Abstract: Disruptive innovations continue to reshape channels of learning. The Information Systems discipline may be among the least immune to these disruptions. As such, students have greater access to the acquisition of the computing skills and knowledge that are commonly presumed to suffice entry-level employment positions sought after by graduates of Information Systems programs. Further, these same technologies disrupting education are shaping the organizational and business environment such that it is fair to reflect on the disposition and complexion of the discipline as a whole and surmise whether this past will predict the future. Moreover, businesses and organizations are finding that the supply chain of workers needed to harness these disruptive technologies flows neither exclusively, nor even optimally, through academia. Upon reflection of this disruptive circumstance of skills and knowledge development, we consider subsuming the IS discipline into the broader auspice of design buttressed equally by emphases on technical excellence, business acumen, and leadership. We explore principles for a design-focused philosophy for Information Systems education that assumes that while higher education programs may have lost the lead in technology skills development focused on entry-level employment, we may reassert our role in computing education through the embrace of design at the philosophical, epistemological, and pedagogical levels.

Keywords: Design-focus, Business acumen, Computing skills, Leadership, Hybrid disciplines

Download this article: JISE - Volume 30 Issue 4, Page 311.pdf

Recommended Citation: Babb, J., Jr., Waguespack, L., & Abdullat, A. (2019). Invited Paper: Subsumption of Information Systems Education towards a Discipline of Design. Journal of Information Systems Education, 30(4), 311-320.