CREATING AND SUSTAINING OF GLOBAL COMMUNITY OF SCHOLARS

Against the backdrop of a brief history of communities of scholars, th e shortcomings of the current intellectual infrastructure are discusse d in this paper. This system is deeply rooted in printed matter, the p ostal system, and physical knowledge stores. As a result of the defici encies of this infrastructure, many scholars, practitioners, and stude nts have limited opportunities to participate in creating and sharing information. The Internet is put forward as the foundation of a new in tellectual infrastructure that will overcome many of the problems of t he old system. The significant benefits to be gained from redesigning the intellectual infrastructure are discussed. Some of the possible im plications for universities and scholarly careers are considered. We h ave an opportunity to transform the basic infrastructure of the MIS co mmunity. By changing the way we store, process, and distribute informa tion, we can create a broader, more collaborative, and more productive community of MIS scholars, students, and practitioners. This paper fi rst briefly traces the history of scholarly communities and examines t heir development of an infrastructure for knowledge creation and distr ibution. After the shortcomings of our present infrastructure are addr essed, some of the possibilities and the consequences of creating an M IS electronic community are discussed. In particular, the redesign opp ortunities made possible by the Internet (Kehoe, 1993) are investigate d.