The design and usage of a new Southern African Information Systems textbook

Abstract

Changes in South African society have brought about changes in the background of student audiences and these have stimulated a review of the areas of governance, syllabus, curriculum, teaching methods and research in educational institutions. In this paper we describe our revised approach to teaching of (Business) Information Systems/ Computer Studies / Business Computing, and the first-year textbook which we created to support this new approach. We discuss the "product-driven" and "problem-driven" arrangements of current textbooks and report on a survey of Business Information Systems students using the new textbook at the University of Durban-Westville. We discuss problems with foreign textbooks and current teaching methods and describe the structure and content of an Information Systems course designed locally. We conclude with recommendations on teaching methods, textbook design and support material which are appropriate to the new South Africa.