IS 5800
SyllabusManagement of Information
Systems
Fall 2009
Tuesday,
2:00pm to 4:40pm, Room 003 CCB (
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: Tuesday 12:30pm to 1:30pm (no
appointment needed—just stop in!); other times by appointment
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
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)
Dr. Mary C. Lacity is a Professor of Information
Systems and an International Business Fellow at the University of Missouri-St.
Louis. Her current research focuses on global outsourcing of business and IT
services. 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 11 books, most recently Information Systems Outsourcing:
Theory and Practice (Palgrave, 2009; coauthor: Leslie P. Willcocks) and Offshore Outsourcing of IT Work, (Palgrave, 2008; coauthor Joe Rottman). More
than 50 of her 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 Senior
Editor of the Journal of Information Technology, 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). Before
earning her Ph.D. at the
I have tried to select the highest quality readings.
|
|
Citation |
Chapters we read and
discuss |
|
Friedman,
Thomas, The World is Flat, Farrar,
Strauss, and |
Chapters
1 & 2 |
|
|
|
|
Chapters
1 Available
online at Google books |
|
|
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.
|
PERCENT |
REQUIREMENT |
DUE DATE |
|
10% |
Web Page
Assignment |
Monday, SEPTEMBER 14,
8:00 am 10 points
are deducted for each day the assignment is late. First 10 points deducted at 8:01am of
due date. |
|
20% |
Exam I |
Tuesday,
Sept 22 in class |
|
20% |
Exam II |
Tuesday,
October 20 in class |
|
30% |
Oral
Group Presentation |
See
schedule below |
|
20% |
Exam III |
Tuesday,
December 8 in class |
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.
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
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: corporate blogs and corporate uses of social networks
Group 7: Open Source Software
Group
8: IT Entrepreneurs
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.
|
Group |
Oral Presentation File
Name File names are case sensitive |
|
eveciof9.pptx |
|
|
Group 2: E-Commerce or E-Business or e-Government |
evee2bf9.pptx |
|
Group 3: Emerging Technologies: RFID |
everfidf9.pptx |
|
Group 4: Green IT |
evegreenf9.pptx |
|
Group 5: IT Security and Privacy |
evesecuref9.pptx |
|
Group 6: Emerging Technologies: Corporate
Blogs/Social Networks |
eveblogf9.pptx |
|
Group 7: Open Systems |
eveopenf9.pptx |
|
Group 8: IT Entrepreneurs |
eveownf9.pptx |
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.
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.
·
DO NOT HAVE MORE THAN 60 POWER POINT
SLIDES (excluding references).
·
Meet
with the professor one week prior to review power point slides.
·
Meet
with group to practice oral presentation (this is the only way to get the timing
correct!)
·
When speaking in the front of the
class, do not use notes. Your power
point slides serve as your notes.
·
When speaking in front of the class,
speak LOUDLY enough for the back row to hear you clearly.
·
When speaking in the front of the
class, do not stand behind the instructor’s computer station. Stand in front of the class.
·
When speaking in front of the class,
all group members should be standing in the speaking space, with one person
advancing the slides.
·
The best presentations pass control
many times among group members. You
should not organize the speaking as five 10-minute, independent speeches. The presentation should be integrated so that every person speaks
several times.
·
To form a cohesive group, do not
think that an individual “owns” a certain part of a presentation. It is quite natural for one member to
gather data and another member may actually present the data.
·
The audience gets tired and cannot
absorb too much information at one time. Groups are more effective when they
deliver less information in a relaxed, effective manner rather than trying to
rush through too much information. Usually, as the group presentation
approaches, groups realize they have too much information! The group should keep the best
content. No individual should feel
bad if the information they collected is not all used. Again, each member needs to abandon the
idea that they “own” content. The content is group owned.
·
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.
·
Remember to have about 10
minutes of audience interaction during
the presentation. Do
not rely on “Does anyone have any questions?” to fill up your ten
minutes of class participation. In the
past, students have done very creative things for audience participation
including “Name that Entrepreneur”, a short Jeopardy game, a short
survey, etc.
·
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 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
.
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 will be taken at the
start of each class, with the exception of the two days using experimental
delivery methods on September 8 and October 6.
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.
|
Date |
Topic/Agenda |
Read or Do Prior to
Class |
Tuesday,
August 25
|
Course Overview; Discussion of
Computer Accounts |
|
|
Read: Digital
Planet 2008 Executive Summary |
||
Tuesday,
September 1 |
Assign
Oral Group Projects; Building
Web Pages |
Do: Please print a copy of web pages
associated with WWW assignment & instructions prior to class. |
EXPERIMENTAL
DELIVERY:
Read chapters and Watch
videos by the authors;
Tuesday,
September 8;
CLASS WILL NOT MEET
|
Effects of IT on organizational competitiveness
and global economies |
Read:
Friedman, Thomas, The World is Flat,
Farrar, Strauss, and |
|
Watch: Thomas Friedman speech at MIT: He discusses the first
three chapters of his book. The video is 75 minutes long. |
||
|
Read: Tapscott, Don, and Williams, A.,
“Wikinomics: How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything,”
Portfolio, Penguin Group, |
||
|
Watch: Don Tapscott video—this is about a nine
minute video on Wikinomics. |
||
Tuesday,
September 15
|
Managing IT within
Organizations |
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. |
|
Read:
Luftman, J., and Kempaiah, R., "Key Issues for IS Executives," MIS
Quarterly Executive, Vol. 7, 2, 2008, pp. 99-112. |
||
|
Do: Please print a copy of class
overheads |
||
Tuesday,
September 22
|
EXAM I |
|
|
Tuesday September 29 |
Management
of Large Scale IT-enabled Business Projects |
Read: short
except on Project Management from Lacity, M. (editor), (2008), Major Currents
in Information Systems: The Management of Information Systems, Volume 4 in the
six volume series (series editors: Willcocks, L., and Lee, A.), Sage, London. |
|
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. |
||
|
Read: CHAOS Summary Report |
||
|
Listen to: Dr. Rottman prepared a short wimba
recording on the systems development life cycle. |
||
|
Optional |
||
|
Optional |
||
|
Optional |
||
|
Do: Please print class overheads |
||
EXPERIEMENTAL
DELIVERY:
Read
the readings and listen to the two wimba lectures
Tuesday,
October 6
STUDENTS SHOULD
COME TO CLASS TO WORK ON GROUP PROJECTS
|
Organizational Acceptance of Information Technologies |
Read: |
|
Watch & listen: wimba Adoption of Innovations:
Part I |
||
|
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 wimba lecture.) |
||
|
Watch & listen: wimba Adoption of Innovations:
Part II |
||
|
Tuesday, October 13 |
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 |
||
Tuesday
October 20
|
EXAM II |
|
Tuesday,
October 27 |
WORK WITH GROUPS ON GROUP PRESENTATION |
Professor to review slides for groups 1 and 2 before or after exam |
Tuesday,
November 3
|
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 |
Tuesday,
November 10 |
Group 3: RFID Group 4: Green IT |
Professor to review slides for groups 5 and 6 before or after class |
Tuesday,
November 17
|
Group 5: IT Security
and Privacy Group 6: Corporate
Blogs/Corporate uses of Social Networks |
Professor to review slides for groups 7 and 8 before or after class |
Tuesday
November 24
|
NO CLASS FALL BREAK |
|
Tuesday,
December 1
|
Group 7: Open Systems Group
8: IT Entrepreneurs |
|
Tuesday,
December 8
|
EXAM III |
|