Towards a research agenda for information technology

The last few years have seen the emergence of a an increasing number of academic degree programs in Information Technology (IT), as well as the establishment of a growing number of academic departments of IT. IT has also started to make its mark with various other agencies, such as accreditation bodies. However, the growing reputation of IT with students, academic administrators and others has not necessarily translated into academic respectability. It is not uncommon to hear that IT is nothing new and is at best a subfield of an existing discipline, and at worst a weakened version of it. This paper argues that, to the extent that it is desirable for IT to establish itself as a respected academic discipline, the field must communicate its distinctive nature through the formulation of a research agenda. The paper also proposes a possible research agenda for IT, based around the suggestion that IT, as an academic discipline, work toward a theory about how to provide value to users, at a cost acceptable to them, through the creation, selection, application, integration and administration of computing technologies.