IS 5800 Syllabus

Management of Information Systems
Fall 2009

Course Hours:

Tuesday, 2:00pm to 4:40pm, Room 003 CCB (Computer Center Building)

Course Instructor:

Dr. Mary C. Lacity
233 Computer Center Building
(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

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

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 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 University of Houston, she worked as a consultant for Technology Partners International and as a systems analyst for Exxon Company, USA.

Course Materials:

I have tried to select the highest quality readings. Readings are available on MYGATEWAY. You may also download readings from the online libraries available to all UMSL students. We will read selected chapters from three books.

	Citation	Chapters we read and discuss
	Friedman, Thomas, The World is Flat, Farrar, Strauss, and Giroux, New York, 2007.	Chapters 1 & 2
	Rogers, E.M., Diffusion of Innovations, New York, Free Press, 2006, forth or fifth edition.	Chapters 1 Available online at Google books
	Tapscott, Don, and Williams, A., “Wikinomics: How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything,” Portfolio, Penguin Group, New York, 2007.	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, 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

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 1: The role of the CIO

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

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 U.S. or global), sample size, date of data collection. You'll be surprised how surveys report very different figures because of sample diversity.

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 and stable your slides for your instructor.

Please load your final power point slides in your Group Pages under FILE EXCHANGE. Send me an email when you are ready for me to make the power point slides available to your class mates. Your classmates may wish to print your group’s power point slides prior to class, so please have your slides finalized the week before your presentation. Please name the final version of your power point slides exactly as indicated below:

Group	Oral Presentation File Name File names are case sensitive
Group 1: The role of the CIO	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

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, Chichester.

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, Chichester.

(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.

· 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 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, 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.

CLASS SCHEDULE, READINGS, AND ASSIGNMENTS

Date	Topic/Agenda	Read or Do Prior to Class
Tuesday, August 25	Course Overview; Discussion of Computer Accounts	Read: Why General Managers Need to Study MIS
		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 Giroux, New York, pages, Chapters 1 &2.
		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, New York, 2007. Chapter 1
		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 Reading: 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.
		Optional Reading: Brown, C., and Vessey, I., "Managing the Next Wave of Enterprise Systems: Leveraging Lessons from ERP," MIS Quarterly Executive Vol.2, 1, March 2003, pp. 65
		Optional Reading: Glass, R. (2006), “The Standish Report: Does it Really Describe a Software Crisis?” Communications of the ACM, Vol. 49, 8, pp. 15-16.
		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: Rogers, E.M., Diffusion of Innovations, New York, Free Press, 2006, forth or fifth edition. Read Chapter 1.
		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