Faculty Contact Information:
Proir to the start of the course, contact is via email.
Phone number will be provided the first day of class, and will be posted in the Announcements in WebTycho.
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Consultation:
Professor will be available in the classroom 30 minutes before the start of the class, and during the lunch break. Between class meetings, availability is via email or telephone.
Class Meetings are 25/26 Aug, 29/30 Sept, and 13/14 Oct, 0900-1600.
This is a "hybrid" course, so we will use WebTycho in lieu of havng a fourth weekend meeting in person.
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Required Texts and Readings:
Bruner, R., Eaker, M., Freeman, R., Spekman, R., Teisberg, E., and
Venkataraman, S. (2003). The Portable MBA (4th ed.). New York: John Wiley and Sons, Inc.
O'Brien, James A. and Marakas, George M. (2008). Management Information
Systems (8th ed.). New York: McGraw-Hill/Irwin.
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Supplementary Readings:
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The standard for papers in the graduate program is the APA style. All participants in this course and all graduate INSS, MGMT, PUAD, and ECON courses should have a copy of the style guide:
American Psychological Association. (2001). Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association, 5th Edition. Washington DC: Author. All graduate students should be prepared to utilize the UMUC online library at http://www.ed.umuc.edu/library/. The library contains a large number of full text academic journals that are free of charge and immediately available. The library homepage also contains a number of links related to improving students' research and writing skills.
Throughout the course, the instructor will assign specific articles that students are expected to read and discuss as part of the “Participation” component of the course grade.
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Recommended Journals:
A variety of full-text, online, free-of-charge, and pay-per-view academic journals are available through the MIS Webboard at http://webboard.ed.umuc.edu/~mis.
Governing.comis especially useful, as are the publications of the various professional societies (such as ACM -- the Association for Computing Machinery, the IEEE Computing Society, and the various management professional societies). In addition, there are many trade journals (such as eWEEK) that MIS professionals should become familiar with, many of these being published both weekly and on-line.
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Course Description:
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3 semester hours credit. (Formerly INSS 530.) Prerequisites: Undergraduate principles of management and economics, or permission of the Program Director. Introduces basic management information systems concepts and examines the fundamental types of information systems. Personal, work group, and enterprise information systems are discussed. The challenge and use of information to gain competitive advantage are also examined. Other topics to be discussed include: the economics of information, use of value added concepts to evaluate information system effectiveness, and the application of system theory to information system architecture.
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Course Goals:
As a required course in both the M.S. in Management Information Systems and the M.P.A., as well as the Information Systems Analyst Certificate, the Certificate in E-Government and the Certificate in Public Management, this course seeks primarily to:
1. improve the professional skills of the participants,
2. provide students with a foundational knowledge of the various
roles of information systems in organizations, and
3. assist degree-seeking students in preparing for the comprehensive
exam, and
4. improve the students' comprehension of the link between information
management and public administration.
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Course Objectives:
At the conclusion of this course the student will be able to:
1. Compare and contrast the various roles information systems play
in organizations and discuss how these roles are reflected in the
organization's structure,
2. Analyze different organizational situations involving the use of
information systems and/or the application of information
technology and make recommendations for improvement,
3. Analyze and demonstrate the impact of advancements of information
technology on organizational variables (such as: communications,
work groups, management decisionmaking, and security),
4. Demonstrate knowledge of basic techniques and elementary skills in
in using application software (such as: databases and spreadsheets),
5. Demonstrate familiarity with the literature in information systems
or a field of their own interest (e.g., medicine or welfare) with
a focus on the use of information technology in that field,
6. Demonstrate knowledge of the other functional areas of an
organization (such as: finance, marketing or public relations,
operations, human resources, and research and development) so that
information systems analysis of any organization can be performed
in a more comprehensive fashion,
7. Analyze ethical issues surrounding the use of information technology
in organizations,
8. Discuss the importance of networkds to organizations, including
issues of security and privacy,
9. Analyze the extent to which an organization's use of information
technology contributes to its competitive advantage, and
10. Apply value added concepts in the evaluation of information system
effectiveness.
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Grading Information:
Grades for this course will be assigned as follows:
A 90%+ B 80 – 89% C 70-79%
F Below 70% or for regular non-attendance F(n)
Please note that the Bowie State grading system does not include the grade of D.
Last date by which to withdraw is Friday, 12 Oct.
Grades of Incomplete or Withdrawal are governed by UMUC – Europe policies. Please refer to the UMUC – Europe Graduate Catalog available at http://www.ed.umuc.edu/general_info/publications/catalogs/index.html or your local Education Center.
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Course Requirements:
Graduate school at the masters level focuses on helping students obtain the education needed for success as professionals in their chosen fields. Thus, UMUC-Europe Graduate Programs and Bowie State University share the common goals of promoting excellence in academic scholarship through thoughtful inquiry and the skillful application of knowledge and theory for the betterment of society.
In order to maximize your graduate educational experience in general and this course in particular, the following conponents contribute to your grade at the given percentages:
20% Midterm exam, including comprehensive exam question paper and presentation
20% Final Exam -- in-class, part open book and part closed
15% Organization Analysis Paper and Presentation
15% Portable MBA paper and presentation
10% In-class work - exercises, discussion questions
20% Out-of-class work (via postings in WebTycho) - exercises, discussion questions
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Description of Course Requirements:
The closed-book part of the Midterm and both parts of the Final Examination will be in-class.
Portable MBA Paper and Presentation Sunday of Weekend 2:
Each student will make a 10-minute presentation on a chapter from the book The Portable MBA. The instructor will assign the chapters. There may be more than one student assigned to the same chapter, depending on class size. Visual aids and inclusion of additional information from sources beyond the textbooks are highly encouraged. These chapters will be covered on the exams. Minimum requirements for the chapter review are:
1. Must include a summary and at least five (5) major points, and must compare and contrast the ways in which the chapter topics apply in the business world and in public administration.
2. Summary and discussion of major points are to be written up and posted in WebTycho as indicated in the Course Schedule. The other students are encouraged to read this before the in-class presentation, and come prepared for discussion.
Comprehensive exam question Paper and Presentation Saturday of Weekend 2:
Each student will be assigned a comprehensive exam-type question. The student is to research the question, using several sources in addition to the textbooks, write a 3-4 page paper answering the question, and prepare a PowerPoint presentation of the answer to share with the class. More than one student may be assigned the same question, but the work is to be done independently. This is the open book component of the Midterm Exam.
Organization Analysis Paper and Presentation Saturday of Weekend 3:
Each student will select an organization or company, and investigate how it manages its information system(s), and the ability of the(se) information system(s) to support the needs of the company or organization in the future.
1. Saturday, 29 Sept, you must bring a one-page proposal identifying the organization or company (and the industry in which it operates), a description of why you have chosen this company or organization, and the sources you expect to use for your research (you may add sources as your work progresses). You will receive feedback from the instructor on that day or the next regarding the suitability, scope, etc. of your proposal.
2. Once approved, perform an analysis of the company or organization. This should consist of an in-depth study that provides a brief overview of the company or organization, discussing the appropriateness of their current systems, and assessing the future potential of these systems to support growth, reduce costs, maintain competitive advantages, and otherwise support the future needs of the organization. The results of the analysis should be presented as by a consultant hired to recommend an improved system to the board of directors, which outlines a go-forward systems approach for the next decade and beyond. Include financial (cost to implement) and Return on Investment (ROI) data.
3. Documentation should consist of an 4-6 page paper, single-spaced, with standard margins and type font/pitch. The final version of your paper will be due, posted in WebTycho, no later than noon, Monday, 15 October.
4. You will give a Powerpoint presentation on your findings the afternoon of Sunday, 14 Oct. If you cannot be present that day, contact the instructor to arrange an alternate time for your presentation.
All papers must conform to the APA style. The paper should be in the format described in the guidelines for the INSS 890 final paper (see
http://faculty.ed.umuc.edu/~meinkej/inss690/apaguidelines.pdf). A
Powerpoint summary of using references in the APA style can be found at http://owl.english.purdue.edu/workshops/pp/APA2.PPT and a more extensive description of the APA style is available at http://owl.english.purdue.edu.
Applications Exercises, Discussion Questions:
Exercises and questions from the O'Brien text and other sources will be assigned throughout the course. Some of these will be done in-class, others will be assigned to be posted in WebTycho. Details of these assignments will be posted in WebTycho.
Absences:
If you must miss class, you are responsible for getting information from fellow students regarding what you missed. Assume that there will be discussion and/or lecture information that is not in the textbook. Realize also that the Course Schedule shown below is subject to change by the instructor as needed. The instructor is willing to help you regarding what you missed, but will not have notes regarding the discussions that take place in the classroom, nor on the presentations, and cannot repeat the class. There will be a mechanism for making up missed "in-class" work and discussions by additional postings in WebTycho -- ask the instructor for details.
If you must miss an exam, you are responsible for making arrangements with the instructor, in advance if possible.
You are required to conduct professional-level research, including appropriately citing works of others and avoiding plagiarism.
Resubmission of course work from previous classes (whether or not taken at UMUC, UMUC-Europe or BSU), partially or in its entirety, is not acceptable in this course and will result in an automatic failure on the assignment.
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Course Schedule:
Projected Course Schedule
For a "regular" face-to-face graduate course, a student should expect to spend 2-3 hours of out-of-class time for each of the 48 hours of in-class time, meaning a total of 150-200 hours on this
course. This term, we are meeting in a "hybrid" format, with three weekends of in-class meetings instead of four. The same amount of time, effort, and deliverable work are expected as in the "regular" format, and this will be accomplished by means of additional assignments within the WebTycho environment in the following schedule.
Weekend 1 (25/26 Aug)
Introductions and Overview of Course and Requirements.
Overview of O'Brien Chapters 1-7, with in-class discussion and work on exercises, and more detailed reading and assignments to be done in WebTycho during weeks 1-4.
Overview of chapters to be covered in The Portable MBA, with detailed reading, discussions via WebTycho, paper to be submitted during the week of 16 Sept, presentation to be given the afternoon of 30 Sept.
During the Intervening Weeks, via WebTycho
Students are expected to read O'Brien chapters 1-10 (good pace is 2 per week, but getting ahead is even better!), and chapters to be assigned in The Portable MBA.
Each week, there will be individual work, to be submitted in the Assignments Folder in WebTycho. Some weeks, this will be exercises or other activities from the O'Brien textbook.
Each week, there will be (a) discussion topic(s), with discussion taking place via postings in the Conferences and/or Study Group areas of WebTycho. Each student is expected to provide outside sources which expand the knowledge contained in the textbooks.
18 Sept - Portable MBA paper is to be posted in WebTycho. Presentation is to be given in-class on Sunday, 30 Sept.
25 Sept - Comprehensive exam question paper is to be posted in WebTycho. Presentation is to be given in-class on Saturday, 29 Sept. Note that this is the open book part of the Midterm Exam.
Weekend 2 (29/30 Sept)
Closed book part of the Midterm Exam -- morning of Saturday, 29 Sept. Covers O'Brien chapters 1-7, and in- and out-of-class lectures, discussions, exercises, and readings.
Mornings of 29 and 30 Sept - Overview and in-class discussion and exercises work on O'Brien chapters 8, 9, and 10. Students are expected to have read these chapters prior to this weekend.
Afternoon of 29 Sept - student presentations of comprehensive exam answers.
Afternoon of 30 Sept - student presentations of Portable MBA topics.
During the Intervening Weeks, via WebTycho
Students are expected to read O'Brien chapters 11-14 (good pace is 2 per week, but getting ahead is even better!), and chapters to be assigned in The Portable MBA.
Each week, there will be individual work, to be submitted in the Assignments Folder in WebTycho. Some weeks, this will be exercises or other activities from the O'Brien textbook.
Each week, there will be (a) discussion topic(s), with discussion taking place via postings in the Conferences and/or Study Group areas of WebTycho. Each student is expected to provide outside sources which expand the knowledge contained in the textbooks.
Last date by which to withdraw is Friday, 12 Oct.
Weekend 3 (13/14 Oct)
Saturday, 13 Oct - Overview and in-class discussion and exercises work on O'Brien chapters 11-14. Students are expected to have read these chapters prior to this weekend.
Sunday morning, 14 Oct - Final Exam. Exam will be both a closed-book part and an open-book part. Cumulative, but with heavier emphasis on material since the Midterm.
Sunday afternoon, 14 Oct - Presentation of Organizational Analysis papers.
Organizational Analysis papers are to be posted in WebTycho no later than noon, Monday, 15 October (Germany time).
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Academic Policies:
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The University has a license agreement with Turnitin.com, a service that helps prevent plagiarism from internet resources. I may be using this service in this class by either requiring students to submit their papers electronically to Turnitin.com or by submitting questionable text on behalf of a student. If you or I submit part or all of your paper, it will be stored by Turnitin.com in their database throughout the term of the University's contract with Turnitin.com. If you object to this temporary storage of your paper, you must let me know no later than two weeks after the start of this class. Please Note: If you object to the storage of your paper on Turnitin.com, I may utilize other services to check your work for plagiarism
The official university policy on Plagiarism and Academic Dishonesty can be found at http://www.umuc.edu/policy/aa15025.shtml. Section I.C. states: "Faculty may determine if the resubmission of course work from previous classes (whether or not taken at UMUC), partially or in its entirety, is acceptable when assigning a grade on that piece of course work. Faculty must provide this information in their written syllabi. If the resubmission of course work is deemed to be unacceptable, a charge may not be brought under this Policy and will be handled as indicated in the written syllabi."
Please refer to Description of Course Requirements for specific information on how resubmissions will be treated in this course.
Students with disabilities should contact the appropriate support office at UMUC-Europe.
Jan Keller, Director of Student Services
UMUC-Europe, Heidelberg
Phone: +49-6221-378299
Email: edstudent_svc@ed.umuc.edu
Mailing Address: Unit 29216, APO AE 09102 OR Im Bosseldorn 30, D-69126 Heidelberg, Germany
Please refer to the UMUC-Europe Graduate Catalog for information on the following:
Academic Integrity
Course Load
Exception to Policy
Grade Appeal Process
Make-up Examinations
Nondiscrimination
Code of Civility
Hard copies of the catalog are available at your local Education Center.
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Faculty Bio:
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Dr. Dean earned the BA in Mathematics from Vanderbilt University, and the MS and PhD in Computer Science from the University of Alabama at Birmingham. She has worked at various times as a programmer, programmer/analyst, systems analyst, and project manager in the areas of medical information systems, small business support, and life insurance. Since 1975, she has been involved in teaching and curriculum development in computing, most recently at Samford University in Birmingham, AL, prior to joining UMUC - Europe. She has served for several years on the Board of Directors, and currently serves as President, of the Consortium for Computing Sciences in Colleges (CCSC). She serves on the Regional Board of the CCSC Southeastern Conference, and as Associate Editor of the Journal for Computing Sciences in Colleges. Her areas of interest include curriculum development, database management systems, programming languages, and information security.
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