IDS 514: Management of Information Systems

Spring 2004, Call 58565, Monday 6:00-8:30 PM, Room BH208

Yair M. Babad, UH 2403, Phone 312-996-8094, Cell 847-809-0487, Fax 312-413-0385

e-mail: ybabad@uic.edu, URL: http://www.uic.edu/~ybabad

Office Hours Monday and Wednesday, 5:00-6:00 PM

Updated: 01/13/2004 22:17:16

COURSE OBJECTIVE & PHILOSOPHY

Information systems are both enablers for organizational activities, as well as drivers of new and modified goals and activities. Their management is closely related to the organizational strategy, goals and operations. At the same time, the technical nature of information systems and the rapid changes in technology make unique demands to their managers. This course provides a management view of information system activities, and is a valuable complement to the theoretical and technical material you have studied in other MIS courses. In addition to class discussions and presentations, several top level information systems executives will be guest speakers to the class, thus providing a unique insight into top level concerns and considerations.

 

COURSE MANAGEMENT

Students in the class will be divided into teams. All assignments and presentations will be done by these teams. Each team will be assigned one or more weekly topics, per the enclosed schedule. The team's tasks will include:

·         Preparation of an introduction to their weekly topic as given in the class schedule, to be presented in class at the beginning of the evening assigned to the team, on the scope of 25-30 minutes of presentation. A professionally prepared presentation is expected. See the PRESHINT.DOC file on my web page for presentation advice.

·         To be the host to the guest executive assigned to their week. This task includes:

o        Contacting the executive at least two weeks prior to his/her appearance in class, to identify what material should be distributed to the class in preparation for the executive's presentation, and to learn about any additional tasks the executive would like the team to perform.

o        Preparations and distribution to the class of all the requested material before the presentation.

o        Introducing the executive in the class, as part of the topic's introduction.

o        Introduce to the class the significant business developments affecting the firm and its information systems functions, based on the firm's annual reports, newspaper and news magazine articles, the company's web pages, and information from the executive. The team has 5-10 minutes for this introduction, in addition to its 25-30 minutes presentation of its topic (below). This introduction should be included in the team's report.

·         Preparation of an extensive report summarizing the team's topic, submitted in the class following the week assigned to the team. The team will have to identify resources (such as web pages, books, research and trade journals articles) that relate to the team's topic, and include them in its report. Reports will also include a summary of the invited guest discussion, if a guest executive came to class in the team's week. Reports will be professionally organized and prepared using office technology, and are expected to be 20 doubly spaced pages or more in scope. See the PRESHINT.DOC file on my web page for report preparation advice. All reports should be submitted both on paper and electronically at the beginning of the next class, so that they can later be distributed to the class.

Following each topic, each team will prepare each week a short summary (3-5 pages) of the presentation and discussion of the topic, to be submitted both electronically and on paper at the beginning of the next class. Of course, members of the team who prepares the extensive report for the topic are not required to submit the weekly short report.

Note: For apparent reasons, no teams will be assigned to the first two weeks or in the last week of classes, and a short summary is not required for the topic of the last week of the class.

All electronically submitted reports will be later available on my web page.

 

TEXTBOOK AND READING MATERIAL

The text used is Information Technology for Management: Transforming Business in the Digital Economy, 3rd edition, by E. Turban, E. McLean and J. Wetherbe, Wiley, 2002, ISBN0-471-40075-0 (TMW). Recommended texts are Harvard Business Review on the Business Value of IT, a collection of articles, HBS press, 1999 (HBR) and Creating Business Advantage in the Information Age, L.M. Applegate, R.D. Austin and F.W. McFarlan, McGraw-Hill/Irwin, 2002, ISBN 0-07-252367-0 (AAM). In addition, each guest executive may assign additional reading material.

 We will not "read the text in class". Rather, the weekly team will present the weekly topic, certain issues will be emphasized, a discussion will be held, and your question will be answered and discussed. You must read on your own and be familiar IN ADVANCE OF EACH CLASS with the assigned material as given in the schedule, and with the class notes available in my web page, and be ready to participate in the class discussions.

In my web page you will find PowerPoint presentations and other material that I will use or introduce in class. You are advised to print these presentations (probably with 3 or 6 slides per page, framed, in black and white printing format) prior to class, so that you can use them in class in lieu of notes. You are responsible for knowing the contents of these materials as well as the text books material (and of course whatever is discussed in class).

 

COMMUNICATIONS & PREREQUISITES

A common theme in the IDS sequence of courses is the development of your communications skills and the use of available computer technology and common software tools. You are expected to be familiar with word-processing and spreadsheet tools, and submit your work using such tools. All communications will use electronic mail. Opportunities to tap into information sources available, for example, on the Internet World Wide Web, will present themselves throughout the course. The assignments and other course materials can be printed out from the World Wide Web, at my URL given above.

I maintain a web page for this class. To this end, get to my URL listed above, select this class, and you will find yourself in an "announcement file" for this course. This file includes references to related documents, such as this syllabus, homework, and PowerPoint presentation of class material, in addition to the latest announcements related to the class.

It is expected that you have completed all the prerequisites for admission to this class. I expect that each of the students had "System Analysis and Design" (IDS 505 or 405) or "Databases" (IDS 510 or 410), and preferably both; alternatively, you got my approval to join the class. These prerequisites will be checked, and students lacking them may not register to this class without my prior approval. The course also assumes that different students have different levels of understanding and background of the course's topics, yet we will present the topics at advanced level. Students with little familiarity of the material are expected to prepare themselves to fully understand the material and contribute to course work and discussions.

 

QUIZZES AND EXAMS

There will be no exams. Rather, each class session (except the first one) may include a brief open book quiz, which stress understanding of the required material. This system eliminates the pressure for final exam preparation, allows timely grade progress feedback, and motivates students to prepare for each session (and thus increase the probability of quality participation and getting the most from the class sessions). These quizzes are required in order to provide an element of individual performance (and grade), in addition to the work done by each team.

 

CLASS ATTENDANCE

You are expected to attend all classes, and are responsible for all announcements made in class or in the announcement file. Makeup of quizzes or reports will be given only by approval PRIOR to the quiz or report, except for extreme circumstances. Punctuality is highly regarded; no student, if arriving late, will be given any extra time to complete a quiz, nor will makeup quizzes be offered. The university's honor code will be adhered to. Cheating will result in an automatic failing grade in the course for all those students who are deemed to have consciously contributed to the cheating.

 

GRADING

Grades will be based on each team extensive report (30%), the team class presentation (20%), the weekly short team summaries (30%), and on the quizzes (20% - equally weighted, and dropping the worst one). Final grades will be assigned on a curve, and I will exercise my judgment as to the cut points, as well as to the grading of students who miss or come late to many of the classes.

TENTATIVE & APPROXIMATE COURSE SCHEDULE

 

Note: The topics of this schedule are preliminary. Guest lectures may select other subjects, in which case the weekly subject will be changed with an advanced notice.

 

Class

Date

Chapter Topic (in Text)

Guest Speaker

Resource

1

Jan 12

Course Intro, IT in Digital Economy

 

TMW 1, (A)

 

Jan 19

*** No class – King Birthday

 

 

2

Jan 26

IT Concepts and Management Overview, Strategic Use of IT

Mike Tulig

TMW 2-3, AAM Module 1

3

Feb 2

IT Concepts and Management Overview, Strategic Use of IT (cont.)

Ray Epich

 

4

Feb 9

Electronic Commerce, Supply Chain Management, ERP

Michael Hugos

TMW 5-6

5

Feb 16

Building Information Age Businesses

Guy Gunzberg

AAM Module 2

6

Feb 23

Transaction Processing, CRM, and Integration, Operations

Jon Fieldman; will speak on “Role of CIO”

TMW 7, AAM Module 3

7

Mar 1

Transaction Processing, CRM, and Integration, Operations (cont.)

 

 

8

Mar 8

Data and Knowledge Management, Warehousing and Data Mining

 

 TMW 9-11

9

Mar 15

IT Resource Allocation

Jack Denman

TMW 13, (B), (C)

 

Mar 22

*** No class – Spring Break

 

 

10

Mar 29

IT Economics, Outsourcing

Ergin Uskup

TMW 13, HBR, (D)

 

Apr 5

*** No class – Passover

 

 

11

Apr 12

Building Information Systems, Project Management

Joe Wolke

TMW 14, AAM Module 4

12

Apr 19

IT Security, IT and Society, Ethics and Legal Issues

 

TMW 15-16

 

Apr 26

*** No class – conference commitments

 

 

 

Additional resources:          

 

(A)  “IT Doesn’t Matter” by Nicholas G. Carr, Editor, HBR, May 2003. Many references to it and the responses to this article can be found on the web.

(B)   "Beyond the Business Case: New Approaches to IT Investment" by Cynthia Beath and Jeanne W. Ross, Sloan Management Review, Winter 2002.

(C)  "The Untapped Potential of IT Chargeback," by Cynthia Beath and Jeanne Ross and Michael Vitale, Management Information Systems Quarterly, 1999

(D)  “Making the HR Outsourcing Decision” by Paul S. Adler, Sloan Management Review, Fall 2003.