New Content, New Form
Ken Peffers · The Journal of Information Technology Theory and Application · 2003
Applying coordination theory to avoid collisions Peer-2-peer networks Requirements elicitation Genre analysis Practical theory This issue breaks new ground for IS research in two ways, consistent with JITTA's explicit objective to publish exciting new research quickly. The first paper (Crowston 2003) introduces a new stream of research for the IS discipline with an investigation of collision avoidance in transportation. The remaining three papers are novel in the way that they present research. IS researchers have continuously tested the boundaries of our discipline when we have found new problems, new technologies, and new environments to investigate. In the issue's lead article, Crowston (2003) opens up a new stream of research, using coordination theory to investigate collision avoidance among transportation vehicles. He investigates collision avoidance in four modes of transportation, automobile, trains, ships, and aircraft, identifying the coordination mechanisms and procedures in use for each mode. He analyzes each mode to identify possible coordination mechanisms that might be exploited, particularly when supported by advanced information technology. This research has the potential to segue a new stream of research in IS to support the coordination of transportation vehicles, which, in turn, may have the potential to spur innovative use of IT applied to transportation. The next three papers showcase an innovative publication form, the state of research review (SORR). SORR papers are intended to review current efforts in a focused stream of IS research to call attention to important streams long before the results of those streams is presented in traditional IS research journals, often two years or more, on average, later. SORR articles can clearly increase the velocity of the research life cycle in IS, critical for a discipline driven by technological and social change and challenges to its applicability. They may help potential research collaborators to find each other early in the research process. They may raise interest among researchers in new research streams, thus encouraging involvement. Krishnan, Smith, and Telang (2003) review the nascent research about the economics of peer-to-peer (P2P) networks to identify current and potential research in this area. They start with an overview of the architecture of the P2P network and its adoption, then they proceed with an analysis of its economic characteristics, highlighting research presented at the 2003 Workshop on the Economics of Peer-to-Peer Networks at the University of California at Berkeley. Finally, they use this research to discuss areas of potential research in this stream. Tuunanen (2003) reviews research about IS requirements elicitation for wide audience end users, e.g., end users who are outside the boundaries of the firm or who are hard to identify because they are not yet users. He develops a framework to analyze concepts for such elicitation that incorporates reach (the extent to which methods based on the concept can include various user types) and communication (the level and types of interaction between users and developers). …