MSIS 2016: a comprehensive update of graduate level curriculum recommendation in Information Systems

The process to revise MSIS 2006, the master's level curriculum recommendation for Information Systems, is getting close to completion. In spring and summer 2016, the joint AIS/ACM task force will continue the process of soliciting comments from various stakeholders, including the academic IS community and employers. The purpose of the AMCIS panel is to give the audience an update of the status of the MSIS 2016 revision process and provide the task force with feedback regarding the draft document. A significant portion of the session will be reserved for conversation. The task force is proposing significant changes to the curriculum content and structure, including the new curriculum's focus on specifying desired graduate competencies instead of articulating courses or knowledge areas/units. Some of the changes are a reflection of the changes in the process used to revise the curriculum: MSIS 2016 will be a result of a truly global process.The MSIS 2016 task force thanks all members of the IS community and other stakeholders of the project for all the invaluable feedback and comments we have received throughout the process.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

MSIS 2016 global competency model for graduate degree programs in information systems

[Extract] This document, “MSIS 2016: Global Competency Model for Graduate Degree Programs in Information Systems”, is the latest in the series of reports that provides guidance for degree programs in the Information Systems (IS) academic discipline. MSIS 2016 is the seventh collaborative effort between ACM and AIS (following IS’97, IS 2002, and IS 2010 at the undergraduate level; MSIS 2000 and MSIS 2006 at the graduate level; and CC 2005 as an integrative document).(undefined)info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Current MSIS students' views on program outcomes

This paper reports the results of a pilot survey sent to current specialized master's students in Information Systems at several universities around the world. The survey was developed to support the MSIS revision process, but the results will also provide insights on the perceptions of current IS master's students regarding their current degree program. The results suggest that the respondents valued individual foundational skills and high-level business competences more than technical or lower-level managerial competences. The study utilized competence specifications from the European e-CF 3.0 model, which was useful and performed well as a competence framework.(undefined)info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Partitioning direct and indirect effects reveals the response of water-limited ecosystems to elevated CO2

Increasing concentrations of atmospheric carbon dioxide are expected to affect carbon assimilation and evapotranspiration (ET), ultimately driving changes in plant growth, hydrology and the global carbon balance. Direct leaf biochemical effects have been widely investigated, while indirect effects, although documented, elude explicit quantification in experiments. Here, we used a mechanistic model to investigate the relative contributions of direct (through carbon assimilation) and indirect (via soil moisture savings due to stomatal closure, and changes in leaf area index, LAI) effects of elevated CO2 across a variety of ecosystems. We specifically determined which ecosystems and climatic conditions maximise the indirect effects of elevated CO2. The simulations suggest that the indirect effects of elevated CO2 on net primary productivity are large and variable, ranging from less than 10% to more than 100% of the size of direct effects. For ET, indirect effects were on average 65% of the size of direct effects. Indirect effects tended to be considerably larger in water-limited ecosystems. As a consequence, the total CO2 effect had a significant, inverse relationship with the wetness index and was directly related to vapor pressure deficit. These results have major implications for our understanding of the CO2-response of ecosystems and for global projections of CO2 fertilization because, while direct effects are typically understood and easily reproducible in models, simulations of indirect effects are far more challenging and difficult to constrain. Our findings also provide an explanation for the discrepancies between experiments in the total CO2 effect on net primary productivity