Research on IT/IS Evaluation: A 25 Year Review

Abstract

The conduct of IT/IS evaluation and its associated approaches, techniques and methods have been the subject of IS research for many years, particularly in the last two decades. This paper reflects on the body of knowledge which has emerged over the past twenty‑five years in order to identify where research efforts are focussed, what are the important issues in IT/IS evaluation research, and where future research efforts should be placed. This study presents a descriptive analysis of research on IT/IS evaluation over the last 25 five years, from 1986 to 2010, in five leading IS journals In total, 176 papers related to IT/IS evaluation are identified and reviewed in this study. Based on the Context, Content and Process model, IT/IS evaluation can be broken down to five interrelated elements: why evaluation is carried out, what is evaluated,whenwhen evaluation takes place, how evaluation is performed and who is involved in evaluation. Each of these elements are identified and classified in the sample research articles and based on this analysis, we propose a new perspective for classifying IT/IS evaluation approaches.