Suggests an alternative document representation method based on "exemplary documents," those that describe or exhibit the intellectual structure of a particular field of interest. Exemplary documents provide both an indexing vocabulary for that area and a narrative context in which the indexing terms have a clearer meaning. It is much…

Information systems (IS) professionals are called on to produce increasingly sophisticated user interfaces as a part of software development. Although IS education includes coverage of user interface (UI) development, classroom presentation of this topic frequently is cursory and does not provide any particular methodology for the task. In this…

The House Armed Services Committee asked the GAO (General Accounting Office) to examine the HPCC (High Performance Computing and Communications) program in terms of: (1) the effectiveness of the program's management structure in setting goals and measuring progress, and (2) how extensively private industry has been involved in the planning and…

Argues that there is a fundamental gap between the knowledge that the information systems development community values and that which cultural analysis yields. Suggests that developers, rather than trying to explain social behavior and knowledge with rules, should be concerned with the production of contesting rules and what the production tells…

Four articles respond to the Bader and Nyce position that it is unlikely cultural analysis will become a routine tool for information systems developers with these arguments: ethnographic work can aid software development; the problem lies with inappropriate application of social science methods; the problem is technique, not fundamentals; and…

Describes a prototype information access system developed by NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration) called NAM (NASA Access Mechanism) to access the Internet for research and development activities. Topics addressed include the Science and Technical Information Program, information needs, networking requirements, functional and…