Teaching informatics in North America: Jugglers wanted

Abstract

Teaching informatics (information systems) at the university level in North America is challenging. The teacher in Canada and the United States can be compared to a juggler performing before many spectators. The juggler strives to keep in the air multiple balls that cross each other’s path. A student-learner ball may collide with a student-customer ball, teacher’s needs for new technology and better technological support are countered by funding limitations, while attempts for asserting academic self-identity get confronted by incongruent attributions that the spectators create. Opposed balls come even from the field colleagues when the character of the field and teaching prospects are at stake. The article analyses these tensions and outlines prospects of teaching information systems in North America.