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I am going to be starting my dissertation soon in MSc Cyber Security. The supervisor keeps asking me 'What will be your IT artefact?' and to be honest I have no idea what he is actually asking me. I understand the words, and I have Googled it (to some extent) but it's not clear to me what he is expecting.

Any help welcomed.

Cowthulhu
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Liqua
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  • Hi Liqua, welcome to the site! Do you mean "Artifact" or "Artefact"? I've never heard of the latter, although it may be a term I'm unfamiliar with. – Cowthulhu Jun 07 '19 at 20:43
  • Hello Cowthulhu,

    I can only go off what he wrote, sorry.

    Googling it I found this:

    artefact /ˈɑːtɪfakt/ noun: artefact; plural noun: artefacts; noun: artifact; plural noun: artifacts

    1.
an object made by a human being, typically one of cultural or historical interest.
"gold and silver artefacts"
2.
something observed in a scientific investigation or experiment that is not naturally present but occurs as a result of the preparative or investigative procedure.
"the curvature of the surface is an artefact of the wide-angle view"
    – Liqua Jun 07 '19 at 20:44
  • Also I submitted a proposed edit to your title that I think will make the question easier to understand without clicking on it. – Cowthulhu Jun 07 '19 at 20:45
  • You know what - I'm actually just used to spelling it the other way, it looks like they're both valid. Learned something new - thanks for clarifying! – Cowthulhu Jun 07 '19 at 20:49
  • This might be a US / UK thing :) (I am from the UK)

    Also, how to I see your suggested title change so I can edit it?

     – Liqua Jun 07 '19 at 20:49
  • I'm not super certain, although I think this link should have instructions (may not be up to date): https://stackoverflow.blog/2011/02/05/suggested-edits-and-edit-review/ – Cowthulhu Jun 07 '19 at 20:53
  • @Liqua, if the supervisor/instructor's first language is not English it could be just be a language problem. Or, sometimes using words in new ways is to help you practice thinking a little and practice connecting ideas instead of mindlessly memorizing facts. If you tried, can't figure it out, you can let the instructor know what you did but could not figure it out, and ask if they could explain. – clarity123 Jun 08 '19 at 02:01
  • This is not a language problem, but a gap between two approaches: practical information systems management and the scientific research of it. It's in well established, widely used scientific terminology, as explained in my answer. – Esa Jokinen Jun 08 '19 at 06:40

1 Answers1

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By dictionary definition, an artefact (UK) or an artifact (US) is

  1. an object made by a human being, typically one of cultural or historical interest. "gold and silver artefacts"
  2. something observed in a scientific investigation or experiment that is not naturally present but occurs as a result of the preparative or investigative procedure. "the curvature of the surface is an artefact of the wide-angle view"

Your supervisor probably has a design science methodology background and expects your work will be build on this methodology, too. An IT artifact is a design artifact in the field of information systems (research).

The term is widely used in information systems research. Reading through e.g. Hevner, A., March, S. T., Park, J., & Ram, S. (2004). Design Science in Information Systems Research. MIS quarterly, 28(1), 75-105. should give you a good grounding on the subject. Here, an IT artifact could be many different things:

The realm of IS research is at the confluence of people, organizations, and technology (Davis and Olson 1985; Lee 1999). IT artifacts are broadly defined as constructs (vocabulary and symbols), models (abstractions and representations), methods (algorithms and practices), and instantiations (implemented and prototype systems). These are concrete prescriptions that enable IT researchers and practitioners to understand and address the problems inherent in developing and successfully implementing information systems within organizations (March and Smith 1995; Nunamaker et al. 1991a). - -

Design science, as the other side of the IS research cycle, creates and evaluates IT artifacts intended to solve identified organizational problems. Such artifacts are represented in a structured form that may vary from software, formal logic, and rigorous mathematics to informal natural language descriptions. A mathematical basis for design allows many types of quantitative evaluations of an IT artifact, including optimization proofs, analytical simulation, and quantitative comparisons with alternative designs. The further evaluation of a new artifact in a given organizational context affords the opportunity to apply empirical and qualitative methods.

Esa Jokinen
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