Editor’s Comments

For the last two or three years, the field of "big data" has emerged as the new frontier in the wide spectrum of IT-enabled innovations and opportunities allowed by the information revolution.The ever-increasing creation of massive amounts of data through an extensive array of several new data generating sources has prompted organizations, consultants, scientists, and academics to direct their attention to how to harness and analyze big data.Businesses are looking for a technology-based competitive advantage, while the public, academic, and scientific sectors look for opportunities to understand the world in unprecedented ways.The expectations are high that big data will propel our society into an exciting era of across the board innovations.As with any new emerging technology wave, quotes and wild forecasts abound:"Information is the oil of the 21 st century, and analytics is the combustion engine."(Peter Sondergaard, Gartner Group) "Data is the new science.Big Data holds the answers."(Pat Gelsinger, EMC) "Data are becoming the new raw material of business."(The Economist 2010) Gartner's hype curve predicts big data will start making deep transformational impact in two to five years (Heudecker 2013).Aside from splashy quotes and predictions by consultants, company executives are actually trying to do something about the new wave, or at least thinking about it (IBM 2011), and even midmarket companies are gearing up for it (Dell Midmarket Research 2014).In my role as department head of a prominent IS department, which has always been active in interdisciplinary collaboration, sponsored research, and business partnerships, I have been part of extensive discussions about big data in the last two years both with potential industry partners as well as academic collaborators in my university.I find that in industry, there is a considerable gap in the understanding of the area, its challenges, and its potential.Except for a few large companies, especially informationintensive ones like Linkedin, Facebook, and Google, executives of most corporations and midmarket companies are struggling with understanding and deciding what to do.The confusion is exacerbated by the highly fragmented environment of solutions and applications that are intended to work in the big data realm.Universities have been moving to address the industry gaps.IS groups have been responding especially to the opportunity of delivering academic programs that specialize in data and business analytics, to form data scientists.Such programs are proliferating fast.As far as academic research, big data opportunities lure.Through its funding agencies, the federal government has identified big data as a strategic priority for funding.A quick search of grant opportunities in the U.S.