Early history of the information systems discipline in the UK: An account based on living through the period

Abstract

In 2012, the Association for Information Systems (AIS) decided to establish the history of IS as a major study domain and, in 2013, appointed Professor Ping Zhang from Syracuse University as AIS Historian. One of her first acts was to set up a panel at each of the major AIS-sponsored conferences to examine aspects of IS history. The first conference with a history panel was the June 2013 ECIS in Utrecht. The panelists chosen by Professor Zhang had all contributed to the early developments of IS as practitioners and academics. They included Professor Carol Saunders from the USA, Professor Phillip Ein-Dor from Israel, Professor Niels Bjorn-Andersen from Denmark, and Professor Frank Land from the UK. The panel was chaired by Professor Ping Zhang, who also acted as mediator. This paper is based on my contribution to the panel.