Marcus Gibson

Master of Information Management and Systems (2004)

Marcus Gibson

As a double degree undergraduate Marcus Gibson found that he was more focused on the business subjects he was studying, but, after his second year, he found his interests in Information Technology increasing.

In-depth understanding

"I found myself moving further away from the business degree, Business (Accounting), and more towards the IT subjects, Computing (Information Systems). When I enrolled in the postgraduate Master of Information Management and Systems subjects, I initially did six months coursework to help me decide if it was what I really wanted to do.

“I found that I enjoyed the subjects and ended up choosing to transfer into the Research degree. By doing this I would get a more in-depth understanding of what 'research' was, as well as being able to focus on the area that most interested me, Decision support", said Marcus.

Professional and effective

After his MIMS research, Marcus felt that he had obtained a firm grasp of research concepts and had a much clearer understanding of how to go about professional research in an effective way.

"I really enjoy the freedom of research and the ability to be creative and explore your own thoughts. Studying for a PhD felt like a natural path for me to follow and I'm going into it with confidence, as well as very wellgrounded research knowledge and techniques", he said.

Industry involvement

For his PhD Marcus is looking into an assessment of the value of business intelligence systems. He feels that valuing IT has been a particularly ‘thorny’ issue, especially the intangible benefits

"I have a specific interest in IT that supports decision-making activities or Business Intelligence. This will be a challenging topic and my aim is to work with and involve industry vendors and their clients for the research project. I hope to come out of the research with something tangible that is useful in Research – a natural, more in-depth study path", said Marcus.