Transformation in IS education : whose concepts should be changing?

Abstract

By its very nature education aims to change learners’ knowledge and this inevitably has an impact on the learners’ world views. This paper explores the dilemmas facing Information Systems (IS) educators with respect to their role in the process of changing learners’ conceptual views of IS. IS as an academic discipline has moved from a ‘technical’ to a ‘socio-technical’ domain, but IS practitioners still work in an IS field dominated by a ‘technical’ world view. Curricula at undergraduate levels reinforce this ‘technical’ standpoint. However, the contemporary debates in IS literature and the ‘socio-technical’ divide facing South Africa suggest the need to adopt a more ‘socio-technical’ approach to IS teaching. Such an approach is adopted, if at all, only at postgraduate level. This raises the question for us as educators regarding the future role for which we educate our IS learners: technical expert; enactor of shared meaning (facilitator), or moral agent for emancipation.