Research in IS/IT FieldsAchmad Nizar HidayantoFakultas Ilmu Komputer Universitas Indonesianizar@cs.ui.ac.id

Biography

• Name : Achmad Nizar Hidayanto• Title : Coordinator of IS/IT Stream, Fasilkom UI• Education: S1 – S3, in Computer Science, Univ. Indonesia• Interests : e-commerce, e-government, knowledge

management, enterprise systems, IT management, and information systems in general.

• Contact : nizar@cs.ui.ac.id

Definitions

• Research is defined in [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Research] – “Research is often described as an active, diligent, and systematic

process of inquiry aimed at discovering, interpreting, and revising facts. This intellectual investigation produces a greater knowledge of events, behaviors, theories, and laws and makes practical applications possible. The term research is also used to describe a entire collection of information about a particular subject, and is usually associated with the output of science and the scientific method.”

• Because research is so important it is essential that the researcher be fully acquainted with the methods by which research is made possible. – Research requires:

• an open enquiring mind• a creative orientation• a critical, analytical approach• logical reasoning• accuracy and care• dedication and honesty

Key Research Elements

• Plan Research• Literature Review• Research Methodologies• Data Analysis• Technical Writing

Plan Research

• (1) Select some general topics that interest you• (2) Draft a hypothesis or tentative statement at

start of your research project• (3) Proposal writing

Plan Research

• Sources of research topic inspiration?– IS/IT top conferences: ICIS, ECIS, AMCIS, PACIS, ACIS, MCIS, HCIS, etc. – Top IS/IT journals:

• Known reputable publishers: AIS, Sciencedirect, Springer, Inderscience, Taylor &Francis, Emerald, etc. IEEE (?? Please be careful of papers from bogus conferences)

– Edited and peer reviewed book chapters• Choosing research topics:

– Up to date, state of the art– Address current issues: social media, cloud computing, outsourcing, big

data, global software development, internet of things, mobility, healthcare, etc.

– Consider the contribution of your research• Who will get benefits of your research?

– What topics come in your mind?• E-commerce

Plan Research

• Examples from ICIS 2014

• Lesson 1: IS research is not only about software development!!

Societal Impacts of ISDecision Analytics, Big Data, &VisualisationE-BusinessEconomics and Value of ISGlobal and Cultural Issues in ISHuman Behavior and ISHuman-Computer InteractionIS Curriculum and EducationIS Design Science

IS GovernanceIS in HealthcareIS Security and PrivacyIS Strategy, Structure, andOrganizational ImpactsProject Management and IS DevelopmentResearch MethodsService Science and ISSocial Media and Digital Collaboration

Literature Review

• Develop Search Plan– Where would I find the information I need?– What type of resource do I need, book, scholarly articles etc?– How much time do I have?– How will know if the information I discover is up-to-date and

authoritative?• Search Effectively

– Build search strings• List keywords• explore any other words that describe the same meaning to your topics, or

larger topic or subtopics– Choose research resources

• catalogue for books, particular databases, e-journals– Search in databases

Literature Review

• Example of search term

Literature Review• Evaluate Information

– Not everything you find can be used in your paper. You need to measure the resources against Authority, Coverage, Currency, Author, and Relevancy.

– If you find Too Much Information• Use more specific keywords and boolean operators• Check where the search terms matched e.g., title, abstract, or full text• Limit your search to a specific type of information e.g., journal articles or

books• Limit it by a specific date range• Limit it by a specific format Scholarly or Peer Reviewed

– If you find Too Little Information• Check your spelling• Get rid of long phrases• Use alternative terms• Broaden your search terminology

Literature Review

• Organize Your Findings– Organize your literature review findings into some

themes– Write your literature review paper

• Lesson 2: Use systematic literature review!

Research Methodology

• Type of Research Methods – Qualitative Research

• Survey Research• Action Research• Case Study Research

– Quantitative Research • Sampling• Measurement & Data Collection

– Experimental Research

(“the challenge . . . is to find practical ways to combine qualitatively different research approaches” --Mathiassen 2002)

Combinational approaches:

Longitudinal studies (Collaborative practice research)

(Dialectical)

Galliers splits the methods into “Scientific” and “Interpretive”

• Lab Experiments• Field experiments

• Surveys• Case studies• Forecasting • Simulation

• (Grounded research)

• Action research• Subjective / argumentative

• Descriptive / interpretive• Futures research

• Reviews

Example

• Lab Experiments– Evaluating impact of “positive

and negative reviews” and “information overload” in social media toward consumer purchase intention

– Setup environment by creating 4 websites (2 x 2 factorial design)

– Assign student randomly to one of prepared websites. At the end of their task, ask them to fulfill a questionnaire.

• Survey– Investigating environment

uncertainty toward business process agility and organizational performance

– Distribute questionnaire to top 200 companies in Indonesia

– Analysis the results by using regression or SEM

Example

• Assess the strengths and weakness of each methodology before you choose it

• What is the strength of quantitative approach over qualitative approach?

• Lesson 3: if you don’t have ideas of suitable methodology for your research, read papers and see what other people used in their research!!

Data Analysis

• Use common approaches to analyze your collected data– Quantitative

• Regression• ANOVA, MANOVA• SEM (variance base vs covariance based)• etc

– Qualitative• Hermeneutics • Etc

– MCDM• AHP/ANP• Dematel• TOPSIS• etc

Writing Reports/Scientific Paper

• Compose your message• Finding an outlet• Structure of Design Science papers• Example: Structure of Quantitative Research

papers• Rules of the game

1. Compose your message

• What is new?– What was not known, and is known now?

• A paper is not a summary of your thesis– Select the best parts of your research findings

• What position statement do you want to make?– Formulate a one sentence position statement

• RICE test– Rigour: show that the research process is adequately and thoroughly

performed– Interesting: the results are appealing for a wide audience– Contribution: significant and valuable addition to knowledge – Exposition: explain everything in a logical and clear manner

2. Finding an outlet

Level1. Workshop: 30 – 50 submission with 50% acceptance rate2. Conference: 100 – 500 submissions with a 10-25% acceptance rate3. Journal: 30% acceptance rate with long lead times

Subject1. Narrow: Web Information Systems Modeling2. Medium: Business Process Management3. Broad: Information Systems

Region1. National2. European, Americas, Asia, Australia, Nordic3. Worldwide

The higher the more competitive

For students it is most successful to focus on a narrow focussed European workshop

3. Structure of the Paper

• Abstract• Introduction with a good title to scope the paper

– Key contribution• Foundation of Key Concepts• Conceptual Model (if any)• Research Methodology• Results and Discussions

– Including “Research Implication”• Conclusions and further research• Acknowledgements• References

Title

• Descriptive title covering the domain and the contribution• Nice alliterations or paraphrasing of proverbs

– “Maturity Matters”– “Useful but Unused”– “Turning the Ugly Duckling into a Swan”

• No punctuation, except for : for subtitle• No unknown acronyms

Abstract

• First sentence is problem statement• Some overall conclusion at the end to position the conclusion• Do not oversell your contribution• Choose keywords known in the domain and from the list of

topics in the Call for Papers

Introduction

• Give Introduction a good title to scope the paper, e.g.1. Introduction: Software Supply Networks

• Problem description with some published evidence (collect continuously! Not again the Chaos report)

• Literature perspective with related work• Main research question• Main contribution of the paper• Outline of the paper

• Sometimes Related Work is a separate chapter

Chapters 2, 3 and ff

• The design artefact• Proper explanation• Adhere to the customs in the area

– With examples– Meta-models– Formal mathematics

• Be aware that many papers have suggested similar designs– What makes your solution different?

• Other chapters explain design artefact– Overall method with steps– Further explanation of details– Case study/ies with examples

Conclusions

Conclusions and further/future research Major findings: some kind of summary without being a summary Limitations of the study, be honest Some outlook of the usage Some speculations, but not overselling Future research

Try to avoid references, especially to future work of yourself in this chapter, unless it has been finalized.

4. Example: Structure of quantitative research papers

1. Introduction2. Theory3. The model, framework, hypothesis4. Methodology (sample and data collection procedures)5. Results and Discussion (measurement and structural

model, discussion, implication/lesson learned)6. Conclusion and evaluation

Trigger

Source N Base Performance

IT commercie 400 NL, 2002 66% ‘satisfied’

Giarte 104 NL, 2003 25% positive ROI

Forrester 111 US, 2003 75% ‘somewhat satisfied’

Bearing Point 167 US, 2003 37% ‘expected performance’

Gartner 343 US, 2002 66% ‘demonstrable ROI’

Nucleus Research

23 Siebel customers

39% ‘positive ROI’

Aberdeen 1400 Siebel customers

75% ‘better business performance’

CRMguru.com 448 ? 45% positive ROI

YOUcentric 250 ? 80% ‘solid to moderate ROI’

Data collection

• 3 Experts Meetings• 31 respondents of 30 organisations• Between 10 and 10.000 fte• All sectors• On-line questionniare• Group discussion meeting

Analysis (tabular)

Dependent variables

Sum of all 3 progress performance variables

Sum of all 6 performance variables

Correlation p-

value Correlation P-

value

Alignment score based on total set of items

Alignment on the CRM strategy area 0.09 0.32 0.35 0.03

Alignment on the customer insight area 0.17 0.17 0.35 0.03

Alignment on the customer contact area 0.21 0.14 0.47 0.00

Alignment on the marketing area 0.26 0.09 0.49 0.00

Total alignment 0.25 0.09 0.48 0.00 Alignment score based on the scaled set of items

Alignment on the CRM strategy area 0.24 0.10 0.43 0.01

Alignment on the customer insight area 0.09 0.31 0.24 0.11

Alignment on the customer contact area 0.19 0.16 0.46 0.00

Alignment on the marketing area 0.28 0.07 0.48 0.00

Total alignment 0.23 0.11 0.44 0.01

Analysis (figure)

Alignment score based on total set of items

3020100

Sum

of

all 6

per

form

ance

var

iabl

es

5.0

4.5

4.0

3.5

3.0

2.5

2.0

1.5

Discussion and conclusions

0

1

2

3

4

5Organisatie & Processen

Monitoring & Control

Strategie & BeleidMensen & Cultuur

InformatieTechnologie

organisatie X

Gemiddelde

5. Rules of the game

• The supervisors of both the academic side as well as the organisation side are invited as co-authors

Even when they will not write any texts• They have been helpful in arranging the research environment, in

establishing good research questions, and providing suggestions.• Co-authorship makes friends!

But never put a name without asking!

THANK YOU…..