Location
Level 0, Open Space, Owen G. Glenn Building
Start Date
12-15-2014
Description
In order to promote more rigor in Design Science Research (DSR), Gregor and Hevner have proposed guidelines for conducting and evaluating DSR in the Information Systems (IS) discipline. Their work has been influential and widely used to advance the field. However, the way they characterize IS-DSR knowledge contributions excludes what we believe are genuine contributions and includes works that in our lights are not contributing to IS-DSR knowledge. To overcome this problem, we borrow from the contemporary philosophy of science to develop a framework for identifying the types of IS-DSR knowledge. We posit that contributions to DSR are in the form of theories or technological designs, and each type could be either inter-field or field. We demonstrate the strength of the proposed framework in better identifying contributions and clarifying the boundaries of IS-DSR. Our experience led us to believe that the proposed view is applicable to the whole IS discipline.
Recommended Citation
Woo, Carson; Saghafi, Arash; and Rosales, Alirio, "What is a Contribution to IS Design Science Knowledge?" (2014). ICIS 2014 Proceedings. 4.
https://aisel.aisnet.org/icis2014/proceedings/ISDesign/4
What is a Contribution to IS Design Science Knowledge?
Level 0, Open Space, Owen G. Glenn Building
In order to promote more rigor in Design Science Research (DSR), Gregor and Hevner have proposed guidelines for conducting and evaluating DSR in the Information Systems (IS) discipline. Their work has been influential and widely used to advance the field. However, the way they characterize IS-DSR knowledge contributions excludes what we believe are genuine contributions and includes works that in our lights are not contributing to IS-DSR knowledge. To overcome this problem, we borrow from the contemporary philosophy of science to develop a framework for identifying the types of IS-DSR knowledge. We posit that contributions to DSR are in the form of theories or technological designs, and each type could be either inter-field or field. We demonstrate the strength of the proposed framework in better identifying contributions and clarifying the boundaries of IS-DSR. Our experience led us to believe that the proposed view is applicable to the whole IS discipline.