Professional organization

Discussion in 'IT and Computer-Related Degrees' started by bycom, Jan 31, 2002.

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  1. bycom

    bycom New Member

    This might be a little off topic, but I was wondering if it would be a good idea to join any professional organization in the information system area while I am working on my doctoral program in information systems. If so, what organizations would anyone recommend? Would membership improve the overall experience of education?

    Bill
     
  2. J. Ayers

    J. Ayers New Member

    Good afternoon!

    Your idea is very sound, and there are numerous professional organizations in your general field. If you visit http://www.acm.org on the web, you will see one of the top professional societies, the Association for Computing Machinery. Their Digital Library alone is worth the price of admission during a literature review, and they have many different conferences and journals that are on the leading edge.

    If you join, make sure you pick the right special interest groups (SIGs) in this or any other professional society. If your research area is in computer-supported cooperative work, then join SIGGROUP within the ACM. The same approach holds true for other societies. You may be interested in the American Society for Information Science and Technology, and http://www.asis.org is their web site. If you are more focused on hardware/software research, the IEEE or the IEEE Computer Society may be more appropriate.

    You may consider asking your potential advisor which societies he/she has joined. If you don't have an advisor yet, look at the faculty bios on the department web site to see professional affiliations. Your literature review may also lead you to particular journals that tend to produce research in your specific area. Even though it doesn't help in your area of IS/IT, articles in the Academy of Management Journal led me to the AoM and articles in the Engineering Management Journal led me to the sponsoring society, the ASEM.

    If you have the opportunity, consider attending local chapter meetings in your selected society. Other idea-generating and networking opportunities exist at a typical society's annual conference or other sponsored events.

    Good luck in your drive to expand your educational experiences!
     
  3. I recommend the ISWorld PhD page as a starting point: http://disc-nt.cba.uh.edu/isworldphd/phd.htm

    Has some relevant links.
     

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