In This Issue, 8(1), January 2010

This issue of DSJIE contains six empirical articlesp using the manuscript central system, indicate that you are responding to that particular article, and I will consider it for possible publication in future issues of DSJIE. I hope that these articles serve as a trigger for eventual changes in Colleges of Business curricula., two conceptual articles, and eight teaching briefs. I would like to thank the associate editorial team and the set of reviewers for making it possible to publish these high-quality articles complemented by well-written teaching briefs. In this issue, I have selected articles and teaching briefs that address different aspects of specific themes and assembled them into coherent groups, allowing readers to study empirical articles related to a theme and then discover how instructors have implemented the concepts associated with the theme in their classrooms through the teaching briefs. If you would like to respond to any article in a particular theme, please submit a one-page write-u

Please note that the information for contributors has changed. These changes are included in this issue and have also been updated on the web page, www.dsjie.org. In particular, authors of teaching briefs are now expected to include a half-page literature review and list a minimum of five appropriate references. The number of pages allowed for teaching briefs has been increased to six double-spaced pages (12-pt font).

Also, each article submitted to the journal must be accompanied by an abstract (limited to 200 words). The abstract should answer the following questions: purpose of manuscript, design/methodology/approach, findings, research implications, practical implications, and innovation. The title of your article and abstract are the most important parts of your manuscript and should provide the important findings and implications of your research, so please pay special attention in crafting them. Please follow the APA manual of style (http://www.apastyle.org/) in writing your manuscript. In addition, the reviewers have been provided more explicit guidelines on choosing among the following categories: reject, major revisions, minor revisions, and accept.

The editorial team expects these changes to help DSJIE continue its position as a high-quality journal. What follows is a brief description of the previously mentioned themes, articles, and teaching briefs included in this issue.

Theme I: Innovation in Course Design: Five empirical articles anchor this theme and help readers in improving the design of their courses. The article “An Exploratory Study of Student Perceptions of Which Classroom Policies are Fairest,” by Edward Duplaga and Marzie Astani, explores student perceptions of which course policies provide the fairest treatment for all students in a college class. The article “Effects of transparency and at-stakeness on students’ perceptions of their ability to work collaboratively in effective classroom teams: A partial test of the Jassawalla & Sashittal model,” by Avan Jassawalla, Hemant Sashittal, and Avinash Malshe found evidence to suggest that a teaching strategy designed to help students reach the multiple stages of team development positively impacts their perceptions. The article “Why Is Performance on Multiple-Choice Tests and Constructed-Response Tests Not More Closely Related? Theory and an Empirical Test,” by William Kuechler and Mark Simkin states that the chunk of procedural knowledge recalled for Constructed-Response questions is more sophisticated and more practically useful than the simple facts recalled to answer Multiple-Choice questions, and the results of this study have probably raised more questions than they have answered. The article “How Levels of Interactivity in Tutorials Affect Students' Learning of Modeling Transportation Problems in a Spreadsheet” by Kala Seal, Zbigniew Przasnyski, and Linda Leon shows that interactive tutorials are effective in enhancing students’ learning of modeling concepts. The article, “Absenteeism in undergraduate business education: A proposed model and exploratory investigation,” by Lisa Burke finds that students: 1) view teacher-centric influences such as instructional styles as most important in determining whether they attend classes on a given day (significantly more than most other factors); 2) view extrinsic factors such as grading requirements or extra credit as important, especially for encouraging their peers to attend class more often; 3) espouse fairly positive values and attitudes toward the value of class attendance, despite their personal absences and recognition that instructors may not view their skipping rationale as legitimate; 4) view instructors as well as students as generally accepting of students’ skipping behaviors, indicating “absenteeism cultures” could exist in business schools; and lastly 5) see few long-term influences of absenteeism post-graduation.

These articles are complemented by teaching briefs that discuss:

• Project Flip: A Project Management Case/Exercise Experience,
  
• Using SMS Text Messaging to Create Individualized and Interactive Experiences in Large Classes: A Beer Game Example,
  
• Using a Spreadsheet Version of Deming’s Funnel Experiment in Quality Management and OM Classes, and
  
• A Simple Approach to Implementing and Training Neural Networks in Excel.

Theme II: Research on Learning in Decision Sciences: This theme is composed of two conceptual articles, opening with “A Reference Model for Sustainable E-Learning Service Systems: Experiences with the Joint University/Teradata Consortium,” by Haluk Demirkan, Michael Goul, and Mary Gros, who provide a validated reference model that assists managerial decision making in setting up and sustaining a joint industry/university e-learning service system. The next article, “Practitioner Perceptions of the A3 Method for Process Improvement in Health Care,” by John Visich, Angela Wicks, and Faiza Zalila, presents students’ perceptions of the A3 method, a structured problem solving approach based on lean concepts and tools that have been adapted to the healthcare environment. The empirical article in this theme, “Situated Learning: Conceptualization and Measurement,” by Lakshmi Goel, Norman Johnson, Iris Junglas, and Blake Ives, draws on situated cognition theory, social learning theory, and the theory of mental models to identify and measure four components of situated learning—thematic focus, cognitive absorption, social structure, and participation. They state that researchers and practitioners need to consider learning as a constellation of these four components instead of an indivisible phenomenon.

These articles are supplemented by teaching briefs that discuss:

• From Nothing to Something: An Experiential Entrepreneurship Experience,
  
• The PB&J Challenge: Using Value-Stream Mapping to Drive Learning Loops,
  
• The Twenty Minute “Just-in-Time Exercise," and
  
• Experiential Learning: The Case of the Production Game.

I am very impressed with the high quality of articles that are submitted to DSJIE. The reviewers and editorial team make an exemplary effort in providing developmental comments to the authors in revising the manuscripts. I thank them for their contributions to DSJIE.

I expect that the articles presented in this issue will motivate you to conduct new research studies on learning and pedagogy, thus furthering knowledge in the field, and I hope that you will continue to contribute to the literature by writing empirical articles, case study articles, conceptual articles, and teaching briefs for DSJIE.

Chetan S. Sankar
Editor