students of non‐uniform backgrounds, encouraging active learning and providing students the opportunity to apply solutions to real‐world problems.
Research limitations/implications
The proposed approach needs more experimentation with more classes of various topics. Class time is limited for more comprehensive demonstrations and discussions.
Originality/value
The paper presents an effective pedagogy in engaging learners in active, authentic and collaborative learning.
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– This study aims to analyze Saudi scientific output in the field of computer science in Web of Science database, covering the years 1978 through 2012.
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to analyze Saudi scientific output in the field of computer science in Web of Science database, covering the years 1978 through 2012.
Design/methodology/approach
The study involved analyzing 998 publications in terms of the publication count and its growth, citation, share of international collaboration, research areas and researchers’ productivity.
Findings
The results show that the number of papers produced in computer science field has only increased after year 2007; this is because Saudi universities have applied a catch-up strategy to increase its research output. Also, our study reveals that the publication performance of Saudi scientists in computer science was domestic and suffers from low international visibility. Only two universities took the lead in the production of computer science research. Furthermore, computer science research trends in Saudi Arabia focused on engineering, followed by mathematics and telecommunications.
Originality/value
Studies on international academic publication productivity in the Middle East, particularly in Arab countries such as Saudi Arabia, are rarely found. In fact, bibliometric studies on Saudi researchers in the field of computer science are not available. Therefore, the originality of this study resides in being the first study to measure publication productivity of Saudi researchers in the field of computer science.
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The professionalization of IT has long been complicated by disagreementover the appropriate model to employ. Physicians, lawyers, scientists,engineers, artisans, and artists have…
Abstract
The professionalization of IT has long been complicated by disagreement over the appropriate model to employ. Physicians, lawyers, scientists, engineers, artisans, and artists have all one been invoked at one time or another by one group or another as guiding examples for the development of an IT profession. Yet none of these has proved fully convincing. Discusses the different kinds of professional practice which have been likened to IT, considers why it has proved so difficult to settle on a single one, and suggests an alternative way of conceptualizing IT practice.
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Lee A. Pedersen and Julie Arendt
Informally computer scientists reported they could access free copies of research papers they needed via tools such as Google Scholar. To ascertain whether this perception came…
Abstract
Purpose
Informally computer scientists reported they could access free copies of research papers they needed via tools such as Google Scholar. To ascertain whether this perception came from widespread free access or from unnoticed employer-paid access, the purpose of this paper was to locate computer science papers and determine what proportion was freely available using Google Scholar.
Design/methodology/approach
A sample of 1,967 conference papers and periodical papers from 2003 to 2010, indexed in the ACM Guide to Computing Literature, was searched for manually in Google Scholar, using the paper or article title and the first author's surname and supplementary searches as needed.
Findings
Free full-text versions were found for 52 per cent of the conference papers and 55 per cent of the periodical papers. Documents with older publication dates were more likely to be freely accessible than newer documents, with free versions found for 71 per cent of items published in 2003 and 43 per cent of items published in 2010.
Research limitations/implications
Results were limited to the retrieval of known computer science publications via Google Scholar. Future research could examine whether the decline found in this study is specific to Google Scholar or reflects a decrease in the free sharing of research by computer scientists.
Originality/value
Previous research for computer science found lower levels of free access than this research determined, but the decline found in this study runs contrary to increases that have been found. This research confirms many computer science papers are available for free but also that subscription holdings are necessary for complete coverage of papers in the field.
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Dalibor Fiala and Lutz Bornmann
The current article presents the results of a case study dealing with the historical roots of Eastern European researchers in computer science.
Abstract
Purpose
The current article presents the results of a case study dealing with the historical roots of Eastern European researchers in computer science.
Design/methodology/approach
The study is based on an analysis of cited references stemming from a collection of around 80,000 computer science papers by Eastern European researchers published from 1989 to 2014. By using a method called “reference publication year spectroscopy” (RPYS) for historical analyses based on bibliometric data, we analyze around 800,000 references cited in those papers. The study identifies the peak years, including most frequently cited publications (from 1952, 1965 and 1975), and focuses on these outstanding works for the field. The research shows how these influential papers were cited in Eastern Europe and in general, and on which scientific fields they have the most impact.
Findings
A noteworthy publication that seems to have a tremendous effect on Eastern European computer science is Zadeh's “Fuzzy sets” article which appeared in Information and Control in 1965. The study demonstrates that computer scientists from Eastern Europe are more conservative in their citation behaviour and tend to refer to older and more established research than their counterparts from the West.
Originality/value
Which are the historical roots of researchers working in a particular field or on a specific topic? Are there certain publications – landmark papers – which are important for their research? We guess that these are questions bothering researchers in many fields.
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Ryoko Yamaguchi and Jamika D. Burge
The purpose of this study is to investigate the narratives of 93 Black women in computing in the USA to identify salient themes that are at the intersection of race and gender in…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this study is to investigate the narratives of 93 Black women in computing in the USA to identify salient themes that are at the intersection of race and gender in the field of computer science.
Design/methodology/approach
The study uses a multi-method approach with a survey to describe the sample and a series of focus groups for in-depth analysis of themes. The qualitative methodology uses a grounded theory and consensual qualitative research approach with a research team that includes computer scientists and social scientists to collect and analyze data. Given the highly technical field of computer science and the intersectional experiences of the participants, this approach was optimal to capture and code data through the lens of Black women in computing.
Findings
The authors found four main themes that represented specific needs for Black women in the computing community. The first is the importance of linking Black women in computing (i.e. their recruitment, retention and career growth) to the bottom line of organizational and personal accountability. The second is effective cultural and educational supports for Black women in computing across pathways, starting in middle school. The third is to provide leadership development as a part of their educational and workplace experience. The fourth is a collection of empirical research and scholarship about and for Black women as a part of the computing literature.
Originality/value
Black women comprise one of the most underrepresented subgroups in the area of computer science in the USA. There is very little research about Black women in computing. To promote broadened participation in computing, there is a critical need to understand the narratives of successful Black women in the space.
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