Masterclass: Crafting Valuable Ideas in Information Systems and Management

Type of Course:


Seminar + Excercise





Term:


Every winter term, except winter term 26/27





Target Group:


Business informatics, management and related courses (e.g. psychology)





Language:


Slides in English, German as the main language of communication





Recommended prior knowledge:


none





Admission requirements:


none





Examination performance:

• Regular participation in weekly meetings
• Preparation
• Presentation
• Discussion of weekly tasks/submissions
• Revision
• Presentation and textualization of own ideas over several weeks

Credits:


6





Contents:

The course is designed to give you the skills to develop your own useful and insightful ideas and to
present and articulate them persuasively. On the whole, it can be a transformative experience in terms of
what you think about an idea, how others perceive your idea and how you deal with the challenges
associated with it. Ultimately, you can use the insights for a follow-up project in your professional and
personal life (e.g. research proposal, master's thesis, project pitching).

The weekly exercises are supported by research-oriented assignments in which you will learn about and
independently apply phenomenon-based approaches to develop your own ideas in the form of research
objectives, questions and contributions. These research findings are applied to practical examples.
Collecting and analyzing empirical data is not a direct part of the course (this will be dealt with in
another seminar or a final thesis). You will exchange, discuss and review ideas in small groups in order
to reflect on and promote your individual learning process.

Overall, the course gives you the opportunity to develop a better understanding of what it takes to come
up with valuable ideas - particularly in the areas of information systems and management. Using
foundational papers and editorials in the respective disciplines, you will learn to ask the right
questions and look for the right answers when tackling projects - so you don't waste valuable resources
unnecessarily.

Learning Objectives:

After the course, participants will be able to

• name and understand what an idea is


• name and understand what a theory, contribution and impact are


• understand and apply how to generate and articulate a good idea


• understand and apply how to deal with audience reactions


• understand what other impacts valuable ideas have


• develop your own valuable idea for research

The weekly exercises are supported by research-oriented tasks in which you will learn and independently
apply phenomenon-oriented approaches to develop your own ideas in the form of research objectives,
questions and contributions.

These findings from research are transferred to practical examples. Collecting and analyzing empirical
data is not a direct part of the course (this will be dealt with in another seminar or in a final thesis).

You will share, discuss and review ideas in small groups to reflect and enhance your individual learning
process.

Topics of the lecture:


We read and discuss

• what is and is not a valuable idea
• how to translate a valuable idea into an actionable goal and question
• how to formulate an idea clearly and persuasively
• how an audience perceives a presented idea and how to respond to their concerns
• the wider implications of valuable ideas for research and practice

Topics of the exercise:

• 
  Introduction or recapitulation of the basics of the statistical software R and other data analysis tools
  
• Introduction or recapitulation of the basics of statistics
• Application of the findings to sample data sets
• Application of the findings to own examples
• Reflection on own application

General information:

The meetings take place on site.

The meetings take place at irregular intervals during the semester. The specific dates will be announced
in advance in Stud.IP.

The meetings are interactive and discussion-oriented. Regular attendance is therefore required. Further
information on participation will be communicated via Stud.IP and in the kick-off.