Business Informatics and the Information Systems Perspective: Implementing the IS 2010 Curriculum

This article describes how the Business Informatics program at Northern Kentucky University (NKU) has evolved and, in so doing, has addressed the call from the IS 2010 Curriculum Design Committee listed below. The article initiates this discussion with a discussion of the basic systems perspective that underlies the information systems discipline. The next section presents a review of the creation of a College of Informatics (COI) at NKU that included the strategic decision of structurally moving the Information Systems Department from the College of Business. The authors then document the perceptual shift this decision created as the Information Systems Department changed its name to Business Informatics and took on the goal of expanding the discipline beyond the business domain with partnerships across campus. A short discussion on the progress made in implementing this vision is detailed. The article closes with a discussion of problems and opportunities generated.     

Self-defense and martial arts evaluation for college women: preliminary validation of perceptions of dangerous situations scale

Martial arts and self-defense programs train fearful people, especially women, to be more competent and confident to defend themselves in dangerous situations. However, there are no validated instruments to evaluate the effectiveness of programs purporting to teach self-protection. The Perceptions of Dangerous Situations Scale (PDSS), composed of fear, likelihood and confidence subscales, was developed and validated for university women. Participants were 368 university women, ages 17 to 45 years (M age = 20.7 years). Content validity of the PDSS was established through an expert panel, and construct validity was established through principal components analysis and determination of instructional sensitivity. Reliability was established through alpha coefficients. The PDSS, when used with university women, offers promising measurement opportunities in self-defense and martial arts settings.     

A conceptual framework for understanding information seeking in open-ended information systems

Technologies such as the Internet and World Wide Web are changing our conceptions of information systems, from who uses them and how they are used, to how the systems are created and who is doing the creating. Everyday users are afforded the same information retrieval opportunities as information scientists or librarians by using emerging information systems such as the Web. Yet, defining best practices for assisting users in finding the information they seek remains an unrealized goal. Discovering how users engage in information retrieval and strategy building while searching for information in open-ended systems such as the Web is an area in need of exploration if these systems are to fulfill their potential as tools for information seeking and learning. This paper describes a theoretically and empirically based framework for how users formulate and employ information-seeking strategies in open-ended information systems (OEISs). Background information and challenges related to OEISs are provided. OEIS theoretical and user perspectives are described. An example based on a recent research study is provided to illustrate use of the OEIS information-seeking framework. Implications for practice and research are offered.     

You Gotta Represent¡ Ethnic Identity Development among Hispanic Adolescents

Hispanic students' awareness of cultural, linguistic, and sociopolitical issues are influenced by their experiences in schools and affect their sense of identity. An examination of student discourse between bilingual gifted and bilingual general education students in an urban middle school is presented, with particular attention given to how participating bilingual students relate to each other, peers (in general and gifted education), teachers, administrators, families, and communities, and how they perceive themselves. A discussion of the core issues that emerged, including students' reawakening to their ethnic identity, differing rationales for using native language, and observed differences in self-perceptions between the gifted and general education bilingual Hispanic students is provided, along with results and implications for future research.     

The effects of opposition and gender on knee kinematics and ground reaction force during landing from volleyball block jumps

The aim of this study was to examine the effect of opposition and gender on knee kinematics and ground reaction force during landing from a volleyball block jump. Six female and six male university volleyball players performed two landing tasks: (a) an unopposed and (b) an opposed volleyball block jump and landing. A 12-camera motion analysis system (120 Hz) was used to record knee kinematics, and a force platform (600 Hz) was used to record ground reaction force during landing. The results showed a significant effect for level of opposition in peak normalized ground reaction force (p = .04), knee flexion at ground contact (p = .003), maximum knee flexion (p = .001), and knee flexion range of motion (p = .003). There was a significant effect for gender in maximum knee flexion (p = .01), knee flexion range of motion (p = .001), maximum knee valgus angle (p = .001), and knee valgus range of motion (p = .001). The changes in landing biomechanics as a result of opposition suggest future research on landing mechanics should examine opposed exercises, because opposition may significantly alter neuromuscular responses.     

Do high technology acquirers become more innovative?

Drawing on organizational, managerial and financial theories, we explore whether acquirers become more innovative and the factors that can enhance their absorptive and financial capacity to benefit from acquisition. Over a 3-year post-acquisition window, our sample of 2624 high technology US acquisitions records early reverses followed by positive R&D-intensity changes and insignificant R&D productivity changes. Controlling for acquisition endogeneity and deal-specific effects, significant acquirer characteristic effects emerge. In related acquisitions, a large knowledge base tends to increase R&D productivity, consistent with an enhanced capacity to select and absorb targets. In unrelated acquisitions, however, this relationship becomes increasingly negative as knowledge base concentration increases, consistent with arguments for an impaired peripheral vision and core rigidities. High leverage levels raise R&D productivity gains, consistent with enhanced monitoring induced efficiency. However, high leverage growth reduces R&D-intensity, consistent with increased financial constraints and short-termism.     

Beyond the Poststructuralist-Modern Impasse: The woman returner as 'exile' and 'nomad'

This paper speaks to two articles that have been published in Gender and Education . The first, and most obvious, is that of Tett (2000). Lynn Tett's paper is concerned with an analysis of community activists 'returning' to education. I offer a complementary reading of Tett (2000) in the hope of illustrating the saliency of postcolonial perspectives for developing theorisation in the field of 'women returners'. I do this by drawing on the metaphors of 'exile' (Benhabib, 1992) and 'nomad' (Braidotti, 1994) in order to explore the issues of location and transition that form part of the material and subjective experiences of the returning woman. More immanent, however, is a conversation with Francis (1999). Becky Francis explores the relations between poststructuralism and the modernist emancipatory project of feminism. She illustrates the tensions in the binary of poststructural/modern and makes an appeal that we need to continue to worry away at the 'theoretical brick wall' (p 391) of this binary. My purpose is to contribute to Francis' appeal through the analysis that I present of the multiply located subject-in-process that is the woman returner. Specifically I argue that if we seriously wish to worry away at the binaries in academic debate we need to develop practices of critical literacy that recognise the reader as similarly multiply located and subjectively-in-process. As it is much of the contemporary literature continues to set up the reader as the humanist subject who can rationally choose, and is willing to be fixed by, some form of 'correct' intellectual position.