Objective

The objective of the journal is to develop a philosophy of information technology. The term information technology is used in a broad sense to refer to any hardware, software or organizational arrangement that facilitates the management and communication of information. This philosophy will guide us in our efforts to deploy IT in ways which improve the human condition in the dawning millennium. Information technology has more far reaching ramifications for humankind than any of its technological predecessors. To the greatest extent possible, we must understand the implications of IT, so that its effects can be managed toward humanely responsible goals and ideals.

The purpose of FIS is to offer a forum for scholarly works which:

• pose fundamental questions about information systems;
• demonstrate disciplined and scholarly efforts to answer or clarify such questions; and
• further the understanding of the electronic revolution by recording its historical developments, people, and their decisions.

About the Journal

This journal is a result of a discourse involving three generations of academics in the field of Information Systems Research. It is a continuation of five years of seminars, panels, conference sessions, and most recently, a conference mini track (1996, and again in 1997) in the Americas Conference on Information Systems in Phoenix, Arizona). Originally organized by Jim Courtney (the U.S.), Jaana Porra (Finland), John Haynes (Australia) and William Hodges (Canada), this series of papers and presentations about the foundations of information systems has attracted an international group of scholars of all ages, cultures, languages, and educational distinctions.

The FIS editors share the concern of some academics in the information systems field that issues of importance have remained outside the main stream information systems journals. In its broadest terms, this omission can be called "The Philosophy of Information Technology" This means understanding the fundamental beliefs (or assumptions or axioms) about the ways in which information systems are used for human kind.

Computers and global computer networks have the potential to change most all aspects of human life at the societal, economic, organizational, group and personal levels. Computers change what, where, how, why, when, and with whom people share information. They may even change what human beings are. We suggest that to the greatest extent possible, we must understand the implications of information technology so that its affects can be managed in ethically responsible ways.

Academia is confronting an identity crisis. Some believe that the future of academia lies in becoming more pragmatic. According to this viewpoint, the value of scholarship is in its ability to create immediate aids for everyday problems. FIS takes a different viewpoint. We believe, that the role of a researcher as an objective spectator/documenter should be complemented with the responsibility of being a conveyor of wisdom from one generation to another. In the past this inheritance has taken place by personal contact, continuous discourse and friendship. It has evolved in the stories of people, events, and discoveries which have occurred over several generations. We feel that one purpose of academia is in the creation of knowledge which is achieved by interacting with the discipline's history of successes and failures.

FIS affords you the opportunity to express your positions on the fundamentals of information systems and the impact they have on the humanity they serve.