Using Contradictions to Appreciate the History of I.S. Education in South Australia

Abstract

This paper presents one person's interpretation of the history of Information Systems (IS) education in South Australia (SA). The stance used to think about the history was that of seeking the contradictions, underlying tensions, which worked over time to create the present. The paper will argue this stance, suggested to the author, that IS education in SA was influenced significantly by maintaining a "how to" view of teaching IS which failed to distinguish itself from the engineering worldview. It is suggested that a 'trade school' mentality never turned into a critical academic perspective relevant to modern business schools. After explaining the underlying tension stance this paper will use extracts from a long semi-structured interview with two seminal IS educators to support this argument.