AJIS Vol. 6 No. 2 May 1999

EDITORIAL

This is the first issue of volume 6 of the Australian Journal of Information Systems. As editor I am pleased to report the
ongoing interest in the journal both in Australia and overseas.
Our first paper - Preliminary Insights into the Implementation of Standardised IT in Franchise Systems - Angele Cavaye,
Department of Information Systems, University of Southern Queensland, Colin McCosker & Chad Perry, Department of
Marketing, University of Southern Queensland - uses case studies to investigate IT implementation in franchise systems.
The paper examines both franchiser and franchisee factors and shows that both impact on IT implementation.
Our second paper - Refinement of Research Surveying in Software Methodologies by Analogy: Finding your Patch -
Eugene Doroshenko, Department of Computer Science and Software Engineering, University of Melbourne & Felicity Lear,
School of Information Systems, University of Tasmania - introduces a model which can indicate field maturity. The paper
examines and describes the use of this model.
Dieter Fink, School of Management Information Systems, Edith Cowan University provides our next paper - Business
Students' Perceptions of Electronic Commerce - Will They Join the Revolution. This paper shows that the main concern
of business students is the insecurity of EC in such areas as computer viruses, theft of information, and
unauthorised access to data by intruders. As a consequence, the trust the students currently have in EC is
relatively low.
Our next paper is - Integrating IS and HCI Using Activity Theory as a Philosophical and Theoretical Basis -
Helen Hasan, Department of Business Systems, University of Wollongong. This paper describes the basic
principles of Activity Theory as they apply to IS and HCI and uses a case study to show that an integrated
approach would have improved the project.
Our next paper - Practical and Tacit Knowing as a Foundation of Information Systems - John Haynes,
Department of Information Systems, UCOL, New Zealand - explores the importance of the human subject, with
its inherent intuition, as a foundation for information systems. The paper examines intuition from several
philosophical standpoints.
Our next paper - Applying Quality Costs in a Software Development Environment - I.P. Hollingsworth,
Department of Commerce, University of Birmingham, W. Keogh Aberdeen Business School, The Robert
Gordon University & M.H. Atkins, Department of Management Studies, University of Aberdeen - shows that
quality costs can be a measure of software quality. The paper examines several models of quality cost and
discusses the major issues involved in setting up a quality cost programme.
Elizabeth Kemp, Institute of Information Sciences and Technology, Massey University provides our next paper
- Object Oriented Analysis: A Voyage of Discovery. Using the experiences of a business analyst on several
object-oriented projects, suggestions are made for organisations migrating to and object oriented environment.
Our final paper is - The Origin of the Year 2000 Date Problem: An Alternative Hypothesis - Richard Kingsford,
Parliamentary Information Systems Office, Parliament of Australia & Leone Dunn, School of Information
Technology and Computer Science, University of Wollongong. This paper proposes that the fundamental origin
of the problem lay in pre-existing western culture and that this cultural practice set western society on a collision
course with the technology of the future.
Once again I would like to pass on my thanks to the authors and consulting editors for the high quality of material in this
issue. I would like to thank Lily Soh, Ted Gould and Deborah Bunker for their continued assistance with the journal and
David Dodds for the maintenance of the Home Page.

Rob MacGregor
Editor
http://www.uow.edu.au/ajis/ajis.html