Information systems textbook design for South Africa

Changes in South African politics and society since the election of Nelson Mandela as President of South Africa in the first democratic election in April, 1994, have brought about changes in the background of student audiences. This has stimulated a review of the areas of governance, syllabus, curriculum, teaching methods and research in educational institutions. We describe the first-year textbook which we created to match these changes with an information systems textbook which meets South African needs, rather than echoes the technology and methods of developed countries. We discuss the "product-driven" and "problem-driven" arrangements of current textbooks and summarise a survey of information systems sufficient using the textbook. We discuss problems with non-South African textbooks and describe some of the features of an information systems course designed locally. We conclude with recommendations on teaching methods, textbook design and support material which are appropriate to a developing country such as South Africa.