UMUC-EUROPE GRADUATE PROGRAMS
BOWIE STATE UNIVERSITY

INSS530 Syllabus

Course Title Information Systems in Organizations
Term TERM 2, 2003/2004
Education Center HANAU-PIONEER-GRAD
Faculty Member Fred Deeter - fdeeter@faculty.ed.umuc.edu

Faculty Contact Information:

Address: PSC 5 Box 1233, APO AE 09050
Email: Fred.Deeter@Honeywell.com
Phone: +49 (0) 6142 405 532

Consultation:

One hour after class or by appointment.

Class meetings: 25/26 October; 8/9, 22/23 November; 13/14 December, 0900-1600

Required Texts and Readings:

Bruner, R., Eaker, M., Freeman, R., Spekman, R., and Teisberg, E.
   (1998). The Portable MBA (3rd ed.). New York: John Wiley and
    Sons, Inc. -- Chapters 1, 6

O'Brien, James A. (2003). Management Information Systems: Managing
   Information Technology in the E-Business Enterprise (6th ed.). 
   New York: McGraw-Hill.

Supplementary Readings:

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.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.

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.

Course Description:

3 semester hours credit.  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.

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.

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.

Grading Information:

Grades for this course will be assigned as follows:

A 92%+    B 80 – 91%    C 70-79%
F Below 70% F(a) or regular non-attendance F(n)

Please note that the Bowie State grading system does not include the grade of D.

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.

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, you are required to:

25% Midterm Examination
25% Final Examination
30% Project
10% Portable MBA Paper and Presentation
10% Participation

Description of Course Requirements:

Midterm and Final Examinations will be in-class. At least 50% of each exam will be closed-book.

Portable MBA Paper and Presentation
Each student will make a 10-minute presentation on a chapter from the book The Portable MBA. 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. Minimum requirements for the MBA chapter review are:
Chapter review 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.


Project
Each student will select an organization or company, and investigate how is 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. Since there are three weeks between the first and second weekends of class in this term, we will use email for your topic proposals and instructor feedback.

1. No later than the third class day, you must submit 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 within two days 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 8-10 page paper, double-spaced, with standard margins and type font/pitch.
The final version of your paper will be due no later than Saturday of the last weekend.

4. You will ready to give a Powerpoint presentation on your findings the afternoon of the last Saturday. If there is not sufficient time for all presentations on Saturday, some students will present on Sunday. This should not be regarded as being in conflict with taking the final exam Sunday afternoon, as all students are expected to be ready for the presentations on Saturday. 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 690 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.

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. Your “Participation” for the missed class should come in the form of postings to the Webboard.

If you must miss an exam, you are responsible for making arrangements with the instructor, in advance if possible.

Course Schedule:

Projected Course Schedule:

Session 1 (25 - 26 Oct): Chapters 1 - 5. Select MBA topic.

Session 2 (8 - 9 Nov): Chapters 6 - 8. Midterm exam (covers chapters 1 - 6). Project proposals due. MBA presentations chapters 1, 2, and 6.

Session 3 (22- 23 Nov): Chapters 9 - 12. MBA presentations chapters 9, 13, and 14.

Session 4 (13 - 14 Dec): Chapters 13 - 14. Project presentations. Final exam.

Academic Policies:

Please refer to the UMUC - Europe Graduate Catalog, available online at http://www.ed.umuc.edu/general_info/publications/catalogs/index.html or from your local Education Center, for information on the following:

        Academic Integrity
        Course Load
        Exception to Policy
        Grade Appeal Process
        Make-up Examinations
        Nondiscrimination
        Students with Disabilities

Faculty Bio:

Fred Deeter joined the UMUC faculty in April, 2000 and currently serves as Adjunct Associate Professor of Information Technology. He has more than eight years of college/university-level teaching experience, including: Norwich University in Northfield, Vermont; University of Maryland in Kunsan, Korea; Manatee Community College in Bradenton, Florida; and Western International University in Phoenix, Arizona. Mr. Deeter’s IT experience includes 20 years in commercial and DOD information systems as a Director of Information Technology, Operations Manager, Project Manager, Consultant, and Systems Analyst. He holds an MS in Computer Information Systems from Boston University and is presently Director of Information Technology at Honeywell Aerospace GmbH in Raunheim, Germany.


Last updated by Fred Deeter: September 30, 2003, 11:00 am edgradmis
Find this syllabus linked from the schedule at: http://www.ed.umuc.edu/schedule