BITR | Vol 1, Iss 1

Welcome to the first issue of The Bulletin of Information Technology Research (BITR), the new online publication from CITRUS, the New Zealand Centres for Information Technology Research, and the National Advisory Committee on Computing Qualifications (NACCQ). This launch issue of BITR contains four new papers, and all from new writers, re-enforcing the aim of CITRUS, which has been established to leverage an existing research base and to create new opportunities for researchers in the applied information technology field. Drawing on the historical collaboration that exists within the National Advisory Committee, CITRUS aims to leverage the rapidly growing research culture within New Zealand's polytechnics and institutes of technology. It is doing this by establishing physical research hubs, the first at UNITEC which has already won over half a million dollars in external funding this year, and a second hub will hopefully open this year at Otago Polytechnic. CITRUS has created a mailing list for researchers to share ideas and ask questions and, working with the NACCQ's Research and Support Working Group, he have now launched the new Bulletin. BITR is positioned as an academic publication with value to students, academics and practitioners alike, editorially reviewed it is intended to support new and emerging researchers and writers and act as a stepping stone to fully refereed journals such as the NACCQ's Journal of Applied Computing and IT (JACIT). So the Bulletin is very much a tool for building up our research experience and a place where new writers can write and learn. The editors have worked closely with a number of the authors to get papers ready for publication in the belief that mentoring amongst ourselves is the best way to safely develop a strong research culture.

The predominant theme in this issue is literature review, perhaps a logical choice given the one of the stated aims of the Bulletin is to focus on helping new and emerging researchers and writers publish their work. The lead paper is an extensive literature review by Adrian Hargreaves focusing on an issue familiar to all of us involved in systems development, namely the failure of software designers to understand the requirements of the user. In this paper, Hargreaves looks at a number of potential models and produces a set of recommendations as to how the process of capturing user requirements can be improved.

The two other literature reviews in this issue look at educational technology research and literature relating to managing information technology since 1998. Both papers are the result of the Research Methods course within UNITEC's Master of Computing. The final paper in issue 1 is from Paul Kearney, an experienced IT practitioner who is relatively new to academia and by his own admission very new to academic writing. Paul has a background in games development and in this paper explores the common assumption that first person games are only negative. He suggests some possible positive outcomes from playing such games and makes some recommendations for future research.

Finally, thanks to those people who helped make this first edition of the Bulletin happen, whether it was support with editing, reviewing papers or pulling together the final effort, without the help of the NACCQ's Research and Supporting Working Group this bulletin would not have happened.

Andy Williamson
Editor

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