T. Grandon Gill is a professor of Information Systems & Decision Sciences and the Academic Director of the new Doctor of Business Administration program at the Muma College of Business of the University of South Florida. His MBA and DBA degrees are from Harvard Business School. He is a leading researcher in the transdisciplinary field of informing science, and is Editor-in-Chief of Informing Science: The International Journal of an Emerging Transdiscipline. He is internationally known for his research in the development and use of case studies and is currently working on a grant with the National Science Foundation to develop discussion case studies relating to cybersecurity. His principal research areas are the impacts of complexity on decision-making and IS education, and he has published many articles describing how technologies and innovative pedagogies can be combined to increase the effectiveness of teaching across a broad range of IS topics. His most recent book, Informing Business: Research and Education on a Rugged Landscape, deals with how we might better align business academia with the complexity of business practice. Professor T. Grandon Gill has also extensive experience in case method research, as well as in writing cases for classroom use and facilitating case discussions. His MBA and DBA are both from Harvard Business School, where the case method originated. He is author of the book Informing with the Case Method (2011, Informing Science Press) and recently became the founding editor of Journal of Information Technology Education: Discussion Cases, a publication outlet for case studies in the MIS, IT and informing science fields.
Dr. Suzanne Lunsford is professor at Wright State University and is an electrochemist and an internationally established chemical educator. She has been working with colleagues from international universities on how to integrate interdisciplinary science labs to meet the needs of the 21st century. Her research work for over two decades has been developing novel sensor electrodes (modified electrochemically) to detect common neurotransmitters to detecting common heavy metals Lead, Cadmium, Mercury and toxic metal Indium at low concentrations utilizing electrochemistry techniques such as cyclic voltammetry, square wave anodic stripping voltammetry, and differential pulse voltammetry. The electrochemical techniques and modified electrodes are examined further by such techniques as Scanning Electron Microscopy, Atomic Force Microscopy, Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy and Raman Spectroscopy to confirm the electrode surface interactions and stability analysis of the sensor(s) developed to assist our students with a variety of analytical instrumentation techniques. She has received over 1 million dollars in external funding for her international and local educational inquiry-based science research programs at Wright State University.
Dr. Nagib Callaos is the founding president of the IIIS and the founding president of the Journal of Systemics, Cybernetics, and Informatics (JSCI). He is former Dean of Research and Development of the University Simon Bolivar and was the founding president of several organizations on research, development, and technological innovation, e.g. The Foundation of Research and Development of the University Simon Bolivar, the founding president of the Venezuelan Fund for Technological Innovations (created by presidential decree), The founding president of the Venezuelan Association of Executives in Patents and Copyrights, etc. His main research and professional activities were in the area of Systemic Methodologies of Information System Development, Group Decision Support Systems, and Action-Research mainly via Operations Research. He tutored more than 100 undergraduate and graduate theses and produced more than 100 research papers and reflection articles.
Related to the topic of this conversational session he has been continuously designing and redesigning (for about 35 years), via research and consulting, more effective methodologies for information/informing system development, which effectiveness depends of including ethos, pathos, and logos to the in the context of a combination of systemic and traditional systematic analysis, design, and development methodologies. A synthesis of was he has achieved in this methodological area can be found at http://www.iiis.org/nagib-callaos/Toward-Systemic-Notion-of-Methodology-Practical-Consequences.pdf. With regards to the cybernetic relationships implicitly or explicitly should exist between episteme and techne, science and engineering, in the context of their industrial and societal insertion can be found at http://www.iiis.org/nagib-callaos/engineering-and-meta-engineering/engineering-and-metaengineering.pdf. This kind of insertion is necessary for integrating research and consulting as well as for the Ethos, Pathos and Logos of both episteme and techne, research and consulting, theory and practice, the integration of Science and Engineering/Technology. This, in turn, has strong consequences in the Ethos, Pathos and Logos in Higher Education.
There is a growing academic and societal need for the integration of academic activities among themselves and with Society, including private and public sectors. An increasing number of academics have noticed the importance of integrating Research, Education, and Problem Solving (IRESP) among themselves and with societal and corporate real life problems. Information and Communications Technologies enabled different ways of supporting these kinds of integration processes. Informing Science is at the heart of academic activities (research, education, and consulting).
An increasing number of specific projects showed to be effective in achieving this kind of integration. What it is probably lacking is a general methodology that can support the conception, design, and effective implementation of this kind of projects. We strongly belief that case study methods can be applied to conceive methodologies for this kind of projects as well as for the transference of effective design and implantation of this kind of projects into other new projects in the same discipline or in any other disciplines, i.e. among different disciplinary culture. If this is true then it might also be possible to conceive a methodology for this kind of transference between different cultures and socio-economic contexts.
The objective of this conversational session is to open an inter-disciplinary and inter-cultural dialogue. Dr. Gill is a renowned scholar, practitioner, and expert in the Case Method. Dr. Suzanne Lunsford conceived and effectively implemented several specific projects in IREPS in the area of Chemistry, and Dr Nagib Callaos is also conceived and implemented IRESP projects in Information systems Development and software engineering for about 30 Years. Dr. Callaos also the conceptual co-designer of a general methodology in information systems development which process was supported by informal case studies or report after a project had been finished. After each specific application of the designed general systemic methodology a collaborative study was made, called post-project analysis of the respective developing process and a synthesis of improvements were made in the continual redesign of the methodology. Consequently, the equivalent of implicit case studies was being done in order to continue the process of continuously designing and redesigning the referred methodology. Consequently, could the explicit application a chain of case studies support the design of a methodology for IRESP? Could this methodology allow the transference of successful experience in one discipline be transferred to other disciple? Could an effective methodology support a cross-cultural effective transference?
