Interesting places are shaped and driven by distinctive view points and core values. Ten view points and values that I think are important for our School of Information Systems are listed immediately below, followed by a supporting explanation. If you take the time to read this, you will know a lot about the aspirations, culture and spirit of our school.
1. Our laboratory for IT? The world of business!
SIS is committed to making it easy for our students and faculty to get the real-world exposure, experience and collaboration they need for their education, project and research efforts.
2. Business and organisations think through IT and information processing
All too often, potential students as well as candidates for faculty or professional staff positions do not fully appreciate the deep and vital linkages between IT and the ability of any type of business or organisation to adapt, to change, to compete, to innovate and to create value. This is because they do not fully understand or appreciate that business and government organisations rely on IT and information processing to think.
3. Energy through Fusion
Fusion creates energy through combining elements. In our SIS world, we work hard to encourage and achieve fusion along a number of dimensions and interfaces.
4. Knowledge and Ideas can change the world
Why should educators and researchers choose to work at a university, as opposed to other types of organisations that do education and research? Similarly, why should students invest time studying at a university when there are alternative ways and places to learn (like proceeding directly to the workforce)? We choose to be at a university because we strongly believe in the university's core mission of creating new knowledge (research) and of transmitting accumulated and new knowledge (education). We come to a university because we believe research and education create the intellectual and social capital that enables individuals and societies to improve. We also try to do as much as we can within the university because we think that immersion in research and education is intrinsically important and inspiring in its own right, in addition to its contribution to individual and societal improvement.
5. Transformation There are two important aspects to the way we use the term transformation. The first aspect is that we want to be the type of place that transforms the people who spend time here. The second aspect is to understand and demonstrate how information systems technology and management can transform the world around us.
6. Imagineering
The term Imagineering is a combination (a fusion, if you will) of the terms imagination and engineering. Imagination represents the ability to envision, articulate and demonstrate new possibilities and ideas, especially transformational ideas that are unconstrained by past or present limitations. Engineering represents the ability to make things work well in the context of the physical, human and economic forces and constraints that characterise the environment where the ideas are to be put into practice. I believe the concept and practice of Imagineering can and should be an important part of the culture of SIS.
7. Rarely “Either Or”
Perhaps one of the ways this digital age has subconsciously affected the way nearly everybody thinks is that people often find it natural to ask some variants of “Is it either this way? Or that way?”. This implies that there may only be a dichotomous or binary choice between the essential alternatives. In SIS, we often have to work out creative ways of conducting our teaching and research to avoid many of the conventionally strict either-or trade-offs that often characterise academic education and scholarship.
8. Beyond
In some of our external communications, we use phrases such as “Beyond IT” or “Beyond Business as Usual ”. In talking to our SIS community, I often ask to look for ways in which we could “Go Beyond” the usual or the ordinary. I like the concept and spirit of “going beyond”. Here are some practical examples to illustrate ways in which I believe SIS should strive to go beyond the conventional and the status quo.
9. Learning Outcomes and Learning-to-Learn
Our journey with Learning Outcomes started back in February 2003, when we first started working out the blueprint for the SIS bachelor's programme. Learning Outcomes focus on the end result, and are used to define what the student must know and be able to do when they complete the programme. The well-developed set of Learning Outcomes for our BSc (IS Management) programme incorporates our evolving vision of the skill sets powering the capabilities of a professional who can lead transformation, innovation, productivity and value creation initiatives in business settings because of their deep ability to combine IT, business thinking and problem solving. The Learning Outcomes for all our educational programmes will continue to evolve over time.
10. SMU really is a good setting for SIS
If SMU was not an especially good setting for School of Information Systems, we would not be where we are today. Something must be working right.
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