UMUC-EUROPE GRADUATE PROGRAMS
BOWIE STATE UNIVERSITY

INSS530 Syllabus

Course Title Information Systems in Organizations
Term TERM 3, 2003/2004
Education Center DIST-ED_EUROPE_GRAD
Faculty Member Dale Stachurski - dstachurski@faculty.ed.umuc.edu

Faculty Contact Information:

Email: dstachurski@faculty.ed.umuc.edu


I usually check my email once a day and respond within two days.

Consultation:

Best way to contact me is via email.

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 Webliography and the UMUC On-line Library (see above link).

Governing.com is 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, your grade is composed as follows:

10% Background modules, including on-line discussions
10% Each of 8 Topic Modules, including on-line discussions
10% On-line Final Examination

Description of Course Requirements:

Papers:
There will be one 3-5 page paper to be written for each of the eight Topic Modules. These are to be done individually, and submitted via the Assignments part of the on-line classroom. Details will be given in the Conference posting for each Topic Module. 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.

Applications Exercises, Discussion Questions:
Exercises and questions from the O’Brien text (and other sources) will be assigned throughout the course, as part of the Modules (both Background and Topic Modules). Some of these will be done on-line as discussions, others will be assigned as individual excercises to be submitted via the Assignments part of the on-line classroom. Details of these assignments will be posted in each Module's Conference.

Participation:
Every member of the class is expected to participate in the on-line discussions. This includes posting a summary of what you learned from each Module. Without participation, you cannot receive full credit for any Module.

Course Schedule:

Projected Course Schedule (dates are the Mondays beginning the weeks):

Note that chapters indicated in parentheses, without further identifying which text, are in the O’Brien text.
Note also that chapters are NOT being covered in the order in which they appear in the textbooks!
Note that any changes to this projected schedule will be posted to the Announcements and Conferences.


Week 1 - 26 Jan: Introduction;
Background Module 1:Discussion of the roles of information systems in organizations.
Foundations of Information Systems (Ch. 1)
Journal articles assigned by the professor and/or to be located by the student.

Week 2 - 2 Feb: Background Module 2:Fundamentals of Organizations
Chapters 3, 5, 6, 8 of the Portable MBA.
Journal articles assigned by the professor and/or to be located by the student.

Week 3 - 9 Feb: Background Module 3: Computer Hardware and Networks (ch. 13, 4)
Journal articles assigned by the professor and/or to be located by the student.

Week 4 - 16 Feb: Background Module 4: Computer Software (Ch. 14)
Journal articles assigned by the professor and/or to be located by the student.

Week 5 - 23 Feb: Background Module 5: Basics – Data Management, Literature Searching
Data Resource Management (Ch. 3)
Journal articles assigned by the professor and/or to be located by the student.

Week 6 - 1 Mar: Topic Module 1: Roles of Information Systems in Organizations (Ch. 1, revisited in more depth)
Journal articles assigned by the professor and/or to be located by the student.

Week 7 - 8 Mar: Topic Module 2: Organizations’ Uses of Information Systems/IT
Introduction to E-business Systems (Ch. 5)
Enterprise E-business Systems (Ch. 6)
Electronic Commerce Systems (Ch. 7)
Journal articles assigned by the professor and/or to be located by the student.

Break -- 15 Mar-28 Mar, 2004

Week 8 - 29 Mar:Topic Module 3: Impact of Advances in IT on the Organization
O'Brien Chapter 9 -- Developing Business/IT Strategies
O'Brien Chapter 10 -- Developing Business/IT Solutions
The Portable MBA Chapter 9 -- Innovation and Technology Management
Journal articles assigned by the professor and/or to be located by the student.


Week 9 - 5 Apr:Topic Module 4: Information Systems in Support of Functional Areas
O'Brien Chapter 8 -- Decision Support Systems
O'Brien Chapter 10 -- Developing Business/IT Solutions (revisited)
O'Brien Chapter 12 -- Enterprise and Global Management of IT
Portable MBA Chapters on Functional Areas:
7. Marketing
8. Operations Management
10. Accounting
11. Finance
12. Human Resource Management
Journal articles assigned by the professor and/or to be located by the student.

Week 10 - 12 Apr:Topic Module 5: Use of IT to gain Competitive Advantage
O'Brien Chapter 2 -- Competing with IT
The Portable MBA Chapter 13 -- Strategy: Defining and Developing Competitive Advantage
Journal articles assigned by the professor and/or to be located by the student.

Week 11 - 19 Apr:Topic Module 6: Value Added Concepts in Evaluation of Information Systems
O'Brien Chapter 2 -- Competing with IT (was also referenced in Module 5)
O'Brien Chapter 6 -- Enterprise E-business Systems (was also referenced in Module 2)
Journal articles assigned by the professor and/or to be located by the student.


Week 12 - 26 Apr:Topic Module 7: Issues of Privacy and Security in Networks
O'Brien Chapter 4 -- Telecommunications and Networks (was also referenced in Background Modules)
O'Brien Chapter 11 -- Security and Ethical Challenges
Journal articles assigned by the professor and/or to be located by the student.

Week 13 - 3 May:Topic Module 8: Ethical Issues in the use of IT in Organizations
O'Brien Chapter 11 -- Security and Ethical Challenges (was also referenced in Module 7)
The Portable MBA Chapter 4 -- Business Ethics
Journal articles assigned by the professor and/or to be located by the student.

Week 14 - 10 May:On-Line 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:

Who I am: I am UMUC educated earning a degree in Business and Management and a Masters in Computer Systems Management. You can add those degrees to more than 15 years of government and commercial experience primarily in the field of Management Information Systems. Somewhere along the way I picked up a Microsoft Certification for Windows 2000 (MCSE). The rest you will hear about over the duration of the course. 


Last updated by Susan Dean: December 4, 2003, 3:56 pm
Find this syllabus linked from the schedule at: http://www.ed.umuc.edu/schedule