Business informatics

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Business informatics (BI) is a discipline combining information technology (IT) – or informatics – with management concepts. The BI discipline was created in Germany, from the concept of "Wirtschaftsinformatik". It is an established, successful academic discipline including bachelor, master and diploma programs in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland. The term Business Informatics is now common in Central Europe. BI has strong synergistic effects from truly integrating business administration concepts and computer science technology into one field.

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[edit] Differences between business informatics and information systems

Business Informatics (BI) shows numerous similarities to the discipline of Information Systems (IS) which can mainly be found in English speaking parts of the world. Nevertheless there are a few major differences that make Business Informatics very attractive for employers:

  1. Business Informatics includes information technology, like the relevant portions of applied computer science, to a much larger extent compared to Information Systems.
  2. Business Informatics has significant constructive features meaning that a major focus is on the development of solutions for business problems rather than simply describing them.

On the other hand, information systems strongly focuses on explaining empirical phenomena of the real world. IS has often been called an "explanation-oriented" approach in contrast to the "solution-oriented" BI approach. IS researchers try to explain why things in the real world are the way they are and conduct a lot of empirical surveys whereas a BI researcher tries to develop IT solutions for problems they have observed or assumed. Academics in BI, for example, are often fond of applying new technologies to business problems and doing feasibility studies by building software prototypes. BI students are also taught this constructive approach. Their ability to not only explain reality, but rather shape it, is what makes them very attractive employees for companies as well as good candidates for entrepreneurs in the business IT field.

Tight connections between research and teaching is another tradition of Business Informatics. Recent insights gained in research projects become part of the curricula quite fast because most researchers are also lecturers at the same time. The pace of scientific and technological progress in BI is quite fast, therefore subjects taught are under permanent reconsideration and revision.[1][2][3]

[edit] Studying business informatics

A number of English-language undergraduate programs and postgraduate programs lead directly to the degree of a bachelor or master in Business Informatics. Examples are:

Many German, Austrian, and Swiss universities offer equivalent programs in German leading to a degree (Bachelor/Diploma/Master) in "Wirtschaftsinformatik", for example:

Russian universities have started offering equivalent programs in Russian since 2002:

The German university in Cairo GUC has been offering undergraduate degrees in business informatics since 2005 and will also be providing post-graduate MBA programs.

[edit] Research

[edit] References

  1. ^ http://www.vg-u.de
  2. ^ Ives, B., J. Valacich, R. Watson, R. Zmud and et.al., What Every Business Student Needs to Know About Information Systems, Communications of the Association for Information Systems, (9:30) December, 2002
  3. ^ Doukidis, G.: et al. (Hrsg.): Proceedings of the 3rd European Conference on Information Systems (ECIS '95). Athens 1995, p. 1295-1297
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