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dently (with the instructor) developing their thesis proposal. This activity

may include: pilot experiments or studies, instrument development, simulation
development or testing and other activities concomitant with the students!

topic analysis. Near the end of the semester each student will: 1) make a thirty
to forty minute oral presentation of their proposal to members of the class dnd in-
vited participants and defend their proposal in subseguent discussions, and

2) turn in a formal written thesis proposal.

Conduct of the course for the research group: The first half of the

semester will be spent in examining research process in the context of the MIS
field. The second half of the semester will be devoted to an examination of
the research defining the current frontiers of knowledge in several topic areas
within the MIS field.  Extensive reading assignments are employed throughout
this course.

One student will be assigned primary responsibility for each reading
assignment. That student willt 1) prepare and present a l0 minute discussion
of the material, 2) lead the subseguent class discussion, 3) prepare a short
(less than 1/2 page double spaced) abstract of the assignment, and 4) prepare
a one to three page summary of the material including its relation to other
relevant material.  (Items 3 and 4 are to be neatly prepared and a copy is to
be distributed to each member of the class.) FEach student will read all assign-
ments before the class on which they are due. This group will cover a subset of
the material covered in S601 and S602,

COURSE OBJECTIVE, THESIS PROPOSAL GROUP

Upon completing the course, the student will be able to independently
complete a topic analysis and will understand the role of a research proposal.
The student will have completed the development of a research proposal and
understand the process of presenting, and defending a proposal. The student
will be eguipped to successfully present and defend a doctoral thesis proposal
upon completing this course.

COURSE OBJECTIVE, RESEARCH GROUP

Upon completing this course the student will understand the research pro-
cess and be familiar with the literature, tools and technigues associated with
each phase of the process from library research through objective specification,
topic analysis, hypothesis formulation, selection of research strategies and
experimental design, data collection and analysis, to the preparation of pub-
lishable research reports. The student will also bc ablc to identify the major
contingencies which influence the process or phases within the overall process;
(e.g. operating paradigms, scientifie versus socio-technical methods, empirical
versus theoretical, theory building versus testing, nomothetic versus idiographic,
causal versus correlational, etc.) "The student will understand many of the cur-
rent frontiers of knowledge in most of the topic areas within the MIS field. The
student will recognize the relationships between the research objectives and the
research technigues employed in examining the topic area. The student will
understand the current paradigms which guide the research activities in several
topic areas.