Management and Information Systems Quarterly (MISQ), a prestigious journal in the field, has accepted a paper written by UW iSchool Assistant Professor Hazel Taylor, entitled "Focus and Diversity in Information Systems Research: Meeting the Dual Demands of a Healthy Applied Discipline." The paper is co-authored by Stuart Dillon, of the University of Waikato, New Zealand, and Melinda Van Wingen (an iSchool MLIS alumna).

The paper develops the argument that healthy applied disciplines, such as Information Systems (IS), must constantly strive to maintain a balance between academic rigor and practical relevance, and this balance is typically reflected in a diversity of research topics around a coherent focus of ideas. The authors present a longitudinal analysis of the Information Systems (IS) field, demonstrating how it has met the dual demands of rigor and relevance over a twenty year period, with coherence provided by three focused subfields, and diversity reflected in the adaptability of research agendas to respond to the IS field's rapidly changing contexts of application. A complete abstract of the article can be found on the MISQ Web site.

MISQ is one of the most prestigious and highly selective journals in any academic field, and Hazel Taylor is the first UW faculty member to be lead author on a paper accepted by this journal since its inception in 1977.