WELCOME TO THE INSTITUTE FOR MIS!

The Institute for Management Information Systems I am heading since fall 2009 was originally founded by Prof. Hans Robert Hansen in 1978 who chaired it for over 30 years. It is part of the Department of Information Systems and Operations at WU, which currently has seven senior faculty members in IS and 61 academic staff members, and is ranked as one of the top research institutions for IS in the German-speaking world.

Since its founding, the Institute has been known for its strength in E-Marketing, later embracing E-Commerce and Services as its research and teaching emphases. With the increasingly ubiquitous availability of computing in everyday private life, the Institute is now integrating concepts such as the ‘Internet of Things’, ‘Ubiquitous Commerce’ and the ‘Web 2.0’ into its thematic spectrum. This means that not only traditional business computing systems are taught and researched at the Institute, but any kind of client system, including mobile and embedded systems (Radio Frequency Identification Sensor Networks, etc.). Research in these areas focuses on understanding IT users’ behavior and expectations in their diverse roles as consumers, citizens, community members or employees. Consequences for IT system design are then deducted based on this user understanding.

Against this thematic background the Institute offers a highly interesting syllabus for students specializing in IT. At the bachelor level (SBWL), students are introduced to the basics of every-day computing, learn to use easy-to-handle programming tools for common management routines and hear about key marketing and market models in today‘s E-Commerce.

At the master level, the Institute offers a specialization in ‘E-Marketing and Services’. Here, students learn about the whole spectrum of what drives B-2-C innovations’ success: IT product design is taught from a user-centric perspective and complemented with current theory in value sensitive, ethical system design. E-Marketing looks at how virtual worlds as well as smart retail environments drive product sales. Students are introduced to E-Market Models and Internet Economics that differ so greatly from physical markets. A further key mission of the Institute is to promote ethical design of information systems. Therefore, a course in ‘IS and Society’ is part of the teaching program, as is E-Democracy in the context of an E-Government lecture.

Last but not least, Prof. Hansen and his team developed and regularly updated “Wirtschaftsinformatik”, one of the most well-known German-language business informatics textbooks. The contents of this textbook make up the basis for Information Systems education at WU, and will continue to be a key component of undergraduate education in the future. It will be further developed and taught at the Institute in cooperation with the Institute for Information Systems and New Media.