OSRA Becomes AIS Special Interest Group

The OSRA Executive Board is pleased to announce that OSRA has officially become a Special Interest Group (SIG) of the Association for Information Systems. OSRA has a proud 25-year history of serving the needs of professionals in the field of end-user and organizational information systems and education. As the IS field continues to evolve, we believe that affiliation with AIS will greatly strengthen OSRA to fulfill its mission and provide continued leadership in promoting research, education, and professional practice in end-user systems.

As many OSRA members are aware, the organization has been considering affiliation with a larger IS/Business/Research organization for a number of years. For the past three years, OSRA has been affiliating on a trial basis with the Federation of Business Disciplines (FBD) and the past three conferences in Dallas, Oklahoma City, and San Diego have been held in conjunction with FBD. At the same time, the Board has continued to consider other alternatives for affiliation. After carefully assessing all the alternatives and considering FBD’s decision not to expand its regional focus, the Board made the decision that affiliation with AIS Association of Information Systems (www.aisnet.org) would be most consistent with OSRA’s mission, would best position OSRA to serve the field, and offer the greatest value for members. What this means has the following implications:

• OSRA can continue to build upon its strengths in end-user information systems and let the larger umbrella organization handle the logistics side of operating the conferences (i.e., ICIS or AMCIS with OSRA pre-conference sessions and OSRA-sponsored activities), etc.
• The convergence of various aspects of information technology in human societies is evident. Through the new relationship, the OSRA Board members felt that the results will be mutually beneficial to both OSRA and AIS organizations and their members.
• The continuous updates and improvements of OSRA's OEIS model curriculum may better integrate with the IS 2002 model curriculum to form a comprehensive template for all IS/IT curricular design and redesign efforts.

While we at OSRA are excited about many new opportunities, issues and concerns that arise may need to be identified and worked out. During the transition, the OSRA Executive Board is diligently discussing with the officers at AIS on the agreeable level of autonomy and collaboration OSRA should maintain. As the issues are gradually resolving, particularly on annual conference, ITLPJ journal, and membership dues and benefits, I will keep you updated.

If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to let me or Donna Everett, OSRA Executive Director, know.

Best wishes,

Roger Yin
President, OSRA and
Professor
Information Technology and Business Education, University of Wisconsin-Whitewater