on the Road to the Future

Fellowships

2012-01-24T08:19:00.000-08:00

It's time for me to recruit some PhDs or PostDocs. I would encourage any one who are interested in my research area to consider applying this fund. I could be the host and supervisor for this fund. My research area is virtual communities, focusing on virtual community participation behaviour, virtual world behavior, knowledge creation in virtual communities, new product development in virtual communities; business process management focusing on process optimization, process innovation, and business process change.

Marie Curie Fellowships
http://cordis.europa.eu/improving/fellowships/home.htm
British Academy
http://www.britac.ac.uk/funding/guide/pdfells.cfm
Newton Fellowships
http://www.newtonfellowships.org/

Technology and Community--Weaving a FutureTogether

2012-01-20T09:31:00.000-08:00

I have been reading Etienne et al's book, Digital Habitats, stewarding communities for technology, for several months. Only recently I started to read into it. I found it's very interesting because I have been thinking of technologies and communities for quite a while. The main points here in the chapter 2 is quite simple, technology generate communities by linking different people together and community stimulate technologies because needs come from communities to create new technologies.

Here are some milestones from technology-->community side.
1. PLATO is first online community sett up by David Woodley in 1973
http://thinkofit.com/plato/dwplato.htm
2. EIES, the Electronic Information Exchange System is the first computer conference systems set up by Murrat Turoff and S. Roxanne Hiltz in 1977

3. Bulletin Boards and Email Lists were invented by Ward Christianson in 1977-1978.
http://www.wired.com/thisdayintech/tag/ward-christensen/
4. Usenet or newsgroup started to be popular in 1979

5. The Well, the first online community with boundaries, norms, and agreements and customized technology platform designed to support distinct topical subgroups

6. Large-scale commercial bulletin board services in early 1990s

7. The world Wide Web-Web 1.0 started in 1993

8. Web 20. was popularized by Tim O'Reilly in 2005
http://oreilly.com/web2/archive/what-is-web-20.html

Here are the roads fro technology to community side.

1. The PLATO came about because there is a need for people in the PLATO community to track bugs.
2. The Internauts
As Barry Leiner, Vint Cerf, and other progenitors recount, its very evolution happened in large part because of their community of internaunts.
http://www.internetsociety.org/internet/internet-51/history-internet/brief-history-internet

3. Physicists at CERN
The WWW was initially conceived to support the work of a community.
http://www.zakon.org/robert/internet/timeline/

4. Software developers and "the wiki"
Wiki was initially invented by Ward Cunningham for the purpose of creating the simplest possible website where anybody who wanted to could easily edit any page.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ward_Cunningham

5. Open-source communities
The open souce community has developed lasting relationship with organizations and adapts, extends, and in some case invented technologies

PACIS 2013

2012-01-14T12:09:00.000-08:00

I never really thought about being in Korean. However, I was invited to be the track chair of the IS Learning and Education for PACIS 2013 in Korean. I was so excited for that. I have been writing papers with a Korean coauthor for 4 years but never in Korea.

That's all what I know about Korea:
1. excellent broadband infrastructure with fast growing gaming technology
2. Amazing faith in Jesus and miracles from heaven

I wish to have a wonderful experience in Korea and know many friends there.

I should pray for this trip well in advance.

As for myself, I should also pray for my writing and research!

Endnote X5 and Word 2010

2012-01-01T13:11:00.000-08:00

I just started to work today and hope to have a good start for 2012. But I was stuck with the software immediately after I started my writing. I installed Endnote X5 and expected it to work properly in Word 2010. It does not turn out to be so. The Endnote X5 add-in panel does not show up in Word 2010 Ribbon. I Googled all the answers to the solution and only found that Endnote X5 supported both 32 and 64 bit Word 2010 versions. I also checked several other articles on sorting out the issues with CMD command. It all involves a file under C:\Programs files (x86)\ Endnote X5\Product-Support\CWYW\x64\, Endnote CWYW.dll. CWYW means Cite While You Write and this dll file should be registered into the Office Adds-on database. No matter how complicated it is, I figure it out and am so proud of myself. Amazingly, they all did not work. I tried all methods till it's at my wit's end. Suddenly, something sparked in my brain. I thought of one of the funny jokes about Windows.

A project manager, a computer programmer and a computer operator are driving down the road when the car they are in gets a flat tire. The three men try to solve the problem.

The project manager said: "Let's catch a cab and in ten minutes we'll reach our destination."

The computer programmer said: "We have here the driver's guide. I can easily replace the flat tire and continue our drive."

The computer operator said: "First of all, let's turn off the engine and turn it on again. Maybe it will fix the problem."

Suddenly a Microsoft software engineer passed by and said: "try to close all windows, get off the car, and then get in and try again."

Source: http://www.workjoke.com/programmers-jokes.html

I was inspired to uninstall Endnote X5, close all windows, restart the computer, and re-install Endnote X5. Here it works! The Endnote X5 Adds-on came out ;)!!!!!

See, we needn't to be smart but to be silly sometimes ;).

HCI Forum

2011-11-22T05:28:00.001-08:00

International Journal of Human-Computer Studies

jot down these two sites for me to visit. I need locate a journal to submit my research papers.

weblogs: a history and perspective

2011-10-31T14:11:00.001-07:00

MetaFilter.com

weblogs: a history and perspective

My Recent Reflections--Research Integrity

2011-09-08T17:26:00.000-07:00

I want to draw your attention to several recent news on withdrawing scientific papers from the journal. Case 1 is from the health field, a very famous professor Zhiguo Wang in Montreal Heart Institute was revoked from his research privilege. His laboratory was permanently closed. The link to this news is here. Another news is from the economic field. Bruno Fray, a famous professor in Economics in University of Zurich, recently re-submitted his similar studies to four journals and they were all published. David H. Auto, the editor of Journal of Economic Perspectives published their correspondences in the journal, http://pubs.aeaweb.org/doi/pdfplus/10.1257/jep.25.3.239. I was also pointed to the repec plagiarism webpage with all plagiarism cases listed, http://plagiarism.repec.org/.I have never known that the plagiarism or unfair practice is also very popular among researchers. It should be very cautious to do research. Research integrity should be well maintained, especially when we start our career early. However, I would like to thank God to deliver me out of my perception on research. I used to think researchers are dull and boring and not attractive. However, God changed my view on this today. I was so happy now and can enjoy writing freely. I just want to thank God for that!

Some Readings on Information Sciences

2011-08-18T09:55:00.000-07:00

I have been recharging myself recently. This is a reading list on information sciences from a friend in Informatics field.

Dervin, B., & Nilan, M. (1986). Information needs and uses. Annual Review of Information Science and Technology, 21, 3-33.

Jonassen, D. H., & Beissner, K. (1993). Structural knowledge: Techniques for representing, conveying, and acquiring structural knowledge. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum

Marchionini, G. (1995). Information seeking in electronic environments. New York: Cambridge University Press.

R Wilson, T. D. (1997). Information behavior: An interdisciplinary perspective. . Information Processing and Management, 33(4), 551-572. R Wilson, T. D. (1999). Models in information behavior research. Journal of Documentation, 55(3), 249-270.

R Shannon, C. E., & Weaver, W. (1964). Introductory note on the general setting of the analytical communication studies. In W. Weaver & C. E. Shannon (Eds.), The mathematical theory of communication.

Kuhlthau, C. C. (2004). Seeking meaning: A process approach to library and information services (2nd ed.). Englewood, CO: Libraries Unlimited. Rice, R. E., McCreadie, M., & Chang, S. L. (2001). Accessing and browsing information and communication. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.

Case, D. O. (2002). Looking for information: A survey of research on information seeking, needs, and behavior. San Diego, Calif.: Academic Press.

Wiley: Data Driven Business Decisions

2011-08-11T22:17:00.000-07:00

Wiley: Data Driven Business Decisions
It's now easier to write papers and blog with Android tablet. I prefer to have eee Pad Transformer.

The Progress of Technology

2011-07-12T08:34:00.002-07:00

chAs I am on Holidays in Scotland, I would like to write down some interesting findings about technology.

I have been in Gartmore House for summer holidays for four years and I have seen how technology has been diffused here. This is the forth year I am here in Scotland for summer holiday. Gartmore house is a big castle hotel isolated and remote from the main city or town area of Scotland. It's close to Aberfoyle, about 5 minutes by driving and 40 minutes by walk.

When I first came here in 2008, they didn't really have any computers at all. Because I really need to check my emails in case students found me urgently, I asked the managers about the computers. That's what I found in the Library of the house, an old computer with a CRT monitor facilitated by the dialed modem. I have to say UK is really lack in many technologies. When I first did my virtual community presentation in 2007, no one really understands what I am talking. I tried very hard to connect into the Internet and managed to replied several emails for the my first year staying here.

Then, it came to year 2009 summer, when I gave up the internet expectation because of the previous year's experience. I didn't expect that a Wi-Fi is running at that time. However, it's quite hard for me to connect to the Internet because of the poor signal. I didn't enjoy the Wi-Fi very much.

When it came to last year of 2010, I got my newly signed HTC Desire, an Android phone with the unlimited free Internet. I did expect that the HTC Desire run on the T-Mobile platform could exert its claimed function of unlimited free internet access everywhere any time. I was so disappointed to find out that I even couldn't make a phone call with the T-Mobile service. T-Mobile is notorious for its poor signal quality before but I never really realized that it totally lost signal here in Scotland. I then run about one mile away from the House to get signals as well as emails brought from the 3G internet connection. I also tried very hard to receive the Wi-Fi with my mobile in a very small corner of the house. I finally gave up because of the unstable signal.

I think I experienced the hey day of technologies in Gartmore this year. I can fully enjoy all the benefits of technology now, both the mobile phone signals and the Wi-Fi signals. Today is my second day of staying here and I am enjoying the fair Wi-Fi signal with both my mobile phone and my laptop. I was also very happy to find that my HTC Desire function well with the mobile phone signal. This is due to the merge of T-Mobile and Orange. I am now using the orange signal here in Scotland. Alliance is better strategy than fighting alone!

It takes 4-6 years for a hotel like Gartmore house to be full-fledged with technology. How about the whole society? We researchers really need to think deeper about the pace of technology diffusions.

Some Reflections

2011-07-08T08:08:00.000-07:00

I have been in a superficial level since I started my research. I need to ground into the reality for my research. I would like to find an area to contribute to. I expect myself to contribute to the Business Process Management area.

I would really enrich my knowledge in Economics, Business, and Psychology to do so. I expect to use mathematics as a tool in the next 2-3 years. I hope to publish 3-4 papers in this area, expecting 1-2 in top tier journals.

I found a very interesting index while communicating with a friend in Economics.

CIS, Community Innovation Statistics from the Eurostat

I also need to read the history of the psychology.

http://webspace.ship.edu/cgboer/historyofpsych.html

I need to be fully charged up!!!!

then produce some more fruits!

Application for PHD in UK

2011-04-26T04:39:00.001-07:00

One of my students asked me about Ph.D. application preparation in UK and I don't really know the process. I searched the internet and found this link, which I thought quite useful. Just jot down here for the reference.

http://www.findaphd.com/student/study/study-1.asp

How to make a movie

2011-02-08T06:36:00.000-08:00

I am preparing teaching for systems analysis & design. Since most of my students are from level 2 without much background about business and software development, it's quite hard for me to illustrate clearly what it means for the software development project. Someone likes to described it as something similar to house building but I think it's more like the movie making process. Here I found an interesting link talking about movie making process.

http://www.ymilive.org/site/toolbox/movie-making-process.html

I hope my students would like that.

How long does it take to make a movie?

I got answers from answers.com, http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20061021211529AAR9VHN.

I am going to use a movie end to illustrate that SAD is like making a movie in some way.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?annotation_id=annotation_174760&feature=iv&v=qHi1gifyLdU.

We are in Web 2.0 age

2011-01-05T16:01:00.000-08:00

I just came across a very interesting software called MetaSeeker and jolt it down.

http://www.gooseeker.com/cn/node/solution/front.

Internet Banking information from Mckinsey Financial Services

2010-09-29T09:09:00.000-07:00

While revising a paper, I found that the academic write for write and publish for publish, leading us isolated from the general industry. Sometimes, we just forgot why we write and why we do research. We are packed by concepts of high ranking journal publications because our promotion is closely linked with the number of publications and quality of publications. However, if we just forgot our initial motivation for doing research, we lost our horizons. That's why I spend several days to read articles on internet banking to revise a paper on e-banking. Initially, I only write to graduate and to find a job, but I decide to write for truth and knowledge. I decide to write to contribute to the field and to the general public. I want to be light in the academic world.

So, here we are. I just jotted down a new site, Mckinsey Financial service for record. I was especially attracted by all kinds of survey and reports provided by the Mckinsey on payments electronic magzine. I want to broaden my view on the industry knowledge from that.

http://www.mckinsey.com/clientservice/Financial_Services/Knowledge_Highlights/Recent_Reports/Payments.aspx

In the meantime, we can explore the Mckinsey website to find more interesting industry information, such as the business technology sector at the following address

http://www.mckinsey.com/clientservice/bto/home.asp

I love to write real stuff with interests.

you can change the world

2010-09-28T12:10:00.000-07:00

you can change the world

As an academic staff, the most annoying thing is not teaching but research. It's said that publish or perish. So, numerous researchers struggle to publish. This is extremely true when the promotion is associated with publications. It also become a hidden truth when evaluating the university's reputation and performance. In UK, the grant and fund allocation is closely related with the RAE of the research outputs. The RAE output directly influence the university and school's ranking.

I didn't realize this until I was reviewed for my first year probation. I published one journal paper in Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology (JASIST), with impact factor 2.6 ranked by Thomason Reuters. It's a top tier journal in the united states but not listed in the ABS listing, the journal ranking in UK at all. I was so disappointed when I know this. However, there is a strong voice saying that I can change the world. Why can't I just suggest the ABS to include such a good journal into the ABS listing? So I wrote to the ABS listing contact person, with the description of the journal plus the citation impact factor. I then got a reply saying that they will consider listing JASIST into the list.

I didn't realize how joyful I am until today when I see ABS included the JASIST in the listing. I then published a 3 star Journal paper in my probational period. The top is 4 star. 3 star will produce quite big impact in the RAE in 2012. Thanks to God that I tried and he answered. I can change the world! After this paper included, I have two 3 star journal papers, leading me to evaluate my position in the field to a better place. I don't have any fear in my career at all. I should thank God that I kept my spirit burning all the time.

So do you. If you want to change the world, do it courageously and God is leading you. I was often encourage by what's in the Even Almighty, I want to change the world. How can you do so? By building an ark once a time.

I love this world and this school.

Google Chrome has Dictionary Extension

2010-09-20T04:25:00.000-07:00

I am not good at vocabulary, especially at those new words. I used to use a Chinese software Ciba installed in my computer to find words. However, I stopped the usage after finding google dictionary. It's inconvenient to use Google Dictionary because it can't explain words in the program and you need to type in the words manually. I just met this extension from Google Chrome. It's so convenient by just selecting the word the explanation coming out. Here we are, technology changes the business process to change our life.

https://chrome.google.com/extensions/detail/mgijmajocgfcbeboacabfgobmjgjcoja

New term begins now

2010-09-17T10:06:00.001-07:00

I begin setting up blackboard systems now. As I am going to teach a new course social computing for business, I would rather to learn some blackboard skills to make the course attractive to students. I now jot down the blackboard function of making course available.

It's under Users and Groups-->Customisation-->properties

Details could be found here.

http://info.uwe.ac.uk/online/blackboard/staff/guides/availability.asp.

I would like also jot down some new MIS textbooks.

Information Systems: A Manager’s Guide to Harnessing

by John Gallaugher

http://www.flatworldknowledge.com/pub/1.0/information-systems-manager%E2%80%99s-/206321

Technology limits and binds our life

2010-06-02T07:47:00.000-07:00

I tried to send notification of acceptance letter to my book authors by mail merge function in Word 2010 but failed many times. After several times of trials and errs, I almost gave up. Finally I was successful but feel so fatigued.

Just want to jot down points to be bear in mind. When setting up the gmail account in outlook, the IMAP server should use port 993 as the incoming mail server and 587 as the outgoing SMTP server.

So, tired.

Visio and ERD

2010-05-26T16:32:00.000-07:00

Just want to jot down two resources for ERD.

http://rapidapplicationdevelopment.blogspot.com/2007/06/entity-relationship-diagram-example.html

http://www.gliffy.com/gliffy/

an free online diagram software. It can even draw UML.

virtual communities and collective consciousness

2010-04-19T05:13:00.001-07:00

I just want to jot down a thought coming into my mind recently. When many people gathered together in virtual communities, people's concepts are left there. Gradually, something called collective intelligence or collective awarenesss emerges from there. When a certain amount of collective awareness or consciouness is accumulated, something called collective intelligence is there. The research in the collective intelligence aims at finding out how this collective intelligence can help people to achieve there objectvies. For example, how can the collective intelligence from the customer be used to improve customer services and product innovation? How can collective intelligence from the employees can improve the operation of the company? How can this collective intelligence can be used to change the society as a whole to lead to a better life for people in general?

There are many interesting questions here to explore.

CALL FOR CHAPTER PROPOSALS: Virtual Community Participation and Motivation: Cross-Disciplinary Theories

2010-04-12T11:13:00.000-07:00

CALL FOR CHAPTER PROPOSALS

Extended Proposal Submission Deadline: April 13, 2010

Virtual Community Participation and Motivation: Cross-Disciplinary Theories

A book edited by Dr. Honglei Li

Swansea University, United Kingdom

To be published by IGI Global: http://www.igi-global.com/requests/details.asp?ID=762

Introduction

This book intends to give a comprehensive view on virtual community participation. With the power to gather people with similar interests together, virtual communities have gained attention by not only practitioners, but researchers, as well. Various studies have been done to explore why people participate in virtual communities since it is only after aggregating a certain amount of members that a virtual community can be viable. Virtual community participation refers to those behaviours in which members mainly participate. Basically, past researchers have found two types of behaviours: lurking and active participation. Although many studies discussed the motivations to participate in virtual communities, including gift economy, pursuit of power, sense of belonging, sense of inclusion, relationship building, and so forth, none of them have given a clear and comprehensive framework on the reasons for virtual community participation. As the field is now in a position to call for a synthesis publication to integrate all aspects of virtual community participation theories, it’s important to edit a book to give both researchers and general virtual community practitioner the theoretical guidelines. This book will bring together the issues that managers, practitioners, and researchers must consider when planning, implementing, and managing members in virtual communities.

Objective of the Book

The book gives in-depth coverage of state-of-the-art research on virtual community participation. It first covers the concept of virtual community participation, followed by several streams of virtual community participation theories. It will be written for professionals, researchers, practitioners, and designers who want to improve their understanding of the strategic role of virtual community participation within the development of digital communication.

Target Audience

This book appeals to those interested not only in virtual communities, but also in virtual worlds, virtual teams, and even online shopping. Virtual community researchers, as well as researchers from diverse fields--computer science, information systems, psychology, sociology, and telecommunications--will find valuable motivation theories discussed in this book. But this book appeals to more than just researchers. Practitioners and managers looking to organize virtual communities efficiently and effectively will also benefit from the case discussions, empirical studies, and data analysis. In addition, upper-level and graduate-level students will find this research useful in their course work and research. Finally, this book will be a welcome addition to academic libraries' research collections.

Recommended topics include, but are not limited to, the following:

--Virtual community participation behavior definition

--Discussion of various virtual community behaviors

--The interpersonal relationship reason of virtual community participation

--The social capital perspective of virtual community participation

--The attachment of virtual community participation

--The belonging or inclusion perspective of participation

-- Gift economy perspective of virtual community participation

--Frameworks to explain virtual community participation

--Behavior theories

--Social psychological perspective of virtual community participation

--The power side of virtual community participation

--Knowledge management motivation to participation

--The communicational perspective to participate

--The psychological perspective to participate

--The process virtualization perspective to participate

Submission Procedure

Researchers and practitioners are invited to submit on or before April 13, 2010, a 2-3 page chapter proposal clearly explaining the mission and concerns of his or her proposed chapter. Authors of accepted proposals will be notified by May 28, 2010 about the status of their proposals and sent chapter guidelines. Full chapters are expected to be submitted by July 13, 2010. All submitted chapters will be reviewed on a double-blind review basis. Contributors may also be requested to serve as reviewers for this project. Additional information about this can be found at: http://www.igi-global.com/requests/details.asp?ID=762.

Publisher

This book is scheduled to be published by IGI Global (formerly Idea Group Inc.), publisher of the “Information Science Reference” (formerly Idea Group Reference), “Medical Information Science Reference,” “Business Science Reference,” and “Engineering Science Reference” imprints. For additional information regarding the publisher, please visit www.igi-global.com. This publication is anticipated to be released in 2010.

Important Dates

April 13, 2010: Proposal Submission Deadline

May 28, 2010: Notification of Acceptance

July 13, 2010: Full Chapter Submission

August 30, 2010: Review Results Returned

September 13, 2010: Final Chapter Submission

September 30, 2010: Final Deadline

Editorial Advisory Board Members:

Mamata Bhandar, National University of Singapore, Singapore

Crystal Williams, Answers.com Community Coordinator

Thierry Nabeth, INSEAD The Business School for the World

Kathryn Ruth Stam, Syracuse University

Rik Crutzen, Maastricht University/CAPHRI

Trudy Barber, University of Portsmouth

Mei Wu, University of Macau

Tony Moore, Deloitte Consulting

Sunghee Shin, Queens College CUNY

Stephan Humer, University of the Arts Berlin?

Inquiries and submissions should be forwarded electronically (Word document) to:

Dr. Honglei Li

School of Business & Economics

Swansea University

Singleton Park, Swansea, SA2 8PP

United Kingdom

Tel.: +44 (0) 1792295680 ? Fax: +44 (0) 1792295626

E-mail: hongleili@gmail.com or H.Li@swansea.ac.uk

Listservs--Community technology still lags behind technologies itself

2010-04-01T12:25:00.000-07:00

While recently editing my book, I need to send out call for chapter proposals to several community of practice. I found most of them are still using Listservs as the main distribution method. For example, I joined SEMNet, a professional listserv for discussion of the methods and application of SEM methods. The technology is still the same as about 10 years ago even facebooks, forum, and second life technology abounds. I think that's because people's intaking of technology is well behind the development of the technology itself. It's just like that we are only repeating one person's creation from 1950's for all the computer technology we are using. It means, it takes time for innovation to take an efffect in the society. As for the optical fiber technology to be popular among the general society. So is it for the community technology. It will take quite a long time for all the web 3.0 technology to be popular among the general society.

Try to write down the technology trends I projected for the future.

1. Digital identity will be an issue for both individual and organizations in the very recent future

2. Community technology will be very popular in people's life

3. The intelligence technology will be very popular, especially for the user-generated contents

4. There will be something called collective intelligence or collective consciousness emerging

All in all, I just want to jot down some professional websites I am currently using

1. SEMNet

http://www2.gsu.edu/~mkteer/semnet.html

2. DBWorld

http://www.cs.wisc.edu/dbworld/browse.html

3. ISworld

http://www.isworld.org/

4. Information Resource Management Association

http://www.irma-international.org/

5. Association of Internet Researchers

http://aoir.org/

While writing this blog, I feel so excited and passionated. I hope I will stand firmly in this area. I hope to be someone in the future.

Editing a book is like a game

2010-03-10T08:46:00.000-08:00

I finally have some time to recruit people to edit my book entitled "Virtual Community Participation and Motivation: Cross-Disciplinary Theories". I found it's really interesting because I am learning working with paper and collaborating with people. For the last many years, I work alone and do enjoy this kind of individualism. However, I now find that the world is made up with people. As Jesus said to me in our new year conference that he is going to enlarge my heart, I now learn to love people. It starts from learning to love my students with a tender heart. I hope my teaching will be different this year.

At the same time, I found editing a book is something beneficial to my heart and spirit.

Teaching SAD

2010-03-02T14:27:00.000-08:00

I must admitted that I am learning while teaching. I found some new websites about project

I am teaching system design this week, mainly about the software acquisition strategy. To enrich my knowledge, I tried to find several websites to find related cases or stories. Wah, this is what I found.

Wired.com

http://www.idg.co.uk/ International data group

and I really found I like their website computerworldUK.com and CIO

informationweek

As one software acquisition strategy is outsourcing. I searched several websites to find cases. I found computerworldUK.com is a good website to read cases.

I also found several IT outsourcing companies such as accenture, EDS (established in 1962 and purchased by HP in later 2008).

Learning New Things and Joining New Community

2010-01-31T17:55:00.001-08:00

I recently found that I need to learn many new things, especially practical business knowledge.

Here is what I have found.

CCthere.com, a Chinese professional community

http://www.bnet.co.uk/, business Net UK

System Analysis & Design

2010-01-26T07:21:00.000-08:00

I am teaching SAD this term. s found I need to find many references to make up my knowledge.

The first class is about IT development environment. I just want to jot down some reference sites.

http://www.it-cortex.com/Examples_f.htm

Standish group reports on IT failures, Standish chaos report 2009

http://www1.standishgroup.com/newsroom/chaos_2009.php

http://www.projectsmart.co.uk/the-curious-case-of-the-chaos-report-2009.html

Time Management & Multiple Tasking

2009-12-19T15:46:00.000-08:00

I was almost beaten up by so many jobs in hand. I have to pray to God askng for wisdom to deal so many things at the same time. I am reading a book on God at work. At the same time, I am pondering that there must be some way for me to come out the current situation, i.e, I must improve myself to cater to so many work needs.

I need to write 10 papers in hand.

I need to decorate the house!

I need to prepare for my teaching!

I need to edit my book!

I need to improve my English!

I need to read papers!

Prioritizing is good way! However, I also believe in multiple tasking as what we are doing for the computer resources. In the computer resources, you have to do the multiple tasking or parallel computing to open so many windows. This is the same for our daily life and job. Image ourself as a computer, our brain is the CPU, our time is the resources. How can we coordinate ourself to do the grid computing or clound computing or multiple tasking?

I pray to my God for wisdom!

Dear heavenly father,

I pray to you to find a way out for me! There must be a unique way for me to improve myself and do my time managment!

In the name of Jesus I pray!

Amen

Writing A Literature Review Paper

2009-12-16T10:02:00.000-08:00

I am working on a literature review paper. Try to jot down the steps to do the literature review. It's really very tedious and I need to learn to build up my knowledge in this area.

1. Design the databse or framework. It's really important to design the structure of the literature and further design the data structure.
2. Retrieve the data from the database. I used the ISI web of Knowledge
3. Analysis the data.
I used excel to analysis the data. During this process, I found that my skills are not enough. I either need to hire a research assistant or develop the new skills by myself. For example, if I can write VBA code to analyze the data, my job will be finished earlier.

Another useful practice is to use the Excel PivotTable to analyze the data. I didn't use it and wasted too much time to do the count job manually.

4. After analysis. Write the paper!

Enjoy!

A New Passion for My Career

2009-12-15T06:26:00.000-08:00

I was just back from a workshop about teaching. A friend of mine just chatted with me through MSN Messenger. He is currently in ICIS asking why I am not there. Well, that's a long story and I explained to him that I need to re-think my career. I just want to get rid of those worldly ideas about work for promotions, salaries, and papers, and reputations, ect. I just want work from the very bottom of my heart and work for passion. I shared with him about my current concerns. He is the one who read my spiritual Blog regularly. To my surprise, he said that I am his role model and he was encouraged by my spirit. I was so surprised or pleased to know that I am useful to someone. I was just aroused with that kind of high interests in my work. was so enthusiastic about it now.

I think I now find the meaning of this career, to love and nurture people. To contribute to the field with all your hearts. So when you write, write from your heart, when you teach, teach from your heart, and when you work, work from your heart!

With this heart! I found I can almost do everything! I now know how to design the new course for my school now. I know! I just know! I just know how to improve my English at the same time! I will be successful!

Dear Heavenly Father,

I pray especially to you about this new finding about working from the heart. I feel so inspired by this point. I thank you for opening the new way for me. I just want to give you a hug and say thank you.

I pray that you will teach me how to use my heart to work, to teach, to preach, and to do research. I pray that you give me joy during this process. I pray that you will give me the direction to go.

In Jesus's name I pray!

Sending Personalized Email with Attachments through Mail Merge Function in Word 2007

2009-12-02T04:33:00.000-08:00

I just sent 195 files to 195 students with personalized attachments to them. The situation is this. I marked 195 individual assignments and need to send all those 194 feedback files to them. What I found difficulty is that sending out 194 emails with attachment is a tedious job. I tried to save time through sending them personalized email message. Mail merge function in Word can do so by sending the personalized emails but can't attach the attachment files. I thought of VBA code and tried to find out a solution to do so. After I searched online, I found this article especially helpful, http://help.lockergnome.com/office/Add-attachment-merge--ftopict987079.html, and this one, http://word.mvps.org/FAQs/MailMerge/MergeWithAttachments.htm. The second article is not very clear but the first discussion actually explained it more clearly. I will copy the VBA code here.

1. Start with a fresh Word document. Go to Tools -> Macro -> Visual Basic
Editor

2. In the Visual Basic Editor window, go to Tools -> References and make
sure that an item called "Microsoft Outlook 12.0 Object Library" is selected
(ticked). Click OK and leave the VBE window open.

3. (optional) Install ExpressClickYes from
http://www.contextmagic.com/express-clickyes/ if you have a lot of emails to
send and can't afford to wait 5'' and click "Yes" once for every single email
that will be sent.

4. Create a new Excel spreadsheet.
+ On the first column use "email" as the column header and enter all
email addresses you wish to send messages to.
+ On the second column use "file" as the column header and enter the
full path to the file that should be sent to the particular address. The full
path should be of the form "C:\Documents and Settings\myusername\My
Documents\report.doc" or "http://full.path.org/filename.xls"
+ Save the file as "Directory Source.xls" and close it. You can actually create as many attachments as you want. If you would like to create several attachments, just add more columns to indicate the file path.

5. Start a new Word document. Start the mail merge wizard. (I assume you
know how to do plain mail merge - if not, please look for help in simpler
articles and once you've mastered plain mail merge - without attachments -
come back to this one).
+ For document type choose "Directory".
+ In the "recipients list" step, select the Excel file you just created,
"Directory Source.xls" as your data source.
+ Create a 2x1 table in the Word document (basically a single row split
in half).
+ Insert the merge field "email" in the first (left) cell of the table.
+ Insert the merge field "file" in the second (right) cell of the table.
+ Complete the mail merge wizard by selecting to merge "To new
document..." and confirming you want all records to be merged.

6. The result is a new Word document, which has a table with all of the
information you entered in the Excel spreadsheet "Directory Source.xls".
+ Save this file as Directory.doc and close it.

7. Open your Word document that you have setup for mail merge. This should
have all merge fields that you want, a proper connection to a data source
(usually an Excel spreadsheet or a SQL database), the text that ties it all
together, etc. This is a working mail merge document, to which we will append
the attachments functionality.
+ Start the mail merge wizard, selecting Document Type: "Letters"
+ For recipients list, use whatever data source you had setup before
worrying about attachments. This data source should have all information
necessary to fill in the merge fields of your Word file, but no attachment
information.
+ At the final step of the Wizard choose "Edit Individual Letters". This
will create a NEW document (yes, another one!) with all of your merged
messages one after the other.

8. With this document active (open & in the foreground), copy the Visual
Basic code from Doug's page
(http://word.mvps.org/faqs/mailmerge/MergeWithAttachments.htm) into a new
macro in the Visual Basic Editor you had open from step 1. Make sure that
Doug's code is the only thing in that window, no other comments, functions or
anything are required.

9. Save the macro and then run it through the Word menu Tools -> Macro ->
Macros

10. If you've done everything right, you should get a pop-up asking you for
a filename. Point it to the Word document you created and called
"Directory.doc" (the one with the big table of emails and file paths)

11. Activate ExpressClickYes of you want it to automatically approve all
outgoing emails.

12. You get another popup for the subject. Just type the subject your emails
should have.

13. Enjoy!

Writing is a Process

2009-11-23T09:26:00.000-08:00

I found I can be excited by research again. Writing is just like telling a story. Teaching is the same way. I am so happy that I found the key to write is to find your stage time to write.

I can make a story for all my papers.

A Prayer Partner in Research

2009-11-20T11:25:00.000-08:00

I am so happy today because I just finished praying with a sister in the academic area. After such a long time waiting, I finally got a prayer partner in work. I am so excited and thankful to God about this.

For such a long time, I have been walking along this narrow road all by myself. I feel dark, confused, stumbling and lonely. I think my Father did hear my crying from the bottom of my heart. He heard my prayer and knew my needs. I need a prayer partner in the work place. Finally he brought someone to pray with me for my work. My academic life is no longer dark any more. I now understand that if you need someone to pray with, you do not need him or her to be super strong spiritual being but need him or her to be obedient in front of God. I also understand that if you need someone as a life partner, you needn't him to be strong but to be obedient in front of God.

Dear Heavenly Father,

I thank you so much about this prayer partner Jennifer. As you have said to me before, two better than one. I am so thankful that you let us pray together about our research. I pray that you will lead both of us in our research and teaching. I pray that you give us vision. I pray that you will use our life in work. Dear Heavenly Father, our research and work is yours. Please change us to fulfil your purpose. We are eagerly to learn from you. Father, teach us how to pray for our work. I pray that you will humble our hearts and let us devote our hearts to work.

In the name of Jesus, I pray!

Why You Can't Rely on Fun Lessons to Solve Classroom Management Problems

2009-11-07T16:35:00.001-08:00

Why You Can't Rely on Fun Lessons to Solve Classroom Management

Problems"

by Rob Plevin

Having a fun classroom and teaching a fun lesson isn't enough to

stop behavior problems, and it isn't going to miraculously

transform your challenging students into hard-working, diligent

stars.

Without a good understanding of some other key classroom management

skills, a lesson that you think is fun may well turn into a

free-for-all and only serve to build you a reputation as a

walk-over.

Teaching is not about "entertaining" students or letting them just

"mess about," and it certainly isn't about demoting them to the

role of passive spectators.

The truth is, even the most colorful and funny presentations can

become boring (and even annoying) to kids if they are repeatedly

expected to merely "be entertained" or just "have a laugh."

If challenging students are to feel truly involved in a lesson,

they need to be given opportunities to develop, grow, improve and

feel a sense of accomplishment and achievement.

Sure, they can still have fun in the process, but it is more

productive if the fun comes from interacting with each other,

finding out, working out, building, trying, experimenting,

practicing and doing. They don't get these things from just sitting

back and watching or messing around.

I like to use the simple analogy of your pupils each carrying an

"emotion backpack" on their backs as they enter your lessons. If

they arrive with the feeling that the lesson (based on their

previous experience) is something they will have to ENDURE for the

next hour - something that is boring, irrelevant to their lives or

perhaps embarrassing or difficult - then their backpack will be

filled with NEGATIVE emotions before they even set foot through the

door.

Teaching kids who walk in your classroom with negative

preconceptions is the HARD way to teach. It's tough to get

students to engage when they have already made up their minds that

the lesson isn't something they're going to enjoy or benefit from.

The easy way is to have them actually LOOKING FORWARD to your

lessons. You want them carrying that backpack with a little bit of

INTRIGUE, perhaps recollections of a few LAUGHS they had during the

last lesson or a feeling of SUCCESS and ACHIEVEMENT having

UNDERSTOOD a difficult concept for the first time.

Isn't that what education is all about?

Teaching from Your Heart

2009-10-30T10:29:00.000-07:00

I just finished teaching today and feel so exicted! I have achieved that, teaching from heart rather than teaching from head. I have been struggling with teaching for so long, as long as two years! In the beginning, I have the passion to teach, to communicate with students but gradually that fire is quenched. I got so much negative feedbacks! Poor English, lack of experience, no confidence, fear to speak in public, all these comments are there to put me down! I have been praying for God to change me within! I should thank him because he took away my fear to speak in public during the weekend's church conference in High Wycombe near London. I suddenly can pray in public without any fear, teach without any fear!

While reading the education of Karl Weittie, one chapter inspired me most. When Wittie tried to find a teacher to teach Karl Latin from heart rather than from head. He tried many teachers but never satisfied. He described one teacher who had that kind of teaching style from head rather than from heart. I was well enlightened by this 'teaching by heart' method. It spoke me very well. I have been thinking what is teaching from heart and reflected my teaching. In the past, I used to teach the knowledge and tried to give students what I have read. I didn't realize that only when those things are in my heart, I can flow in teaching. So, I tried to make all the IS knowledge in my own way. Just as what I did for the bible and for the prayer, I suddenly understand it's mean by teaching by heart.

I gave students some videos to watch and they all applause for that video about the 3D operation systems.

I should thank God very much for what he has done for me!

Seek him and you will find him. That's it!

Dear heavenly father,

You are really my God and father, my savior and my all in all! I thank you very much for what you have done in my life! I especially thank you for what you have done in my teaching! Teaching by heart is what I should do in every class of my teaching. I pray that you will open a new door for my teaching and no one can shut that door! I pray that you just lead me more and pour down more of your annointing for my teaching! I pray that you yourself is leading me all the way in my teaching!

I also pray that you will give me the vision to teach. I pray for all my students, no matter those in the past, current, and in the future. They are all your people, your students. I pray that you will teaching your students by yourself!

In the name of Jesus!

Amen!

Management, Spirituality, & Religion

2009-10-29T04:55:00.000-07:00

While I browsed through the IS mail list, I am suddenly attracted by a call for reviewers from the AOM conference. OCIS division from the AOM conference calls for reviewers. AOM is the brand conference for the management field and I would like to participate in it once I have such chance. I would like to become a reviewer for AOM conference. I signed up for the reviewer system and found that I was attracted by a new division in the AOM system, Management Spirituality and Religion. As the spirituality is something I have been pondering for such a long period of time, I have been thinking of doing research with spiritual theories. Thanks to God that I have found an area in the management field.

I don't know where God is leading me but I do feel that I have a strong need to bring the spirituality theory into the IS field and contribute to this area.

Dear Heavenly father,

I have been praying for a vision for my research. I thank you very much that you are leading me and didn't let me down. You know how I have been suffered ever since I started doing research. You know how I have been searching for a passion to contribute to the field but seldom have the enthusiasm to carry on. Father, if spirituality is the vision for me. I pray that you light the fire inside my heart to carry on. I pray that you give me me leading in search for a new vision for my research.

In Jesus!

Amen.

Here is the link for the management, spirituality, and religion interest group. http://group.aomonline.org/msr/

I would like to become a group member for this one.

Need to Improve My English

2009-10-24T10:50:00.000-07:00

I was observed for the teaching Friday noon. The feedback is that my voice is fine now with Microphone but I need to improve my English. There is room to improve my English. I really should correct my English in some areas, I know. Even though many people praise my English in terms of vocabulary and pronunciation, I feel there is room to improve too. For example, I sometimes made small grammatical mistakes, sometimes I can't pronounce some words correctly then I will blur the pronunciation. Irene from the English Language Setter asked me to speak correctly every time when I open my mouth. I decide to do so since now on.

I am in London now with my church members to attend our church's autumn conference. While staying with them I tried to speak every word as clearly and accurately as possible. For example, I correct quarter past ten.

I also learned something such as in a while crocodile, see you later alligator.

How small am I

2009-10-21T04:45:00.000-07:00

I finally saw my dissertation published as a book.

http://www.bod.de/index.php?id=296&objk_id=236766#

Compared to all the other books on the market, how trivival am I!

I really need to think about my career vision. How should I contribute to this field and how should I improve myself to make bigger contribution.

I also need to be on fire for my career.

Dear Heavenly Father,
I thank you so much for giving me this vision about my career. I gradually realized that the responsibility in my shoulder is heavier than before. However, you are the one who is leading me. I just pray to you that you can give me that fire for me to carry as this is your job. I pray that you give me a vision together with the strength to implement that vision. I also pray that you give me the diligence and courage to carry on.

Father, the most important thing is to give me a devoted heart to this career!

In the name of Jesus, I pray.

Amen!

Academic Life

2009-10-18T19:44:00.000-07:00

I recently fall in love with academic writing, I think! I used to write a lot in Chinese, especially those passing one year. I think I have been writing about 100,000 words in one year, which has sharpened my writing ability. Yes, I have learned how to write and express myself that way. I can write quick and dirty now. I can express whatever I want to write.

So, so, so, take up your weapon and write in English. Once I decided to do that I found myself not excellent with vocabulary. I really need to equip myself with lots of readings, newspapers, books, and most importantly, journal papers so that I can flow while writing!

I suddenly found that this type of life actually consume too much time and energy. Like now, I am still awakening 3:00 am in the morning. If being a great person needs to sacrifice too much sleeping I probably will give up.

Anyway, I just want to say thank you to my Lord because this passion to write is exactly what I want and have been praying for.

Add oil and pay it forward!

MISQ Reviewer--A harsh but pleasant job

2009-10-15T18:20:00.000-07:00

I just finish reviewing a MISQ manuscript--and want to relax. Sometimes, it's really really not easy to walk in that top-tier path. For example, the paper I just reviewed is well organized, designed, and written. All the ideas are presented clearly except that one point..., or one sparking point is lacked.

Oh, what's that? Just that kind of style or something called inspiration is missing there. These inspiration contribute to the overall theoretical development. I guess it's those 1% wisdom or inspiration from heaven to expel the progress of the scientific field. Yes, that's what I am going to do in my own research. And this just answered my questions about the purpose of research: to contribute to the field rather to publish; to answer a higher calling from God rather to make a living on earth!

That's what I meant by seeking God's kingdom and righteousness first.

I would like to be the one to contribute to the virtual community, virtual world, and virtual society field.

The confusion of Science and Faith

2009-10-15T10:08:00.000-07:00

Some people thought that science is anti-Christ. There are many pseudo-theories there for people to follow. Theories such as philosophy, Musilin, science are attractive in a degree. However, science and Faith don't contradict each other.

We had a very good prayer meeting today. During the prayer, I saw the spirit let me see that we are really weak in the academic area to speak for God. All the knowledge are from God. He created everything. I just pray that God gives me enough courage and the right spirit to do the research. Don't let that fire be quenched.

I recently read a series of books about the scientist. They are christians shining the whole life.

http://kuanye.net/shuku/files/html/kxdsdqxlayln/index.htm

All these let me re-think my visions on my job?

Should I only focus my eyes on promotions, publications, and reputations, citations?
Should I only focus on students' comments and complains? Should I just hide my spirit to a degree that I fear to do a lot of things?

No. No. No.......

I should fix my eyes on God. I used to limit my vision as being a professor, publishing books, and publishing papers in top-tier journals. Wrong, wrong, and wrong! God said that we should seek his kingdom and righteousness first. I should seek where should I contribute to the field of Information Systems, where should I share the knowledge with my students, and how can I stimilate students to learn.

So, let me pray again for this job and career to response a higher calling from God.

Dear Heavenly Father,

I am so thankful that you provided me this job in need. I am so thankful for this life you gave to me. I pray that you will use my whole life to testify your glory. I pray that you just take out of any worldly desires and thinking in this job. You will let my eyes to focus on you. I pray that you will corrrect my spirit. You will lead me into a new vision in my job, a vision I had never thought before. I thank you that you have revealed me that I am going to do research in the online world and those vision just inspired me. I know that you created me in such a way so that I will rejoice in your vision and plan. I pray that you let that vision clearer.

I pray that you will use my life and my career to influence many life. I pray that my time is in your hand.

I pray that you will humble my heart so that new knowledge will come in.

In the name of Jesus, I pray.

Amen!

The Average IS salary

2009-10-13T08:51:00.000-07:00

The new term began two weeks ago and I started enjoying teaching. Compared to only one group assignment last year, I added an individual assignment to my students. I ask students to compare the the IS salary across different countries. For example, UK, US, Europe, China, Latin America.

While searching for the IS salary, I found some interesting websites to jot down.
For example, MySalary site provides the information about the average salary in UK. What I found is that my salary here is only the average :). A PHD can't rewarded much money for you.
http://www.mysalary.co.uk/2008-salary-data.php

Pray a Vision for My Work

2009-08-25T05:22:00.000-07:00

I have been very tired of my job. Yesterday when I finished some routine and went out of office, I suddenly felt a sense of empty. The door to the building was damaged and I couldn't go to immediately. While waiting for the security to open the door, I mediated there and suddenly a sound rising from the bottom of my heart, do I have vision for my job?

The sunday church services told the story of Samson a mighty man with great strength from God. However, his strength wasn't used properly because he was trapped in women. He fallen in love with women again and again and often deceived by those women. His heart was swayed by those women. He was caught into the Philistine's hand because he trust a whorle. His life was binded by women. Is there anything binding me in my life?

I don't know. However, I suddenly found that I should pray for a vision for my job. Too often we are too quick shirk away from our job because the bible the church teaching emphasize that job will block our way to God. However, unless we treat job as part of duty or glory from God, we can't glory him. We need to incorporate our job into our daily christian life. We should take up that kind of responsibility. We should pray to God for a vision for our job.

Dear heavenly father,

I thank you very much for speaking to me that I need a vision for my job. Yes, father, you are a mighty deliver. I pray to you that you delivered me out of all the shadows in my job. You delivered me from all the past troubles in my job. You delivered me from all the foes in my job. I prayed that my job will be in your hand and will be used by you. I prayed that you teach me how to use my time and teach me your visions in my jobe. All my job is yours and I myself now is in your hand. I prayed to you that you are going to give me your job for this job. I also pray that you teach me your way in my job. Show me your way in my job. I pray to you that you let my heart focus on my job. I sincerely ask me to change my heart. I pray to you that your Holy Spirit will guide me and dwell in me for my job and career.

Dear heavenly father, I pray to you that you give me the vision not only in research but also in teaching. I pray to you that you give me the vision to contribute to this field in research. Please point out to me directly where should I contribute to the field in the research. Please also point out to me which journal should I submit my papers exactly. Dear father, I feel so joyful because you have gone in front of me and walk before me. Dear heavenly father, I prayed to you with joy and thankfulness.

How can I put my heart on work?

2009-08-17T12:37:00.000-07:00

Recently I am reading a spiritual book God at work. The testimony and content are not new to me but I felt God did speak to me through book. One thing I found I lack in work is that my heart seems does not dwell in work?

Where is my heart on? I don't know. I feel it is not 100% on work. I decided to pray to God to put my heart 100% on my career. I found a career is actually an anchor for a single woman. I would like to pray to God that he can bless me with my career. He is actually doing so.

Dear Heavenly Father,

My heart is almost broken when I pray to you about my job. I feel so helpless and lonely with my career. Sometimes, I just want to carry on but found I can't. I feel that my strength is not enough. I prayed that you will give me 100% strength for me to carry on. I pray that you refresh my heart. I pray that you will turn my heart 100% on my my job and research. I would like to put that in your hand. You know my heart. You know that I have tried my best to achieve everything to be qulified for the job.

I pray that you will teach myself and lead my hands on. You know I am weak in everything. I pray that you will annoit me with you love, truth, and wisdom. I pray that you will change me to fulfill your purpose in my workplace. I know that it will be a hard work but I am willing to be changed by you.

Heavenly father, take care of me.

In the name of Jesus, Amen!

My first book

2009-08-01T17:01:00.001-07:00

Even though it is tedious to prepare to publish the book, I am so excited when it's finished! Here it is! The cover of my book!
I thank you so much, my heavenly father. I know that I am just lucky to achieve this!

Preparing for Conference

2009-07-24T11:21:00.000-07:00

Two weeks before AMCIS, I am preparing for presentations and posts. It's the first time I prepared a poster. Initially I decide to prepare a post by 12 PPT slides, the least interesting method to present the paper by post. However, I thought there must be some software to print the post. So I search online and found the following website to prepare posters.

http://www.postersw.com/

My life is transparent with blogs and computers.

I also got another idea to make my life more organized. I would like to buy a netbook to divide my job in different computers so that the computing power would be distributed. Then my life will be organized. I need a netbook to write diary, cook, read newspapers, viewing photos. However, I need the Desktop to work, just work. To make the job seperated, I also need to install different software in different computers. I can even install a Freebsd in one of my Desktops so that I can try all those free softwares.

Interesting!

New Media Webistes

2009-07-20T09:25:00.001-07:00

I got a letter from Wiley publisher to fill in a questionnaire on business publications. I know more websites on businesses or the general media on businesses. I suddenly found that media or communication is crucially important. In a word, whoever controls the media controls the society. Try to jot down the new business publications I found:

Associated Press AP.org

A service provider for news agents. They have subsiduraries such as AP images.

http://www.apimages.com/

BusinessWeek

as mentioned before

Fast Company

http://www.fastcompany.com/

this is something new to me

Forbes

http://www.forbes.com/

they have online videos, quite interesting

Fortune

I should have known this before as they are famous business magazines. Felt a little bit shamed as I only focused on literature in the past

http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/

Inc

http://www.inc.com/

Something quite interesting about this one is the start-ups and new technologies. I was attracted by a new robot there in the video.

Small business & business information for business Enterpreneur

The New York Times

http://www.nytimes.com/

The Wall Street Journal

http://europe.wsj.com/home-page

Time

http://www.time.com/time/

Here we are!

I also explored some famous business schools today. Here are them

Darden Graduate School of Business

Harvard Business School

IESE Business School

IMD, INSEAD, Kennedy School of Government

Richard Ivey School of Business

Stanford Graduate School of Business

I am going to publish my first book?

2009-07-20T05:24:00.000-07:00

A publisher suddenly contacted me and asked me am I interested in publishing my dissertation. I am going to send them a copy. It might be very likely I am going to publish my first book this year.

As you know, the publisher has accepted my another edition book on virtual communities. So, I will probably have two books published in one year. That's really exciting! Oh, praise God. What a fruitful year will it be!

Here we are!

This is the publisher

http://www.vdm-publishing.com/index.php?&act=nav&nav=10039

Academic Career is a Writing Career

2009-07-07T09:33:00.000-07:00

I am reading a book entitled 'The Scholar's Progress'.

One chapter talks about writing as a labour, chapter 4--Quick and Dirty--Scholarship as Manual Labor and Impure Activity. It says some funny side of academic job. To survive in academic field, you must learn how to write. To quote some interesting sentence from this chapter.

Don't get it right, get it written.

Write for acceptance.

Don't make it too difficult.

Firsty say waht you're going to say, then say it, then say what you've said.

The worst research is the kind that doesn't get written up.

Just do it, quick and dirty.

I am going to write my paper out quick and dirty......

Sign......

8 papers waiting for me

Fasting and Pray

2009-06-29T04:09:00.000-07:00

It's a hard time in both my life and career. I had to be down to earth again. So I fasted for last three days as well as today. I am going to have a meeting Thursday morning.

I also plan to finish revising 6 papers in one month plus finishing one book synopsis. It's really hard and I felt it's even harder than when I was a student. I found life become even difficulty as you take up more responsibilities.

Life is not what you have imagined that you are going to have a bed of roses after you grow up. It's not like that. I found the truth of life is that you are actually taking up more responsibilities after you grow up.

So, here we are. I am learning to take up more responsibilities. I am learning to give up and to take up.

I hope my fasting can bring me focus on my work rather than other things disturbing me. I gradually learned that life should be organized and I should follow a routine to perform better.

New Teaching

2009-06-24T04:20:00.000-07:00

I am going to teach two new modules--E-Commerce and IS Management & Planning. So I am in desperate of preparation and the first step is to search the new texts.

I send emails to all the sales representatives from main publishers. They provide all kinds of textbooks. Cengage doesn't provide many textbooks on these advanced topics. Pearson provide a good starting point.
E-Commerce
From Pearson
http://www.pearsonhighered.com/educator/course/Electronic-Commerce/91023288.page
decide to choose Laudon's
http://www.pearsonhighered.com/educator/product/ECommerce-2009/9780136007111.page

IS management & Planning
From Pearson
Best Practices with CIOs

Some Business Websites

2009-06-16T10:20:00.000-07:00

I wrote down sth but it's all gone

I want to find some websites that I can read to fresh my head with new knowledge daily. Here we go.

Newspapers and Maganizes
Wall Street Journal

http://www.wsj.com/ or online.wsj.com

Computer World
http://www.computerworld.com/

Business Week
http://www.businessweek.com/

CIO
http://www.cio.com/

Research Groups

Gartner Group Report
http://www.gartner.com/

Forrest Research
http://www.forrester.com/rb/research

practitional Journals
Harvard Business Review
http://hbr.harvardbusiness.org/

Communications of the ACM
http://cacm.acm.org/

Scholar Journals
MISQ
ISR
JMIS
I&M

I really should read them often to nurture my head.

Start to focus on research

2009-05-12T09:21:00.000-07:00

The teaching term has just finished and I really need to focus on research. Currently working on E-loyalty and virtual worlds. I just want to jot down some websites about technology news.
Gartner is a good souce of information on the technology trends. Here is the Garnter Press Release.

I also found that I need to set out one specific day for research. No mobile, no email, but just research for me to dig new research ideas. Plan to implement this scheme this week and hopefully to finish one paper this week.

Preparing for Statistics

2009-04-16T04:58:00.000-07:00

The Easter time will be over this week and I need to prepare for teaching since today. A lot of things to prepare. I am going to AMCIS and will chair the virtual worlds minitrack session. This is just a new start in my career.
As I am preparing for Business Statistics today, I just want to jot down some very interesting website.
www.zogby.com
www.icmresearch.co.uk

New Prayer for My Third Year

2009-04-06T10:04:00.000-07:00

I should thank God that he bring me down to the earth after I have been a faculty member for two years. I offer a new pray to him for all I am experiencing recently.

Dear Heavenly Father,
I thank you so much for bringing me to Wales and give me this job. I still remember that joyful moment when I was interviewed here and those dreams before coming here. You make me stand and you raise me up. You are the creator and healer of my soul. There are so many miracles after I have been here. I just give you my thanks for those miracles in my life.

As a new start on my third year here, I will strive all my ways to that end you prepare for me. Dear Heavenly father, I pray that you show me the way to find an effective teaching method. I prayed that you will take all those nervousness during my teaching and give my students most effecitve knowledge as much as possible.

I prayed that my teaching after easter will be blessed by you and led by you. I prayed that you give me an eager heart to seek you! I would like to seek you in teaching and writing. I would like to give my whole third year to you and to be changed by you. Dear Heavenly father, please do miracle in my life just as what you have done before.

I pray that you will give me a clear mind for me to know more about you and also give me the clear way for teaching. I am determined to pray everyday about that and please take away all those shadows above me!

In the name of Jesus I pray!

Something interesting about the e-loyalty

2009-03-27T05:19:00.000-07:00

It's easter time and I am writing some research papers. The spring here is really gorgeous with many flowers blossoming around. I love daffodils and cherry flowers. Joint down some websites related with e-commerce statistics.

US Department of Commerce. United States Department of CommerceNews US Census Bureau
http://www.census.gov/mrts/www/ecomm.html
Internet news
http://www.internetnews.com/stats/
Forrester Research
forrester.com
The UNCTAD programme of work on Information and Communication Technologies (ICT)
http://r0.unctad.org/ecommerce/ecommerce_en/ier07_en.htm
E-Commerce of UK Business
http://www.statistics.gov.uk/statbase/Product.asp?vlnk=6645
European Statistics
http://epp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu

Journal Quality List

2009-03-23T09:47:00.000-07:00

Different country has different journal ranking list. I just got one here Journal quality list from Dr. Anne-Wil Harzing

http://www.harzing.com/jql.htm

AMCIS Virtual Worlds Minitrack

2009-03-06T09:32:00.000-08:00

My participations and behavior in Virtual World mini-track are very successful! I just want to praise God. We god more than 10 papers submitted! I can impage this is a time for me to network with virtual world scholars and learn new knowledges.

I just want to jot down my thoughts about virtual worlds today. The most important part of virtual world is about the communication process. As the classical communicational theory stated that 70% of the communication are passed through non-verbal communication, i.e., the facial expression and body gestures. Then, the virtual world that can mimick the real world's presence, not only the spirit but also the body, it will definitely be successful. The new vision for the virtual world thus should be the merge of body and spirit online. I vision that the modelling of body and gesture online can thus change the way of communication, thus leading to the change of the process of the communication and futher the effectiveness of the performance.

Free Textbook Download

2009-03-05T05:32:00.000-08:00

As I am preparing for the teaching recently, I found some interesting site to down free textbook, which is really exciting.
Here is the site

http://bookboon.com

The vision that the world's future is virutal is again confirmed. I feel that I was led on this road again and again. Let God led my hand on this road.

Teaching System Analysis & Design--A New Stage

2009-02-26T08:46:00.000-08:00

I just started teaching SAD this semester and found it is actually easier to teach than the introduction to MIS. I guess the reason is because it is more theoretical and logical, which is quite appropriate for my math background. I summarize what I have got till now.

Content
1. SAD is all about analysis and design. Analysis is much important than design.
2. I used a case accompanying the textbook but found it's very hard to run.

Textbook
I use George Marakas's textbook consisting 14 chapters. I found the textbook is really good compared to all the others because the structure is very simple. However, I found the examples and cases are too simple and out-dated.

Students' Feedbacks
I encouraged students to always give me feedbacks to improve my teaching and found it is effective. My english is much better than before. I can focus on the students, have gestures, eye contacts, ect.

Students like the Introduction to BIS structure I have done in last semester. I used a set of questions to open the class normally. So, I move this traditions back to the SAD class.

Students also said that I have improved a lot with teaching. I should thank my God for that. However, I feel a little bit dry while teaching. I found this is because I lack that kind of industrial work experience, which make my class not interesting without much real and practical examples. I hope to improve on that side.

How can I do? I felt that I am walking into a new stage with my teaching. So, I thank God for what He has led me into this land and pray for more of his anointing and leading.

Dear heavenly father,
I thank you for all that you have done in my work. Maybe others can't see my progress, but I can feel it. I know that you can also felt that and are pleased with that. Father, I am the clay in your hand. Please keep on honing me and make me your untensil. I pray that you change me heart, change my will, and change my mind to follow you whole-heartedly. I also pray for my students who attended my class. I pray that you open their hearts and learn all the good things from me but ignore the wrong knowledge, wrong information, and wrong method I unconsciously expressed in my teaching. Father, I also pray that you will give my students the hearts of forgiveness and acceptance. I prayed that they will forgive all my inexperiences and learning in teaching and will see that I have tried my best to improve that. Father, I put all my students and myself in your hand.

In Jesus's name, I pray!

Virtual Worlds Study

2009-01-25T15:25:00.000-08:00

I just want to jot down my current progress with virtual worlds. I never expect to take up virtual world research in my life until one day one of my friends who is a fan of 3D games described the fantasy of it. In his description and followed demonstration, I was led into a very new world, a world where the spirit can be free of lots of burdens. This world is so holy and this world is pure and clean that people are easily hooked there. I was touched after this demonstration.

Right after that virtual world study was mentioned to me by my previous phd study supervisor. He knows my personality very well and suggested me to take a look at virtual world research after knowing that I am going to take up a new study area. I was so excited when seeing this vision in front of me that I lost all the other interests.

I believed that it is from God's leading. Right after that, I met a Korean coauthor in ICIS after my presentation. He told me that he saw the vision of virtual world research through my presentation and would like to collaborate with me. He can do the data collection for my theoretical research framework in the virtual world. That's how my study on virtual worlds started. Right after that, I began to get invitation to review virtual world papers. I then was invited to chair a session on virtual world in the coming AMCIS conference. It seems God walks in front of me and lead me. I am going to start my teachng with virtual world at the same time. It's a period of exciting time as we are chaning the history or we are writing the history.

I will keep on posting my research progress in virtual worlds and just want to thank God for his choosing me in this field.

The current virtual world sites:
Second life, Forterra

Text Review

2008-11-27T06:49:00.000-08:00

An editor emailed to discuss the change of the textbook. I pasted the reply here.

I am glad to receive your email about Turban’s text. It’s really timely to get your email because I am going to finish this semester’s teaching next week. Yes, I do have a lot of things to share with your about text. Turban’s text was adopted in my EBC200 Business Information Systems module since 2007 based on a group decision. The reason this text was adopted mainly because the other two module EBC315 E-Commerce and EBC 301 Information Systems Management and Planning can use the text at the same time. As an introduction course to information systems, I mainly deliver the content from Part 1 & 2, Part 4 and Part 5. My overall feeling about this book is that it’s too complicated for a ten-week introduction IS course. This year, I combined this one with another text from Pearson, Experiencing MIS, which is student-focused. The weak area of this text is that the content is a little bit simple for students and the case studies are too American. I have talked with several text representatives to discuss with this. What my course needs are:
· Simple Content suitable for the introduction IS class
· Student focused
· Cases should be localized so that students can easily understand
Based on these requirements, I am going to answer your questions.

1/ If this book were to be adapted for the European market, which changes would you ideally like to see? Would it be in the feature boxes and/or in the contents of the chapter itself?
I think this textbook need to think about the target students. If the text targets at master students or higher level students, the content of this text is fine. However, the text apparently too complex for sophomore who only needs to know the introductions of IS. Even for the master students, the contents are too complicated. I thus suggest to simplify the contents. For example, the E-Commerce content can be moved away. I also suggest the content focuses more on the business rather than e-commerce. I found the text Experiencing MIS did very well in this aspect.

2/ How does this book compare to the competition? How does the pedagogy, and the web material, compare?
I compares this text with several such as
Experiencing MIS, Kroenke D., Prentice Hall, 2007, 1st Ed, ISBN: 0-13-233777-0.
Management Information Systems, Oz E. and Jones A., Cengage Learning EMEA, 2008. ISBN-13: 9781844807581
Management Information Systems, 8th Edition, O’Brien J. A. and Marakas G. M., McGraw Hill, 2008, ISBN: 9780073511542.

I like Turban’s question review and task assignment after each chapter. The PPT are too complicated to use.

Compared to others, I found Experience MIS are more student-focused but lack enough depth. The pedagogy is really good. It starts out from students’ thinking. It also very business-oriented. The cases are too American even it claims to be an international edition. Some situations can only happy in US.
The Oz’s are very good at the cases, most of which are international and half of them are from UK.
The O’Brien’s content are too tedious with too much focus on the details of IS things such as the history of computers.
I didn’t use the web material quite much for all the four but I do welcome the real games and videos to be used online. I visited Experiencing MIS’s website and found some videos there. However, students felt boring with such type of videos.

Faith at Work-- A new Start

2008-09-02T04:51:00.000-07:00

For quite a long period of time, I was quite confused about God's kingdom at work? Does he care about our work. How can he help us with our work? Does he view our equally improtant as our faith? How can we live a Christian life at work? How can I know that whether God is pleased with my work? Can he help me with my work? All kinds of questions just puzzle me in such a degree that I sometime was lost.

I just don't know how to pray for my work. I just want to start this kind of prayer recently because I really need God in my work. I sincerely need his hand as well as his face to shine upon me not for my success in work but for an abundant life there. So, I just want to jot down what I have prayed for my work.

Dear Heavenly Father,

I feel lost in the past for my job. I don't know where to go. I believe that there is your good will to put me here. I believe that your wisdom can teach me to work and share your glory but I just can't find the way to it. Dear father, please do help me to sort everything out.
In Jesus's name, I pray!

Research in Virtual World

2008-09-01T10:57:00.000-07:00

It's a long time since I updated my blog here.
I just want to jot down what I have read about virtual world. Today I read an article about online game development in Korean. It is said that the Korean online game industry was promoted by three factors: govement support (with widespread adoption of broadband), internet gang/cafe, and professional gamer. These three factors propal the Korean online game into a new area.

What I learned from this article is also sth about the online gaming has to experience three phases: development, publishing, and distribution. These three phases will decide the success of an online gaming.

New Academic Search Resource

2008-05-09T04:11:00.000-07:00

Academic search database is a tool for the academic life. I have tried several ever since my research life, such as Proquest, EBSCO, etc. I also tried the google scholar or window live academic, both of which can't provide the endnote function. But today I found ISI web of knowledge, which provides both the professional knowledge and the Endnote function. Good, and good.
Here is the link
isiknowledge.com

My Research Agenda and Resarch Strategy

2008-04-17T03:16:00.000-07:00

I just want to jot down some new research areas I might take up in the future. You have to develop your own research strategy. I think I need to frame up my own research area in the next future years.
Main theme
Virtual world research, this might includes

virtual communities--I am already in
second life--I am going to take up next year,
wikipage in collaborative work or study--I propose to start later this year.
e-auction--I am collaborating with Xiling

Research mothodology
this probably start with general research method, currently the data collection method or online data collection

Other Enterprise level research
Six Sigma Management Innovation--I am collaborating with KC
Family Business Succession--I am collaborating with Dan

I will focus on my main themes but won't reject those that interested in me in other areas. But I will set up the priority in all that.

Speaking Loudly--Answering for Teaching

2008-04-10T07:27:00.000-07:00

It's really refreshing after I started to pray for my job every morning and night.

One day after I did my thanksgiving for lunch, my friend David stared at me and said, I found your vocal method is different from mine. Did you teach with this method? Will your students complain that your voice is too small? I asked him why he got this conclusion. He told me that I can produce a sound much lower than what I am currently producing. I practised according to his suggestion and immediately realized what does he meant. I am so timid that I only produced the sound from my throat. However, to speak loudly, you have to speak with your resounding organs, your whole body, especially your abdomen. If you speak that way, people will feel that you are confident. I think I really need to practise to speak this way. It is really hard in the beginning because I had to pause and take a deep breath to keep on.

Thanks God that he answered my prayer on teaching.

Have You Trust Him?

2008-04-01T05:24:00.001-07:00

I have been a Christian for 4 years and have prayed for various things but never really know how to pray for my work. According to the teaching in the church, we should always put the evangelism formost in our life. I even feel guilty when praying for my work or personal matter because I feel I am so selfish. Praying for my work became something I need to cry for when it is really urgent or just as an ant int he hot pan. So, I never really enjoy doing my work and often think that maybe I should forsake them to preach. The truth is that God never want me to be a preacher. He want me to be a good teacher first. He want me to enjoy my work first. He want me to be faithful to my current job, and this kind of research is also from HIM.

Since last month, when I feel that my work is in the crucial point and I feft I was almost down in everywhere in my work. I began to ponder this and started a daily prayer for my work. I listed those things that I should pray in a yellow paper and put it up in my study room and bedroom. I start to pray for them everyday when I get up and go to bed. The effects are there!

I can feel a kind of peace start to grow in my heart. In the first several days of prayer, God just showed me that even I am so worried about my work I was actually very pride about the knowledge I had in my heart. I felt that I am more knowledgable than my students and this pride held me from improving myself. So, I confessed this sin in front of him. Several days later, he showed me that I need to equipped myself with much much more backgroup knowledge in business, which I haven't really touched in the past. I felt that I was refreshed so much about Him.

Today, he spoke to me that I didn't really trust HIM in doing research. Yes, I really don't know hot to start trusting in HIM in this point because I thought research and work is worldly thing and he won't care about that. However, he care every single point of our life. I suddenly realized that I should sincerely pray about my teaching and my work because The fear of Lord is the beginning of wisdom and the knowledge of the Holy One is understanding. Yes, my work is research and teaching and I thought them as wisdom, knowledge, and understanding yet I never really turned to HIM for help. I feel I sin against HIM.

Dear Lord, I will put you into my work, my job, my research, my teaching from now on. Please show me your way, let me share your wisdom, and know your understanding in every course I teach, every paper I write, every student I supervisor.

In Jesus's name, I pray.

Some Thoughts on Lisrel

2008-03-28T09:10:00.000-07:00

I am running data with Lisrel these several days and got stuck with two problems.

1. The first one is from runing syntax. It just said

Fatal Error: A non-numeric value found in line above in file
even though I can't find any problem with the syntax. The problem is there for several days and today I found that the lines with problems sysmatically have one thing in common: the variable name starts with means. I thought that MEANS should be a keyword of Lisrel program and changed those variable names. Aha, it is solved!

2. Categorical variables as control variables
One of my paper deals with the data from three different virtual communities and it is challenged that they can't be pooled together. My supervisor suggested me to treat those profile variables as control variables so that the bias from them can be eliminated. I tried to find a method to solve it in Lisrel. My friend Yang from USA gave me her method, treating those categorical variables such as gender, age, etc as single index latent construct and set their error variance to 0. I finally solved the problem today. My paper is more meaningful than before now. Thanks to all my friends, yang, etc!

Great. I am on the road to the submission.

New Start

2008-03-27T05:29:00.000-07:00

I haven't updated this blog for quite a while.

How can I say, the past nine month is just like one day, one day without the guidence of my Lord, Jesus Christ.

I focused on flesh things too much and try to do everything according to my own will. I now repented before the Lord and ask him to take my research and teaching. I begin to pray about it seriously in the morning and evening everyday. The Lord crushed my self and now will rebuilt a new self with holy spirit to do research and teaching. I restarted everything from now on.

Just want to record my new research area, second life.

http://secondlifegrid.net/how/

Writing as a Style

2007-06-21T04:00:00.000-07:00

Recently I got stuck with my academic writing. I feel tedious with academic writing, but not normal writing. I can still write thousands of words both in English and Chinese with my diary. What puzzled me perhaps is the interest of academic writing. I just don't want to revise those cliches I have been through for several years. Those are papers drawn from my dissertation. However, I have to do this because this is really a worthy process.

While I can't write. I turned to several academic writing books for help. The books I can get is from the university library and one of them is 'how to get research published in journals' by Abby Day from Gower Publishing. I am not familiar with the author but do benefit from reading her book. This book is a guide to new authors. What I benefit through this book is two,
Planning before reading and develop your own writing style. These two points has been blocking my academic writing almost since I began my academic career.

I need to take the action point from now on to develop my writing skills as well as my writing habit.

Planning, always bear in mind that good planning amounts to half success. To plan for the academic writing, please decompose your papers into several sections and think about it for each section. I try to make my writing be more rational and structural.

To develop the writing skills and habit, do two things, reading and writing. To enrich my vocabulary and sense of English, I need to read some article and books in English everyday. The British based newspaper Sun is a recommendation from the Abby. She also recommend some novels to brush up the writing style, which I think is doable. Here is a reading list from one of the best editors Abby knew, George Orwell (Nineteen Eighty-Four), Evelyn Waugh (Brideshead Revisited), F. Scott Fitzgerald (The Great Gatsby), and Martin Amis (London Fields). The reason that these books were recommended is because those authors maters at crafting words.
In terms of writing, the author recommended the inner writing, which use the subconscious knowledge. To train the inner writing skills, one must often gives up the logic and rational writing. I hope I can train me up in this along with my normal and logic writing.

Now, let me summarize up what I am going to do for my academic writing.

1. Write everyday for at least 2 hours
2. Read one academic paper everyday from top-tier journals like MIS Quarterly and JMIS
3. If time permits, read some supplement books and article in English. Such as Sun Newspaper, good English novels
4. Plan the academic writing

Group Assement Workshop

2007-06-11T10:47:00.001-07:00

Just to jot down where am I in preparing for classes in the coming september.

I attended the group assessment workshop organized by staff development wrokshop the whole day. I gained a lot from this workshop and try to write a reflective log.

1. My class can be devided into 10-15 groups and each group can find a specific IT company to study.
2. It's interesting that I met Meki again in the workshop. Meki is responsible for the adoption of Oremi in Swansea University (http://oremi.swan.ac.uk/). Oremi is an open sourced academic software that integrates blog, wiki, communities, forums, and networking skills together. It's a good social networking software. I already have some conversation with Meki in the e-mail about Oremi. Last week, Meki passed by my office and taught me to set up my own account. It's interesting and I decided to adopt it in my class next semester. After meeting with Meki in the same group today, I further decide to adopt Oremi in my teaching. It's fanscinating. It probably cost me a lot of time to change the whole module. However, it is worthy compared to the meaning and the outcome I want to expect in the coming teaching semester.
3. I know now how to run a whole class now. It all starts with the initial class or the syllabus. I hope to have it prepared this month.

As for my research, it goes slowly. However, my God would lead me during this process.

I am going to start a worship group at my own home too!!! I got to have a piano this week. It's amazing! Hope I can master the skill of accompanying soon.

Lalala..... Tommorrow is another day and surely my lord will lead me.

How to Review a Paper

2007-05-23T09:16:00.001-07:00

I begin to review paper for ICIS this year. For me, it's like a good opportunity to improve myself in terms of research skills. Really, it's not easy to review papers. I read the paper for three times and try to give an good comments for the paper. To be honest, the paper was written very well, the content, the methodology, and the conclusion. It's just like my own paper, I am not meaning my paper is perfect. I can't find some suggestions for him to improve the paper. But the truth should be, there are always some space for the paper to improve. How can I do?

First, I found some guidelines online concerning reviewing papers.
http://web.njit.edu/~bieber/review.html

Second, I read the paper from Webster and Watson (2002) on how to write a literature review. I was well enlighted by their suggestions on writing a literature review. It shed a new light on my thoughts. After reading this paper, I read the paper under review again and found some space to be improved. Yes, this paper under review carries the same characteristics as mine, the literature review section is not enough. It's very hard to do a good literature review, synthesize the previous work, find the gap to be filled up, and propose our own research model. It's really not easy. This paper is just as mine paper, it is not clear in the literature review section.

As for my own career, I have a good news to announe. I will start to edit a new book from my dissertation. The first time in my life. I am so excited about that. Expecting! Looking forward to! I know I have to forsake a lot of time. But it is worth!

References
Webster, J., and Watson, R.T. "Analyzing the Past to Prepare for the Future: Writing a Literature Review," MIS Quarterly (26:2) 2002, pp xiii-xxiii.

Just on the road to the academic life

2007-05-23T04:29:00.000-07:00

After 6 years' training as a Phd, I initially thought that that's an end for the student life and a new start for new life. However, my realization on that is really not enough to start a better career. An academic life is concerned with research, teaching, and service. I found myself are only at the starting point in all the three lines.

Research
Even I have finished the dissertation, I still found that I can't write good papers.
What I have learned during my Phd training is just skills. It takes time to turn skills into art work, to craft something unique from you. My next goal is to submit papers to good quality journals like JMIS and MIS Quarterly. I am still far away from that. Another goal is to edit or craft a book from my dissertation.
To achieve, I should honed more with reading papers, English writing, and thinking capability.

I just want to jot down a good paper that give me very comprehensive guideline on writing the literature review.
Webster J. and Watson, R. T. (2002) Analyzing the Past to Prepare for the Future: Writing a Literature Review, MIS Quarterly (26:2), pages xiii-xxiii.

Teaching
There are so many for me to learn with teaching.

Service
I have only been the reviewer for conferences and second-tier journals. I hope to be better reviewer and accumulated experiences in this field.

Two New Technologies I am Using

2007-05-09T02:54:00.000-07:00

Recently, I am enchanted with two technologies, Google Calendar and Microsoft Live Hotmail.

1. Google Calendar

Google Calendar is very interesting with the feature of organizing the events then sending to the mobile phone daily. In the past one month, I organized my schedule in my mobile phone-a latest Edition of Nokia Sirocco. It's very convenient. However, my mobile phone was damaged duo to an accident. All the information in the mobile phone was gone. Then, I have to use back the google calendar. This time, I found this new feature. Every day, after I got up, I check the message from Google calendar to know what's my schedule. I will never forget anything. Recently, I found Microsoft is doing the same thing. See, competitive advantages! At this service area, Microsoft is competing with Google.

2. Microsoft Live Hotmail

I really like the new version of Hotmail, which has the same face as Outlook, very professional and user-friendly. It seems Microsoft is integrating it's social computing software from hotmail, spaces, and search engines into one--Live. I can see that the strategy of Microsoft is to socialize the software in the following several years. It's very interesting that Microsoft has never been an innovator but a follower in the software area. Like, operation systems, hotmail, browsers. However, it succeeded in almost every area. What's the point? Because it has the ambition to be successful. Because it is willing to pay for the buyout price. From moral perspective, Microsoft sometimes adopted some mean approaches to be successful, cases such as the binding of IE with Windows, the buyout of hotmail, the buyout of office, the following of google. It's always like this, those who are not noble get success. Because they are brave enough to break the rules. I thought of one person in the Bible-Tamar. Charles Darwin, the renowed scientist of nature, said, "It's not the strongest of species that survives, nor the most intelligent; but the one most responsive to change."

Break the rules, write the new rule by yourself, and be successful in the history!

I will finish teaching tommorrow for this term

2007-05-03T10:27:00.000-07:00

I will finish teaching tomorrow morning.

Two weeks and four hours teaching is really not easy for me. I have prepared for a month to do that! I am not afraid of talking, I like teaching, I want to do good teaching, and I am eager to stimulate students learn. However, I still feel that I failed during this four-hour teaching. I didn't achieve the goals I expected. What's my expectation for teaching? I hope I can

1. be enthusiastic (3)
2.Stimulate the student to think (2)
3. have interaction with students (1)
4. Use examples and cases to make the class interesting (2)
5. have students to discuss hotly (0)

The number at the end of each row represents the evaluation for my teaching based on a five likert scale. That's much room for me to improve!!! How can I do?

Of course, all of these should lead to one goal--the students really learn sth from my class.
When talking with my colleagues, they told me that it's normal because students here never answer questions. Don't expect them to answer because many students here are not excellent students. Also, the university just treat the students here as customers and they don't promote the learning environment for them. That maybe true. Nevertheless, I don't agree with this point of view. As a Christian, I know much about our sinful nature. When we fail, we often ascribe the failure to others. We don't want to be responsible. I think it's my fault that I failed in the teaching.

I hope to gain experiences from this two-week teaching and prepare for better teaching in the coming september.

Till now, I have obtained four textbooks from publishers. It's really good to be a teacher because the publisher will send me free textbooks. I should make decision between two textbooks at the end of May. Also, it's important to make more preparation for the teaching in the coming september. I just want to jot down the tentative schedule for my teaching.

May Read through two textbooks
Decide the textbooks

June Select the content to be covered in the next term, I have ten weeks, 20 hours. Allow 2
hours for introduction and summary, I should have 17-18 hours to teach, should I allow
1 hour for seminar and 1 hour for student presentation?
Design the structure of the courses
Design the course syllabus, the course work, the style of teaching

July Begin design the powerpoint slides and try to create some creative points

August Rest from my teaching and research, go to US to attend conferences and visit friends

September Preparation for teaching

Add oil! You will be there. May my Lord be with me to go through this process!

Preparation and Preparation, the First Week of Teaching

2007-04-27T11:14:00.000-07:00

I finished the first week of teaching. It's ok. Even after one month preparation, I still feel that my preparation is not enough.

This Wednesday, I feel a little bit nervous and had to keep on praying before the class. Once the class started, I begin to enjoy it. One problem I found are the stories and jokes prepared for the class. Every class last for about 45 minutes. I divided the class into three sections, which should have three main themes in my lecturing. To make the class interesting, I have to prepare for several short stories in IS field to get them attracted. For example, when teaching them BPR, I should have investigated some good stories about the BPR in organizations because in those earlier days, BPR in fact is like a hero in the overall IS-organization game.
For the class today, I just found another problem. When I throw questions to students they didn't have any response. Then, I feel frustrated and my energy was affected by them. What I expected is hot response from them. Maybe it's my problem. I will try to be more confident next time.

Add oil! You will get there!

Selection of Textbook

2007-04-16T09:09:00.000-07:00

As a new faculty, I really have no idea on how to select new textbook. I have no any research or teaching fund to do this. However, I found a very efficient way to select textbooks, requesting sample books from the publishers. Here, I listed some.

Wiley
Information Technology for Management: Transforming organizations in the Digital Economy
http://eu.wiley.com/WileyCDA/WileyTitle/productCd-0471787124.html

Prentice Hall

Management Information Systems: Managing the Digital Firm, 10/e

http://www.prenhall.com/behindthebook/0132304619/
I especially like this one. This is an valuable textbook to use. However, there is no review copy in UK. I will try to request one.

Essentials of Management Information Systems: Managing the Digital Firm and Student Mulimedia Edition

ttp://vig.pearsoned.co.uk/catalog/academic/product/0,1144,0131287958,00.html

MIS Cases: Decision Making with Application Software, 3/E

http://vig.pearsoned.co.uk/catalog/academic/product/0,1144,0132214385,00.html

Management Information Systems, 10/E

http://vig.prenhall.com/catalog/academic/product/0,1144,0131889184,00.html

The first day of class

http://vig.pearsoned.co.uk/catalog/main_content/0,1151,-600,00.html

What's the quality of a best teacher

2007-04-12T10:03:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I began to read the diary from a teaching fellow from University of Richmond, Tips and Thoughts On Improving The TeachingProcess In College--A Personal Diary by Joe Ben Hoyle, DavidMeade White Distinguished Teaching Fellow at the University ofRichmond at http://oncampus.richmond.edu/~jhoyle/. I hope to improve my teaching through this series of self-training. I really like the idea of stimulating myself to help students.

I have finished reading the IS planning book chapters I will teach after Easter. There is only a small amount of content for me to teach. Also, all the materials-assignments, examinations, and others , have been finalized. The only thing left for me to do is to improve myself. Basically, these IS planning is very interesting and easy to teach. However, it will also depends on in what degree you will devote yourself into it. Like, I can prepare as many cases and examples to face student's questions. Like, I need to immerse myself into the IS stage to feel how IS works. These four chapters taught by me seems easy, interesting, and theory-driven. I hope I can prepare a good class for them. I hope to deliver open-minded thinking method to them instead of just static knowledge.

Personality and teaching style are definitely correlated. For me, I like innovation, being creative, then, I have to ask myself to be creative!!!

Hope to be a creative teacher in teaching method, to elicite students to think in creative ways. A good question for my first reading for Joe Ben Hoyle's teaching tips is what's the good quality of a good teacher?

Elevate Your Research Skills through Becoming a Reviewer

2007-04-10T14:41:00.000-07:00

I have been a reviewer for several conferences and journals. In last month, I have reviewed four papers, two for journals and two for conferences. Compared to conference papers, journal papers is longer and are required to be more strict in terms of research method, organization, writing, etc.

How the review experience benefit your own research skills? My understanding is that to become a reviewer for top-tier journals. Till now, I am a little bit tired of reviewing papers for second-tier journals because the requirements from the second or third-tier journals are loose, which will not push me to do better reviewing. To benefit from reviewing papers, the only way is to become a reviewer for top journals so that you can access the most brilliant ideas, review the best paper in this field, and communicate with AEs who have the best research skills. You will also gain research skills because you have to submit a very good review as the top-tier journal push you to do so.

That's the way! It's also the key to the mysterious research world! To truth, to knowledge! I wll act from now on-to become a reviewer for MIS Quarterly!!!

Use your whole heart to do sth and the whole universe will help you. Learn to talk with your heart because your heart is created by my Lord.

How to make the IS teaching interesting

2007-04-09T09:35:00.000-07:00

I am still struggling with preparation for teaching after Easter. IS Planning only have five short chapters and each chapter only cover very small amount of theories in this textbook. However, it is still not easy to prepare because it is not easy to turn these theory and technology based concept into languages that be accepted by students who are only 20 years old, what's more, I have a vision to let students in my class to love IS after my course.

It's better to start from the senior lecturers and gain some experiences from my senior friends, like, my supervisor, mentor, and my friend met in conferences. ISWorld.org does provide a site for teaching. To my disappointment, there are very limited resources there for me to start. So, I have to turn to other resources.

Then, a idea arise from my mind, cases! Before that, I just think how to link real life examples into teaching to make the teaching more interesting. However, IS is different from social science in that it have so many technical terms. Yes, cases are more interesting to make students understand the concept of IS. I just excerpt an interview with Professor Han Reichgelt about his application of cases into teaching.

I like the idea of inviting the guest speakers from the industry and the usage of cases for assessment. I already have a framework about my teaching, yes, introduction class, body class, summary class decorated with cases, exams, and guest speakers.

Great! Add oil!

A look at IGP IT Teaching Cases:An Interview with Professor Han Reichgelt Associate Professor of Information Technology, Acting Chair of the Department of Information Technology,Georgia Southern University, USA

In your opinion what are the advantages of using case studies in yourIS/IT courses?

In my view, it is important that students develop the ability to use the material that is covered in a more theoretical fashion in a lecture to analyze realisticsituations. While it would probably be preferable if students were given the chance to study a real organization, this is clearly unrealistic at my institutions where the majority of students are traditional full-time students. Case studies provide the best alternative for achieving this educational goal. I use cases in both teaching and in assessment. I typically select about a dozen cases or so for a semester course, of which I expect to discuss between 8 and 10 inclass. One case is selected for assessment purposes and students are asked to write a relatively long paper (c. 15 pages) analyzing the case. In other words, I use cases both to get students to think about issues covered in the course, and to assess them on their ability to do so.

Have your students been supportive of the use of case studies in yourIS/IT courses? What are the typical comments written on finalcourse evaluations?

In general, students seem to like the fact that I try to relate the material covered in the class to realistic situations. I try to achieve this aim both through the use of case studies and through presentations by industry representatives. Although some have suggested that we study existing organizations,all are positive both about the presentations by practitioners and the use of cases.The main criticism that I receive from students is the length of the paper that they are asked to writeon the case study selected for assessment.

Have you adopted IGP IT Teaching Casesfor your IS/IT Courses? If yes, please listthe courses.

Because of my administrative duties, I am teaching only one course, namely Software Acquisition, Implementation and Integration. I use cases to cover the buy versus build decision (2cases), the relationship between the implementationof IT applications and business process redesign (2cases), the process of selecting appropriate softwarepackages (2 cases), the process of implementingselected software (3-4 cases) and the process ofintegration (1 case). For the fall, I have also selecteda case to get students to think about interorganizational IT applications.

What do you find to be the strengths of IGPIT Teaching Cases?

The strength of the IGP IT Teaching CaseRepository is the breadth of coverage it provides.

(Source: http://www.igi-pub.com/downloads/pdf/ITNews4(2).pdf )

Preparing teaching for October-selection of textbook

2007-04-03T11:03:00.000-07:00

Today I just prepared the teaching after easter-informatics planning, which consists of five chapter from Paul Beynon-Davies' Information Systems-An introduction to Informatics in Organizations. The book is a very fundamental one and almost gives every details of information systems, covering from organizational concepts as organizational planning to the detailed BPR process. However, some of the management concept and organizational concept is very confused. For example, organizational strategy in management field is defined as mission and vision in a very long term that organizations want to achieve while organizational plan is the specific project that organization uses to achieve the organizational strategies. I think it's better to choose an appropriate textbook when starting teaching in October.

Dear friend, if you have some ideas about textbook on information systems for the undergraduate student, please give me your suggestions here.

Good beginning is half success. I plan my teaching in October from March and hope to have a fruitful journey in my first year teaching. Just want to record two things I need to finish in this week.
1. Textbook
2.The usage of blackboard, a little bit similiar to community among students

A good link for online questionnaire

2007-03-30T09:05:00.000-07:00

Just want to jot down a link for online questionnaire.
http://freeonlinesurveys.com/

Preparing for the Teaching

2007-03-28T09:27:00.000-07:00

Today is the first time I prepare for the teaching after Easter. Even after many times preparation and even for 4 hours preparation, I still feel that I have a lot to do to give a good lecturer.

The text book used is Information Systems-An introduction to Informatics in Organizations by Paul Beynon-Bavies from Palgrave. The section I will teach is Planning, which involves organizational analysis, informatics Planning, informatics strategy, strategic information systems, informatics management, and project management.

Though I will teach from the midpart of the text book, I read through the preface and the introduction section of the book from the beginning, which is very important to grasp the overall picture of this textbook so that I can know where I am to teach this course.

The planning I will teach is very interesting because is quite theoretical in the overall information systems concept. Planning like a strategy for everything. Thus it has to come down from the top. That's why organizational anaysis goes before information systems planning. When teaching this courses, I have to stimulate students to think clear what is planning and what is strategy before the overall class.

One resource I also want to mention is the lecturer resources from the Palgrave site. I have registered and hope to get access into these resources soon.