The Reflective Information Systems Practitioner Approach as a Research and Learning Expedient

In this position paper the author relates his experiences of combining practical information systems (IS) development work and scholarly research to other research and learning approaches. The overall framework, reflective information systems practice (RISP), is a development of Donald Schön’s (1983, 1987) notion of the reflective practitioner. The specific research problems are drawn from the development history of administrative systems of Helsinki University from the early 1980’s up to the present. The idea of RISP as a research approach grew gradually during the dissertation work of the author (Heiskanen 1994, 1995). The research began in 1987 as a positivistic inquiry to the implementation process of a new student record system of the University. In the early 1980’s the author was a senior analyst developing the software and later a project leader for the decentralisation of the system functions to the departments of the University. During the process he also became the Chief Information Systems Officer of the University. Gradually during the late 1980’s and the early 1990’s the positivistic approach was replaced with a more hermeneutic or phenomenological view. Later the scope of research was enlarged to other fields, like in personnel and economic administration (Heiskanen and Assinen 2003; Heiskanen and Newman 1998; Heiskanen, Newman and Similä 2000), and cooperation between several universities when developing a common student record system (Heiskanen, Newman and Saarinen 1998).