IS 5800
Syllabus
Management of Information
Systems
Spring 2009
Course Hours:
Wednesday, 6:55 pm to 9:30
pm, Room 005 CCB
Course Instructor:
Dr. Mary C. Lacity
233
(314) 516-6127 (work)
(314) 516-6827 (fax)
Email: Mary.Lacity@umsl.edu
Homepage: http://www.umsl.edu/~lacitym
Office Hours: Wednesday 6:00 to 6:45 (no appointment
needed—just stop in!); other times by appointment
Course
Description:
Bulletin description: This course provides an overview of the
established and contemporary issues related to information systems within
organizations. Topics include the practices and tools associated
with topics such as the management of IS-based investment projects,
the design and implementation of IS, the alignment of IS strategy with
organizational strategy, information security and privacy, and gaining a
competitive advantage through IS.
Topics covered:
Global
IT spend
Role
of the Chief Information Officer (CIO)
IT-enabled
business processes (i.e., ERP, CRM, SCM)
Managing
IT within and across organizations (i.e., IT strategy, governance, organizational
structures, technology acceptance)
Impact of IT on organizational competitiveness and
global economies
Systems
analysis and design
Managing IT-enabled projects
Management
and utilization of data, information, and knowledge (i.e., Business
Intelligence, Knowledge Management, Data Warehouses)
Enterprise
Resource Planning applications
Open
source software
IT
sourcing arrangements
IT
issues related to security, privacy, intellectual property rights, and ethics
Societal
impacts of IT such as Green IT
IT
entrepreneurship
E-business
technologies
Emergent
technologies (i.e., RFID, blogs, wikipedia)
Course Instructor:
Dr. Mary
Cecelia Lacity is a Professor of Information Systems and International Business
Fellow at the University of Missouri-St. Louis. Her current research focuses on
global outsourcing of business and IT services, IT’s
contribution to business performance, innovation diffusion, and turnover among
IT professionals. She has conducted
case studies and surveys of hundreds of organizations on their outsourcing and
management practices. She has given executive seminars world-wide and has
served as an expert witness for the US Congress. She was the recipient of the
2008 Gateway to Innovation Award sponsored by the IT
Coalition, Society for Information Management, and St. Louis RCGA and the 2000 World Outsourcing
Achievement Award sponsored by PricewaterhouseCoopers and Michael Corbett and
Associates. She has published ten books, most recently Information Systems and
Outsourcing: Studies in Theory and Practice (Palgrave, 2009;
co-author Leslie Willcocks) and Offshore Outsourcing of IT Work,
(Palgrave, 2008; coauthor Joe Rottman) and Global Sourcing of Business and
IT Services (Palgrave, 2006; coauthor Leslie Willcocks). Her more than 50
publications have appeared in the Harvard Business Review, Sloan
Management Review, MIS Quarterly, IEEE Computer, Communications of the
ACM and many other academic and practitioner outlets. She is US Editor of
the Journal of Information Technology, and Co-editor of the Palgrave Series: Work, Technology, and
Globalization and on the Editorial Boards for MIS Quarterly Executive,
Journal of Strategic Information Systems, Strategic Outsourcing: An International Journal, and Journal of the Association for Information
Systems (JAIS). She has
previously served as Senior Editor for MIS Quarterly Executive. Before
earning her Ph.D. at the
Course Materials:
I have tried to select the highest quality readings.
We will read selected
chapters from three books. We
only read a few chapters so you might try to borrow the books.
|
|
Citation |
Chapters we read and
discuss |
|
|
Friedman,
Thomas, The World is Flat, Farrar,
Strauss, and Giroux, New York, 2005. |
Chapters
1 & 2 |
|
|
|
Chapters
1 |
|
|
Tapscott, Don, and Williams, A., “Wikinomics: How Mass
Collaboration Changes Everything,” Portfolio, Penguin Group, |
Chapter 1 Available online! http://www.wikinomics.com/book/ Click on
link for introduction and Chapter 1 |
You will need access to an HTML guide. Choose any HTML guide
that includes HTML
Extended Color Names and HTML Tag References. Good links on the Internet Include:
http://www.scriptingmaster.com/html/HTML-extended-color-names.asp
HTML
extended code true colors
http://www.htmldog.com/reference/htmltags/
http://www.devx.com/projectcool/Article/19816
Slides should be downloaded and printed by students prior to
class. Slides will be loaded on
MYGATEWAY at least 24 hours before class.
Course Grades:
|
PERCENT |
REQUIREMENT |
DUE DATE |
|
10% |
Web Page
Assignment |
Monday, February 16, 9am 10 points
are deducted for each day the assignment is late. First 10 points deducted at 9:01am of
due date. |
|
20% |
Exam I |
Wednesday,
February 25 in class |
|
20% |
Exam II |
Wednesday,
April 1 in class |
|
30% |
Oral
Group Presentation |
See
schedule below |
|
20% |
Exam III
during final exam schedule |
Wednesday
May 13 from 7:45 to 9:45 in 005 CCB |
Exams:
Students will
take 3 exams, but may drop the lowest exam score. If students are satisfied with their
first two exams, they do not have to sit for the third exam provided
they attended the student oral presentations. The instructor will email a tentative
grade after the oral exams have all been graded. The student may accept the tentative
grade as the final grade, or may elect to sit for the third exam. Please let the instructor know your
intentions 48 hours before the third exam.
Because
students may drop an exam, the final average is calculated using the following
formula:
(Web grade
*.10) + (Best Exam Score *.20) + (Second Best Exam Score *.2) + (Oral Grade
*.30)
.80
The exams
will cover material from the assigned readings, professor’s lectures,
group presentations, handouts, and assignments. Exams are NOT cumulative. No
make up exams will be given without prior instructor permission or under
extreme documentable circumstances.
Based on years of experience, students are much more likely
to perform well on exams if students:
A. Closely read required readings PRIOR TO CLASS
B. Attend all classes
C. Actively participate in class
If student
have done A through C, studying for the exam is much easier because students
may primarily study from the slides and briefly review readings. Students who have earned As on past
exams report that they have followed A through C and studied for the exam for 5
to 10 hours the week prior to the exam.
I suggest you schedule time each week to read assignments and schedule 5
to 10 hours the week prior to the exam for studying.
If students
have not done A through C, students find it overwhelming to read all the
assignments in the week prior to the exam.
I want you all to
succeed! Please follow my
advice!
Webpage Assignment:
The first
assignment in IS 5800 is to create a personal web page following a standard
format. These pages have traditionally been used as our MBA/MS "face
book" to help faculty and other students get to know each other. Students
will be responsible for building their own web pages. While the technical
skills will be taught during the class sessions, the assignment allows for
personal creativity. Most students find this exercise fun and worthwhile.
Web page assignment
Standard Home Page
How Web Pages will be Graded
Oral Group Presentation:
The class will be divided into 8 groups. Each group is
responsible for presenting a 60 minute presentation to the class. Each group
will be assigned a different IT topic:
Group 2: e-Commerce or e-Business or
e-Government
Group
3: Emerging Technologies: RFID
Group
4: Green IT
Group 5: IT
Security and Privacy
Group
6: Emerging Technologies: blogs
Group 7: Open Source Software
Group
8: IT Entrepreneurs
RESEARCH BASE:
Secondary Resources. Each group
should research at least 20 external references such as journal
articles, newspapers, short videos, or relevant websites. Be sure to check
high-quality but non-refereed publications such as the Harvard Business
Review, Wall Street Journal, Economist, etc for relevant articles.
At least 10 of these references must be from refereed
journals, such as Sloan Management Review, MIS Quarterly, and MIS
Quarterly Executive. Refereed journals assure some level of validation. The
best source to find refereed journal articles is ABI-INFORM, available online
to UMSL students. To find refereed
articles, simply tick the box for “Scholarly
journals, including peer-reviewed
” while in ABI inform. I will show you how to conduct a search.
Students may use relevant teaching cases from reputable teaching case
outlets such as the Harvard Business School (See http://www.hbsp.harvard.edu/), McGraw
Hill Primis Online, (see http://www.mhhe.com/primis/catalog/pcatalog/casebook.htm),
Idea Group Publishing IT Cases (see http://www.it-case-studies.com/)
or Case Clearing House (see http://www.ecch.cranfield.ac.uk/
or http://www.ecchatbabson.org/)
Many students
liven up their presentations by including short video clips about their topic
(such as a youtube video) or demos of software applications (such as blogging tools).
These can be very effective at showing the audience certain
technologies, such as RFID.
Primary Resources.
Students should conduct original case studies. Case studies comprise original
interviews and internal and external company documents, but refer to guidelines
for your specific topic. Most students chose one to three organizations from
among the group members' current or prior workplaces. We will learn about the “six
degrees of separation”—with a little determination a friend of the
family or a friend of a friend may help students find relevant people to
interview. International students are highly encouraged to interview people
from businesses based in their homelands.
We love learning about businesses from around the world!
Another potential source of primary data is an original survey. For example, past groups have surveyed
over 140 UMSL students about their open source software usage. Another group surveyed 35 lawyers to see
if they would outsource any legal work.
PRESENTATION TIMING:
Each group should spend their time in
approximately the following way: (Again, some topics lend themselves to a
slightly different format, so be sure to look at my links to your topic.)
Overview of the topic. Provide general statistics about
your topic; why is your topic important to general managers? How much money do
companies spend on your topic? What are the promised benefits of this topic if
properly managed? What are the
potential pitfalls if mis-managed? What will we learn from your
presentation? (~10 minutes)
If you cite surveys, YOU MUST TELL
US ABOUT THE SAMPLE in terms of size of organizations that participated (such
as Fortune 500), geographic dispersion (such as
Case-based Data: Explain your topic using real
organizations. Why did you select
these cases? How are they
representative of the lessons you are trying to demonstrate? (~30 minutes)
Generalizations: Do a cross case comparison of
similarities and differences among the cases. Extract a set of lessons or best
practices for the general manager; tie these lessons back to the case
studies. The audience should be
able to be very involved in this part of the presentation. (~10 minutes)
Each group should only plan 50
minutes of content to allow 10 minutes of audience interaction during the
presentation. Think of yourselves not as formal speakers, but as teachers. Just
as I incorporate your input throughout my presentations, you too should
incorporate the audience during the entire presentation. In the past, students have done very
creative things for audience participation including “Name that
Entrepreneur”, a short Jeopardy game, a short survey, etc.
PRESENTATION MATERIALS:
Each group will
develop power point slides and provide a copy of the slides for the
instructor and classmates prior to the presentation. Please print only 2 slides per page so your
classmates may use the handouts as study guides.
Please also
provide the instructor with an electronic copy of the presentation so it
may be posted to the IS 5800 website. Please use the following naming
conventions for you slides:
|
Group |
Oral Presentation File
Name File names are case sensitive |
|
evecios9.ppt |
|
|
Group 2: E-Commerce or E-Business or e-Government |
evee2bs9.ppt |
|
Group 3: Emerging Technologies: RFID |
everfids9.ppt |
|
Group 4: Green IT |
evegreens9.ppt |
|
Group 5: IT Security and Privacy |
evesecures9.ppt |
|
Group 6: Emerging Technologies:
Blogs |
eveblogs9.ppt |
|
Group 7: Open Systems |
eveopens9.ppt |
|
Group 8: IT Entrepreneurs |
eveowns9.ppt |
CITATIONS:
Make sure that every slide
appropriately credits sources, be it an interview, printed material, or web
site. Printed material should be referenced with Author, Year, Title, Journal
(if appropriate), Volume, Number, and page numbers. For example:
Book:
Lacity, M., and Willcocks, L. (2001), Global Information Technology
Outsourcing: Search For Business Advantage, John Wiley & Sons,
Journal Article:
Rottman,
J., and Lacity, M. (2008), “A US Client’s Learning from Outsourcing
IT Work Offshore,” Information
Systems Frontiers, Vol. 10, No. 2, pp. 259-275.
If your slides get too busy, then
simply use end notes, such as embedding (1) on actual slide and attaching a
list with numbers:
(1) Lacity, M., and Willcocks, L.
(2001), Global Information Technology Outsourcing: Search For Business
Advantage, John Wiley & Sons,
(2)
Rottman, J., and Lacity, M. (2008), “A US Client’s Learning from Outsourcing
IT Work Offshore,” Information
Systems Frontiers, Vol. 10, No. 2, pp. 259-275.
(3) Ibid, p. 184.
Websites:
Please indicate full URL for web
site references, and date viewed. For example:
www.umsl.edu/~lacity/ms480sum.htm,
viewed January 1, 2009.
Interviews:
Please indicate name (if not
anonymous), title of interviewee, type of interview (in person, phone, videoconference),
name of students at the interview, and date of interview. For example:
John Smith, CIO of
BigCompany, interviewed in person by Jane Doe and
Fred Davis, January 6, 2009.
Ian Jones,
Director of Applications, BigCompany, interviewed by
phone by Jane Doe and Fred Davis, February 8, 2009.
DO NOT
PLAGERIZE!!!!
You may not copy directly from
sources unless you indent the text and put it in quotes. This would normally be reserved for a
few sentences of specific quotations.
You must RE-WORD sources! You are using external references as
INPUT to your originally created OUTPUT.
I take this very seriously and any
student who copies directly from the web or printed sources will be turned over
to Academic Affairs.
I am very happy to work with groups on
their specific topic. I strongly suggest that I meet with your
groups several times. At a MINIMUM, I want to review your power
point slides at least a week before your presentation. Please feel free to
email me to make an appointment if you cannot meet before or after class.
Advice for Oral Group
Presentation:
My aim is to
have the best possible group presentations. Based on vast experience with
group assignments, keys to success include:
·
As
soon as groups are assigned, sit next to each other in class to foster
communication and relationship building.
·
Exchange
contact information.
·
Start
your group project as soon as groups are assigned.
·
Start
exploring your topic by gathering general statistics about your topic and start
answering the questions: Why is your
topic important to general managers? How much money do companies spend on your
topic? What are the promised benefits of this topic if properly managed? What are the potential pitfalls if
mis-managed?
·
Identify
early the original sources of data you want to collect (interviews, case study
material, original surveys)
·
Read
entire syllabus regarding the group project
·
Be
sure to get the best, most current, most relevant sources of content available
·
Frequently
meet with the professor before or after class
·
Frequently
meet with each other
·
Treat
each group member with respect. You
will likely be in groups with individuals from different countries and
cultures. View the diversity as an
opportunity to learn about how to work with people from different cultures.
Appreciate that individuals have worthwhile and unique viewpoints and talents
that will enrich the group’s performance.
·
Do
not complain to the professor about group members behind their backs. Your
complaints reflect more on you than on the individual you are complaining
about. If a problem arises, find a
way to discuss the problem directly with the individual. If a serious problem arises that you
have not been able to successfully address with the individual, then make an
appointment with me and the entire group with the sole purpose of finding a
successful route forward.
·
Have
content completed one week prior to presentation
·
Meet
with the professor one week prior to review slides
·
Meet
with group to practice oral presentation (this is the only way to get the
timing correct)
·
During
practice sessions, help group mates with their oral communication skills. It does not matter if English is not
your native language! Hundreds of
international students have performed well on their oral presentations. What
matters is that students can be heard (good volume),that students do not read
from notes, that students connect with the audience by asking good questions,
that students stand in front of the audience (not behind the instructor
station), that students are enthusiastic, that students have prepared excellent
content, and that students have practiced out loud with their groups.
·
BE SURE TO SEE HOW I GRADE THE ORAL PRESENTATIONS: oral group grade
form
I want you all to succeed! Please follow my advice!
Oral
Group Presentation Grades:
Oral
presentations are graded as a group grade rather than as individual
grades. Oral group presentations
will be graded using the following form: oral group grade
form
Individuals
in a group never contribute the exact equal amounts of time, content, and
value. This often leads to some people feeling they worked more than others,
and some people feeling left out. Usually a leader emerges, one who will
hopefully help find the gifts of each individual. Unfortunately, I cannot
effectively intervene in these matters, and rely on you as adults to ensure
that all members of your group meaningfully contribute to the data gathering,
interviewing, analysis, slide design, and presenting the final project.
All group members will receive the
same grade for the oral presentation, provided that all members agree that each
individual made a significant contribution. If a group member has not
meaningfully or fully participated, I will assume that group member was
legitimately distracted by other life issues such as illness or heavy work
travel. I do expect that members who do not fully participate show their integrity by willingly reducing their
percentage of contribution. It is no shame to not fully participate because of
legitimate reasons. It is a great
shame to expect other group members to falsely report contribution percentages.
In order to provide some
accountability, albeit imperfect, I will ask that each group fill in the
following form and each group member must sign it. This form is due on the day
of presentation.
Please
print, fill in, and have every member sign a copy of: group contribution form .
Grading
Policy
Professors do
not “give” grades.
Students “earn” grades.
I take grading very seriously. I thoughtfully
grade each assessment item on the assessment sheets. A sub-culture has emerged among some (certainly not all) graduate
students that graduate students are “customers” and that every
thing they do should be given an A.
Such a view dilutes the value of your education, and as a professor I
cannot possibly hold this view. I
am morally obligated to clearly define expectations (which I do on a very
detailed syllabus), to help you as much as I can before your exams and oral
presentations (which I do for each group), and to grade the actual performance
using the assessment sheets.
Students can
get very crafty and start protesting their grades on many grounds: ignorance
about when something is due (that never works), ignorance of an assessment item
(that never works), different perception of performance (as an outside and
experienced observer, I am certainly more objective than the student who
self-assesses!), personal problems (must be documented and discussed before an exam or presentation), all the
hard work they did (that’s an input, not an output), etc.
I must treat and assess each student the same—fairly and consistently. I cannot make exceptions for some students. All that said, I have great empathy for college students, having been one myself for nine years! I care about your learning. No one would be happier than I to see all students earn high grades!
Attendance Policy:
Attendance
will be taken at the start of each class.
I understand
that many students have competing life priorities including work, business
travel, and family. For this
reason, students may have two excused absences during the semester EXCEPT ON AN
EXAM DAY OR THE DAY OF YOUR SCHEDULED ORAL PRESENTATION.
If a student
misses a class, he or she is responsible for the material covered. Ask a
classmate or group member to tape record or even video record the class--I have
no problem with the use of recording devices. At a minimum, request another
student's notes and ask them to pick up an extra copy of any handouts.
CLASS SCHEDULE, READINGS
|
Date |
Topic/Agenda |
Read or Do Prior to
Class |
Wednesday,
January 21
|
1.
Course Overview 2. Discussion of
Computer Accounts |
|
|
Read: Luftman, J., and Kempaiah, R.,
"Key Issues for IS Executives," MIS Quarterly Executive, Vol.
7, 2, 2008, pp. 99-112. |
||
|
Wednesday, January 28 |
CAMPUS CLOSED DUE TO SNOW |
|
Wednesday,
February 4 |
1.
Assign Oral Group Projects 2.
Building Web Pages |
Do: Please print a copy of web pages
associated with WWW assignment & instructions prior to class. |
Wednesday,
February 11
|
1. Managing IT within
organizations: Governance 2. Talk about group
projects and set meetings times between groups and professor. 3. Help students with
web pages during remainder of class. |
Read: Weill,
P., "Don't Just Lead: Govern: How Top Performing Firms Govern IT," MIS
Quarterly Executive, Vol, 3, 1, March 2004, pp. 1-17. |
|
Do: Please print a copy of class
overheads for the Managing IT Within Organizations no sooner than two days
before the start of class. |
||
Wednesday,
February 18
|
1. Does IT Matter?
Impact of IT on organizational competitiveness and global economies 2. Newest Impact of IT on organizational competitiveness
and global economies |
Read: Carr,
N., "IT Doesn't Matter," Harvard Business Review, Vol. 81, 5,
May 2003, pp. 41-49. (Note: you are not required to read the
letters to the editor.) |
|
Read: Friedman, Thomas, The World is Flat, Farrar, Strauss, and
|
||
|
Read: Tapscott, Don, and Williams, A.,
“Wikinomics: How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything,”
Portfolio, Penguin Group, |
||
|
Do: Please print a copy of class overheads for "Does IT Matter?"
no sooner than two days before the start of class. |
||
|
Do: Please print a copy of class
overheads for the "Wikinomics" no sooner than two days before the
start of class. |
||
Wednesday,
February 25
|
EXAM I |
|
|
Wednesday March 4 |
Managing
Large Scale IT Projects |
|
|
Read: Keil, M., and Montealegre, R.,
"Cutting Your Losses: Extricating Your Organization When A Big Project
Goes Awry," Sloan Management Review, Spring 2000, pp. 55-68. |
||
|
Read: Nelson, R., "Project Retrospectives:
Evaluating Success, Failure and Everything in Between," MIS Quarterly Executive,
Vol. 4, 3, September 2005, pp. 361-372. |
||
|
Read: Roberts, B., Jarvenpaa, S., Baxley,
C., "Evolving at the Speed of Change: Mastering Change Readiness,"
MIS Quarterly Executive, Vol. 2,2, September 2003,
pp. 58-73. |
||
|
Do: Please print class overheads
Managing IT Projects no sooner than two days before the start of class |
||
Wednesday,
March 11
|
Organizational Acceptance of Information Technologies |
Read: |
|
Read: Jeyaraj,
A., Rottman, J., and Lacity, M., “A Review of the Predictors, Linkages, and Biases in IT Innovation
Adoption Research,” Journal of
Information Technology, Vol. 21, 1, 2006, pp. 1-23. (Note: This is a very
academic article and you might decide to read after the lecture.) |
||
|
Do: Please print a copy of the
overheads for Organizational Acceptance of IT no sooner than two days before
the start of class. |
||
|
Wednesday, March 18 |
IS Sourcing Issues: Domestic and
Offshore Sourcing |
Read: Lacity, M., Willcocks, L., and
Rottman, J. (2008), “Global Outsourcing of Back Office
Services: Lessons, Trends and Enduring Challenges,” Strategic Outsourcing: An
International Journal, Vol. 1, 1, pp. 13-34. |
|
Read: Rottman, J., and Lacity, M.,
"Proven Practices for Effectively Offshoring IT Work," Sloan
Management Review, Vol. 47, 3, Spring, 2006, pp. 56-63. |
||
|
Do: Please print a copy of the
overheads for IT Sourcing Practices no sooner than two days before the start
of class |
||
Wednesday
April 1
|
EXAM II |
|
Wednesday,
April 8 |
WORK WITH GROUPS ON GROUP PRESENTATION |
Professor to review slides for groups 1 and 2 before or after exam |
Wednesday, April 15
|
Group 1: The role of
the CIO Group 2: E-Commerce
or E-Business or e-Government |
Professor to review slides for groups 3 and 4 before or after class |
Wednesday,
April 22 |
Group 3: RFID Group 4: Green IT |
Professor to review slides for groups 5 and 6 before or after class |
Wednesday,
April 29
|
Group 5: IT Security
and Privacy Group 6: Blogs |
Professor to review slides for groups 7 and 8 before or after class |
Wednesday,
May 2
|
Group 7: Open Systems Group
8: IT Entrepreneurs |
|
I would like to meet with
groups 1 through 5 during this time period:
|
Day |
Time |
Group Meetings with Professor |
|
February
11 |
6:15 to
6:45 |
|
|
February
18 |
6:15 to
6:45 |
|
|
February
25 |
6:15 to
6:45 |
|
|
8:30 to
9:00 |
|
|
|
9:00 to
9:30 |
|
I would like to meet with
groups 6 through 9 during this time period:
|
Day |
Time |
Group Meetings with Professor |
|
March 4 |
6:15 to
6:45 |
|
|
March 11 |
6:15 to
6:45 |
|
|
March 18 |
6:15 to
6:45 |
|
|
9:15 to 9:45 |
|