Towards an
Information Systems Engineering Body of Knowledge
H.A. Proper
University of Nijmegen
Sub-faculty of Informatics
IRIS Group
Toernooiveld 1
6525 ED Nijmegen
The Netherlands
E.Proper@acm.org
H. Bosma
Ordina Institute
Groningenweg 6
2803 PV Gouda
The Netherlands
H.Bosma@institute.nl
S.J.B.A. Hoppenbrouwers
University of Nijmegen
Sub-faculty of Informatics
IRIS Group
Toernooiveld 1
6525 ED Nijmegen
The Netherlands
StijnH@cs.kun.nl
R.D.T. Janssen
Ordina Institute
Groningenweg 6
2803 PV Gouda
The Netherlands
Rik.Janssen@ordina.institute.nl
June 23, 2004
PUBLISHED AS:
H.A. Proper, H. Bosma, S.J.B.A. Hoppenbrouwers, and R.D.T. Janssen. Towards an Infor-
mation Systems Engineering Body of Knowledge. In D.B.B. Rijsenbrij, editor, Proceedings
of the Second National Architecture Congres, Amsterdam, The Netherlands, EU, November
2000.
Abstract
Though there may be millions of professionals worldwide acting as a designer, architect, or engineer
in the design, realisation, and implementation of information systems, there is not yet a well established
and clearly identified body of knowledge that can be said to define the profession.
In this article, we present the idea of developing an information systems engineering body of knowl-
edge. Such a body of knowledge could play a pivotal role in the further professionalisation of our
discipline. The approach we take is an organic approach in which we first aim to gather a library with
significant knowledge, demarcating the field, and then move on to integrate this into a consistent body of
knowledge.
We also realise that this effort can not be done in isolation. This article should therefore also be
regarded as an invitation for additional participants.
1 Introduction
Even though there may be millions of professionals worldwide who act as a designer, architect, or engineer
in the design, realisation, and implementation of information systems, the field of information systems
engineering has not yet reached the full status of a recognised profession. With the term information
systems engineering we actually refer to all activities involved in the design, realisation and implementation
of information systems. This essentially ranges from the high level design of a portfolio of information
systems (an information architecture) to the design and realisation of a specific information system.
The Software Engineering Body of Knowledge (SWEBOK) project [SWE01] started out from a similar
observation on the field of software engineering. In [SWE01] the following motivation of the SWEBOK
project is provided:
In other engineering disciplines, the accreditation of university curricula and the licensing and
certification of practicing professionals are taken very seriously. These activities are seen as
critical to the constant upgrading of professionals and, hence, the improvement of the level of
professional practice. Recognizing a core body of knowledge is pivotal to the development
and accreditation of university curricula and the licensing and certification of professionals.
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It is our belief that this motivation not only applies to software engineering, but equally well applies to the
field of information system engineering. The reason being that the field of information systems engineering
is a field that is still under development, and is slowly gaining the appreciation it deserves as a distinct
discipline.
Two key differences between information systems engineering and software engineering are:
• Information systems engineering exclusively focuses on systems handling information, while soft-
ware engineering has a broader focus in this sense.
• Software engineering focuses on software, and as such, limits itself to computerised (information)
systems only. Information systems engineering is therefore broader in the sense that it is not only
focussed in computerised systems, but includes manual aspects of information processing as well.
For information systems engineering, the business, cultural, human and organisational context is just
as important as the automated parts of an information system.
The latter difference makes it also much harder to clearly demarcate the information systems engineering
field in comparison to software engineering.
We feel that the development of an explicit and accepted body of knowledge for the information systems
engineering profession would, for example:
• Allow Universities and training institutes to tune their curricula to a well defined body of knowledge
accepted by both industry and academia.
• Allow for the identification of distinct roles in the information system engineering process and related
forms of certification.
• Allow managers of information systems engineering projects to constitute project teams with pro-
fessionals who share a common terminology and understanding of the profession.
• Allow client organisations to organise second opinion reviews among providers of information sys-
tem engineering.
• Allow for re-use of experiences and materials between practitioners, preventing them from having to
re-invent the wheel over and over.
In line with [SWE01], we define the body of knowledge for information systems engineering to be an
all-inclusive term that describes the sum of knowledge within the profession of information systems engi-
neering.
Three other examples of, ICT related, bodies of knowledge with ensuing standardisation, certification
and training activities are:
1. The IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL) for IT infrastructure management [ITI98].
2. The Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK) for project management [PMB01].
3. The Information Services Procurement Library (ISPL) for procurement of information services [FV99].
We mention these examples to illustrate the importance of having such a body of knowledge. ITIL, at least
in the Dutch context, has evolved into a well-known standard work on IT infrastructure management. The
project management body of knowledge may not be that well-known in the ICT communities, however,
it appears to be a well-accepted standard for project management certification in the United States of
America. ISPL has not yet reached the same status as ITIL already has, although the intention of the
European Union (the main sponsor of the project leading to ISPL), is to make it into a standard body of
knowledge for procurement of information services.
In our opinion, having an ”Information Systems Engineering Body of Knowledge (ISEBOK)”, would
add to the maturity of our profession. In this paper we report on a project in progress, currently involving
Ordina and the University of Nijmegen, that aims to develop an initial and modest form of such a body of
knowledge in terms of a library.
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