Developing Web Information Systems

Developing Web Information Systems brings together traditional system development methods that have been taught for many years on information systems and computer science courses with web/e-commerce development. It is the first book to bring together IS development and the web applications in a thorough and systematic way. There is a running case study that illustrates web IS development from start to finish. The case is easy to understand (a theatre) and results in a working web application. Most, if not all, analysis and design texts fall short of making that step into software. The book draws heavily on practical experiences of web-based IS development resulting from commercial system development, so as well as appealing to students and academics, it will also interest practitioners. The coverage of data management and e-business strategy gives the book the broader scope essential for understanding IS development properly in an Internet context.

Richard Vidgen is Senior Lecturer in Information Systems in the School of Management at the University of Bath.He has fifteen years’ industrial experience of information systems development and management. His research interests include IS development methods for the Internet, website quality, and e-business strategy. He is the author of Data Modelling for Information Systems (1996), and has published many book chapters and journal papers.

David Avison is Professor of Information Systems at ESSEC Business School, Paris, France after being Professor at the School of Management at Southampton University for nine years. He is also visiting professor at University Technology, Sydney, Australia and Brunel University in England. So far, he has published over twenty books as well as a large number of papers in learned journals, edited texts and conference papers. He is Chair of the International Federation of Information Processing (IFIP) 8.2 group on the impact of IS/IT on organisations and society and was past President of the UK Academy for Information Systems and also UK Professors and Heads of IS. He will be joint programme chair of the International Conference in Information Systems in Las Vegas in 2005 and has been chair of several other international conferences. He also acts as consultant and has most recently worked with a leading manufacturer developing their IT/IS strategy. He researches on information systems in their natural setting, in particular using action research.

Bob Wood is GEMISIS Professor of Information Technology, and Associate Dean (Research) for the Faculty of Business and Informatics at the University of Salford. His research work focuses on the development and use of new broadband Information and Communications Technologies to support collaborative purposeful human activity both within and between organisations.Professor Wood is particularly interested in how ICTs can encourage and bring about the social processes of public formulations of knowledge and the mechanisms for bringing about such formulations. Learning, for both the individual and the community, thus becomes a social process of knowledge construction. This view allows us to focus both on transforming our ideas on what constitutes knowledge and on how such a process can be supported through the use of collaborative technologies.Bob Wood's favoured research methods are Action Research and Action Learning. Current projects include: investigating different communities of practice within a large globally distributed organisation; a study of how project managers might share understanding and wisdom through the use of story telling; the development of personal research tools for supporting a Knowledge Management initiative within an organisation; and the creation of collaborative value networks amongst SMEs.

Trevor Wood-Harper is Professor of Information Systems and Director of the Information Systems Research institute (ISRI) at the University of Salford, Manchester, U. K. Recently, the institute was awarded a 5* rating, the highest, at the recent Research Assessment Exercise (RAE) in 2001. Also, he is Professor of Management Information Systems at the University of South Australia, Adelaide and held visiting chairs at University of Oslo, Copenhagen Business School and Georgia State University. Wood-Harper has co-authored 11 books and monographs as well as more than 200 research articles in a wide range of topics, including the Multiview methodology.In 1990 he set up one of the first Information Systems doctoral schools (a combination of the European and American styles) in the U.K, which is attracting an increasing number of international as well as British students. Currently the school has more than 80 Ph.D. Students. Also, at the University of South Australia, he has started a new doctoral programme in Information Systems with 2 Associate Professors and 32 PhD students. Trevor Wood-Harper has successfully supervised 16 doctoral theses since 1996. Recently, he was a member of the Library and Information Management panel for the Research Assessment Exercise (RAE) in 2001, and currently on the British Computer Society accreditation panel and the UKAIS board.