Dear Colleagues
I was advised today that MIS Quarterly's Founding EIC, Gary Dickson, recently passed away. I never managed to meet Gary, but as the current EIC of MISQ, I am immensely grateful that he had the vision to lead this incredible journal.
As a second/third generation IS scholar, I have had the luxury of taking many of our institutions for granted, but I am acutely aware that it was not always like this. Along with leading MISQ, Gary was one of the co-founders of both the Minnesota MIS program and ICIS. It is hard to imagine now that he has passed away, along with Gordon Davis who also passed away earlier this year. It was through the vision of incredible scholars like them that the University of Minnesota became known by many as the intellectual home of the IS discipline.
In March 1977, Dickson wrote the very first sentence printed in MISQ: "With this issue, the MIS Quarterly attempts to break new ground in the information systems discipline." And that's what we've done ever since, in each issue, and each year.
In fact, it's quite remarkable to read that first issue of MISQ in March '77. For those of you who, like me, are surprised that people have just 'woken up' to the power of data, you will be glad to see Getz observing in that issue that "It is data that is demanding more and more of the company's resource dollar for capital investment. It is data, the raw material, that continues unmanaged, uncontrolled, and the subject of today's privacy issues."
And for those of you, like me, who struggle for years trying to write papers for 'top journals,' I hope you will enjoy the story that Izak Benbasat shared with me about his paper in the March 77 issue with Roger Schroeder. According to Izak, he shared a version of his paper with Gary that he intended to send to another journal. Gary suggested that Izak just leave the paper with him for a little while, only for Izak to later find out that Gary was publishing it in the first issue of the journal! Not a bad place for an early publication, and very clever of Gary to pick a future leader of our field like Izak to include in his first issue!
With gratitude to Gary for all of his contributions.
Andrew.
Andrew Burton-Jones
Professor of Business Information Systems
UQ Business School
The University of Queensland
Editor-in-Chief, MIS Quarterly
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Andrew Burton-Jones
University of Queensland
Brisbane QLD
(604) 827-3260
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