At this
year's 2011 conference of the
UK Association for Information Systems, the keynote speaker,
David Wainwright of Northumbria University, presented a lecture on the PhD Odyssey: Information Systems, Adventure and Adversity by comparing the PhD journey with that of
Odysseus, full of troubles, trials and tribulations, an apt analogy. One of the Odysseus' distractions was
Circe, a villaneous and bewitching goddess who turned Odysseus' men into swine. Wainwright's argument was that a PhD student can be betwitched by the focus of the PhD. He presented a diagram, which from my notes I sketch here,
where the implication seems to be that your PhD focus might be in any one of these blobs. It's an interesting diagram because it incorporates so much of the overlap between areas relevant to information systems, the central three being
- Digital Media
- Information Systems
- Computing
My initial reaction was that my research sits in the business management blob, but perhaps it actually sits in the
interaction between management practitioners and computing practitioners, because although I start from the use and adaptation of IS for organisations, what I'm really interested in is the relationship of people in different organisations on the same project, and such people include management practitioners and computing practitioners, often the computing practitioners being external. So my focus isn't in a blob, but in the interaction between blogs.
where the implication seems to be that your PhD focus might be in any one of these blobs. It's an interesting diagram because it incorporates so much of the overlap between areas relevant to information systems, the central three being
8 comments:
That's interesting. I think I'm going to have a go at diagramming my blogs and where my DPhil fits! The triangle at the top of your diagram interests me. Is that saying something about the way a discipline spawns sub-groupings or about the relationship and interaction between different foci. As somebody working in a multi-disciplinary area, looks like some ideas there worth playing with.
Liz, what diagramming software do you use?
Inspiration usually - which I think is what you were using?
Yes - I swear by it - it helped me to develop my initial theoretical model of the literature. And then some months later when my supervisors asked about the literature I had all the references hidden behind the blobs in the notes and could refer back to them.
I've been using it for years, ever since I went to an OU dyslexia workshop and realised it was the software that I must have.
I love its flexibility - superb for notes, outlining, planning, etc, but also brilliant for creating other diagrams. I've got a whole stash of diagrams I've created as part of the research process.
The only drawback is the price tag, but I consider it more than worth it!
Liz - the triangle seemed to be Wainwright's central focus, and if I remember what he said right, then the other blobs were alternative areas that a conference for information systems would include. That is, if you're studying information systems, then there are various areas in which you might focus your work.
I've seen similar diagrams before, on doctoral training workshops, as examples of where a particular piece of research might fit in, and tried to draw one for the literature review of my thesis, but I hadn't thought of drawing the IS/IT/IM field.
Interesting you said you got it from a dyslexia workshop, because a dyslexic student I was responsible as an advisor for gave me a free copy, arguing that he needed it for his exam, and the OUBS wouldn't let him use it. As I wasn't writing then, I hardly used it so didn't appreciate it enough to tell him and thank him. If I were now in touch with him, I'd thank him wholeheartedly.
I don't know what happens now, but I got the impression at the time (several years ago) that Inspiration was regularly recommended as part of the software package given to students with dyslexia eligible for DSA. It would seem grossly unfair to provide software to enable students to structure their work and then not allow its use in an exam situation, especially if it had become their normal way of working!
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