IS course success in liberal arts institutions - What's the formula?

Much of IS pedagogy research has focused on IS programs in business schools or in computer science departments. Insufficient attention has been given to assessing IS pedagogy in business schools without an IS major and in a strong liberal arts environment where skepticism about IS education is high. We describe a newly-designed IS core course that succeeded in such an environment. Our formula for success comprises of inculcating the notion that IS knowledge has both a business and a technology dimension to it, treating these two dimensions as co-equals, and closely integrating the two dimensions while continuing to deliver technical education using the time-tested active learning approach. The active learning component of this course included working on a set of three software development projects focused on an e-business theme. Furthermore, given our perspective that IS knowledge consists of a business and a technology dimension, we also developed an entirely new approach to measuring learning outcomes. Student outcomes were measured in terms of movements in the two-dimensional IS knowledge space and detected via multivariate analysis of variance. Data on student outcomes were collected from three classes held in consecutive semesters. This study breaks new ground both in terms of how IS learning is conceptualized and measured and in demonstrating the success of a technology-driven pedagogical approach in an essentially non-technical culture. © 2014 by the Education Special Interest Group (EDSIG) of the Association of Information Technology Professionals.