This appendix lists Australians known to have been awarded PhDs before the end of 1995, whose work was clearly in or directly relevant to IS. Sources used include the ISWorld Dissertation Database, the Australian Digital Theses Program, the author’s memory, interviews with Ron Weber and Cyril Brookes and e-mail discussions with several other people.
This list excludes people who entered the IS discipline with doctorates in other areas, and those who migrated to Australia after completing a doctorate elsewhere.
1977 Ron Weber: Auditor decision making: a study of some aspects of accuracy and consensus and the usefulness of a simulation decision aid for assessing overall system reliability, University of Minnesota, supervisor Gordon Davis.
1982 Errol Iselin: [re information overload], University of Queensland, supervisor Ron Weber.
1984 Iris Vessey: [re psychological processes underlying program debugging], University of Queensland, supervisor Ron Weber.
1986 Ross Jeffery: A comparison of models describing third and fourth generation software development environments, with implications for effective management, University of New South Wales, supervisor Cyril Brookes.
1987 Rick Watson: A study of group decision support system use in three and four-person groups for a preference allocation decision’, University of Minnesota, supervisor Gerry DeSanctis.
1987 Bob Galliers: Information systems planning in Britain and Australia in the mid 1980s: key success factors, London School of Economics, supervisor Frank Land.
1988 Peter Clayton: User involvement in academic library strategic planning: congruence amongst students, academic staff and library staff at the Canberra College of Advanced Education [very close to IS!], University of Canberra, supervisor unknown.
1989 Patricia Willard: The personal computer and the public library: a study of the absorption of new technology and an analysis of librarians’ opinions about the present and future impact on Australian public libraries [very close to IS!], University of New South Wales, supervisor unknown.
1990 Marianne Broadbent: The alignment of business and information strategies’, Graduate School of Management, University of Melbourne, supervisor Peter Weill.
1992 Chris Sauer: Information systems failure: the problem of managing support for a flawed innovation process, University of Western Australia, supervisor unknown.
1992 Paul Swatman: Increasing formality in the specification of high quality information systems in a commercial context, Curtin University of Technology, supervisor Roger Duke.
1993 Paula Swatman: Integrating electronic data interchange with existing organisational structure and internal application systems: the Australian experience, Curtin University of Technology.
1994 James Popple: SHYSTER: a pragmatic legal expert system, The Australian National University, supervisor Roger Clarke.
1994 Graham Pervan: A comprehensive model of group support systems application: development and initial testing, Curtin University of Technology.
The year 1995 was selected as the cut-off point on the pragmatic grounds that the numbers increased significantly from then onwards, with at least seven PhDs in 1996 (D’Ambra, Gould, Gregor, Green, Kirlidog, Mackay and Sayer) and at least five in 1997 (Clarke, Klobas, Parker, Shanks and Williams). It would appear that, by 2002, about 20–30 IS PhDs were graduating from Australian universities each year (Pervan and Shanks 2004).