User:Donald I. Barker

The account of this former contributor was not re-activated after the server upgrade of March 2022.

I stumbled into textbook authoring out of necessity. Two decades ago, I wanted to teach people how to use personal computers to improve business productivity but couldn't find anyone publishing instructional material on the subject. So, I got sucked into creating it myself. It turned out I had a knack for writing tutorial-style textbooks about computer technology. To my amazement, I somehow found the energy and time to continue my duties as an assistant professor of information systems at Gonzaga University, as well as author twenty-eight textbooks, contribute to four others, and write dozens of technical articles for a variety of top journals and magazines, such as MIT's Technology Review, PC AI Magazine, and the Industry Standard. With advent of the Web, it occurred to me that finding content was going to be a real challenge. So, I dedicated over a decade to crafting textbooks to show users how to efficiently and effectively locate the information online.

My educational credentials include a M.B.A. from Eastern Washington University, with an emphasis in marketing research, and a B.A. from Eastern Washington State College, with a major in philosophy and a minor in sociology.