University of Minho

The academic interests of the Department of Information Systems are related to the adoption and use of information technology (IT) in organizations and society. They address two concerns: (1) those related to the development and improvement of socio-technical units (work units, processes, organizations, businesses, society sectors); (2) those related to the construction of IT applications capable of addressing the needs of the contexts where they will be used or to enable new forms of setting up work structures.

The Department of Information Systems has around 35 faculty members. Most of them hold a doctoral degree and are in a tenure track. A few of them, collaborating with the department in a part time basis, are recruited among reputed IST professionals. The department has also six collaborators with administrative and technical duties.

The department aims at providing a rich and challenging environment for teaching and research. Cultural diversity is viewed as an asset. Creativity and innovation are valued as crucial to the department’s academic mission. The department is installed in modern facilities, adequate to the fulfilment of its mission.

The portfolio of educational offer promoted by the Department of Information Systems in the information systems andtechnologies (IST) area – TSI@UMinho, http://tsiuminho.dsi.uminho.pt/ – covers all levels of higher education. Initial training of IST  professionals is achieved through the integrated Master in Engineering and Management of Information Systems. This program has its roots in an early program created in 1990. Challenges from keeping up with constant evolution of IST professional

training and the demands of adjusting higher education programs to the new principles and rules for higher education have been addressed through several changes in the program structure. Besides this IST initial training program, the TSI@UMinho portfolio also includes the following programs: Master in Information Systems; Master in Information Services and Technologies Entrepreneurship; Doctoral Program in Information Systems and Technologies.

TSI@UMinho students are offered a broad range of possibilities in what concerns international mobility and cooperation. The department has mobility agreements with a large set of partners from several countries and promotes the affiliation to networks whose thematic motivation might facilitate the exchange of students (e.g., ERCIS, IS-LINK, AIS Student Chapter@UMinho).