Information Systems and Software Engineering: The Case for Convergence

The Information Systems (IS) and Software Engineering (SE) fields share a remarkable number of similarities in their historical evolution to date. These similarities are briefly outlined below. An analysis of 10 years (2001-2010) of publications in the primary journals in both fields also reveals a good deal of overlap in research topics. Given the challenges faced by both as young disciplines, there is potentially much to gain from a closer interaction between both fields than has traditionally been the case. This article seeks to encourage such interaction, and illustrates how this might usefully occur in the area of design. It concludes by proposing a number of practical initiatives that could stimulate and facilitate interaction between the IS and SE fields