Researching Information Systems and Computing

click here for more details, find new or used items	Briony J Oates Our price £17.49 (£24.99) New from £17.49 Used from £49.09 Pages: 360 (Paperback) ISBN: 141290224X Pub: Sage Publications Ltd Pub date: 2005-11-04 Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 82966

Reader Reviews:

A very useful text for IS/Computing Students undertaking projects (1/1 people found this helpful)

I am recommending this text for my masters levels students. For the scale of their projects they do not have time to do fundamental quantitative research, and frequently that would not be appropriate: hence many focus on qualitative approaches.
This text gives clear discussions of the pros and cons of different approaches, practical hints and tips and good follow-on references.
However, this text would be less suitable for "pure" computer science students.
My experience is that (despite support from supervisors) many students have difficulties in at least one of the following areas (i) scoping a project (ii) defining their research area and choosing appropriate research techniques, and (iii) clearly, effectively, and critically, reviewing relevant literature. I believe this text provides clear guidance for students to follow in these areas.

An exercise in researching research? (2/3 people found this helpful)

The book starts off with an in-depth discussion of the definition of research and it's purposes, and an argument for "evidence-based practice". This concerns the lack of evidence validating fashionable design and development techniques such as UML, XP and others that are used in industry and taught at Universities without questioning or analysing their effectiveness over other methods in a formal and rigorous way.
Unfortunately, these, together with the section on ethics, are the only highlights of this book.
This book could be reduced to half the size if it left out the many patronising explanations and examples of things that anyone with some form of university education in IS/computing should know ("The internet is used for listening to radio broadcasts from around the world via Internet Radio"). I also doubt if anyone would take time to complete the "practise exercises" in research techniques in general, and who would be available and qualified to comment on the results without a good knowledge of the field in question!
It concerns itself deeply with the philosophical paradigms of research - a whole topic in itself and hardly specific to the computing field. There is also in my opinion a heavy bias towards qualitative (over quantitive) research and the social science aspect of information systems and their uses, with little practical advice for those undertaking research in hard-core computing science.

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