MIS at UZ, specifically CBIS101/102

1. MIS at UZ, specifically CBIS101/102 Mr. B.F. Nel D-Block: Office 210 Email: NelB@unizulu.ac.za

2. Introduction: “Information Technology is no longer a business resource; it has become the business environment” • John Browning, The Economist, 1990 • Impact of IT on the global business environment is equivalent to • Printing press on publishing or • Electricity on productivity (P Baltzan, Business Driven Technology)

3. Overview: • What is an Information System, and its importance in business? • Exciting spin off: System Analysis • Build a System • What is expected from the course CBIS? • How do we at UZ weigh up against it? • Are we doing is the right thing, AND • Also are we doing it in the right manner. • Hope in doing the above, you will be able to answer • What is MIS? • Why MIS? • CBIS101/102? • The future…

4. Information / Information Systems • We life in the Information Age • The movie Avatar took more than 4 years to create and cost $450 million. • Lady Gaga real name is Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta • Customers pay $2.6 million for 30-second advertising time slot during the Super Bowl.

5. Information System: • Examples: • Withdrawing money from a bank’s ATM • Access Information over the Internet • Registering as a student at UZ • Behind the above examples there is an Information System, handling all the needs of the customer. • These systems have become essential to successful business operations: • Increase revenue and reduce costs. (IT is everywhere in Business)

6. System/IPO:

7. System Analyst/Architect: • To create any system, we have to analyze it, and develop it: System Analysis and Design • Analogous situation: To create a building • In this scenario, there is • a buyer who has the vision, • the builder who will construct the building, and • the architect who serves as the bridge between the buyer and the builder: • The architect helps the buyer develop the vision but must also communicate the buildings specifications to the builder.

8. Systems Analyst: • Instructions to the builder, in the form of line drawings, blueprints, to-scale models, detail specifications, and even on-site inspections. • To develop an Information System, we need someone to function as an architect: planning and capturing the vision of the customer, understanding details, specify needs, and this person we call systemsanalyst. • These specifications will be communicated to the programmers, who are responsible for CODING.

9. System Analysis and Design: • Providing the tools and techniques to the developer: • System Development Life Cycle: • Identify the problem or need and obtain approval to proceed • Plan and monitor the project – what, how and who does what • Discover and understand the details of the problem or need • Design the system components • Complete the system tests and deploy the solution.

10. ATM System: • As a customer, what do want from the ATM? • NEED of he client?

11. MIS: • Is an organized integration of hardware and software technologies, data, processes, and human elements designed to produce timely, integrated, relevant, accurate, and useful information for decision-making purposes.

12. Summary: • Information systems play an important role in the design, control, support, and improvement of business processes. • IT enables new business processes and information systems can only be useful if they are "aware" of the operational business processes in an organization

13. The course CBIS: Internationally • An Examination of the Introductory MIS Course (“CBIS”) • Shouhong Wang • University of Massachusetts, USA • Journal of Information Technology Education Volume 6, 2007

14. Curriculum: • The introductory MIS course has been a required course in business schools for more than three decades. • Business curricula use it to bridge the IT-user gap. • In its broadest definition MIS is any activity that uses computers for business. • IS 2002 Model Curriculum and Guidelines for undergraduate degree programs in information systems (IS) (ISWorld, 2007) is the latest report on the model curriculum work in the IS field.

15. Cur. (cont): • The Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) has been a major organizer for these task groups including AIS (Association for Information Systems), AITP (formerly DPMA) and IFIP (International Federation for Information Processing). • The major components of the introductory MIS course were identified:

17. Background: • USA: • 2008 statistics reflects 80.6% households have computers • 91.6% have internet access • UZ 2010: • 60 % of my students never interacted with a computer.

18. Teaching methodologies: • The methodologies are categorized into four teaching-learning approaches: • instructional, • intellectual, • clinical, and • technical

19. The instructional approach: • The instructor • typically teaches concepts and theories of MIS such as the roles of MIS in organizations, enterprise MIS architectures, and social issues relative to MIS. • In this approach students learn MIS through memorizing the concepts and theories.

20. The intellectual approach • Students learn MIS through writing. • The writing assignments could be textbook case analysis, • Essays on questions, • Or essays on contemporary topics and issues. • UZ: What IT strategies did JETBlue apply to gain a competitive advantage to survive the collapse of the US airline industry in 2001?

21. The clinical approach • Students go out, • find organizations, • identify the MIS in the organizations, • and learn aspects of the MIS to practice the concepts and theories they learned in the classroom. • Commonly, the clinical approach is called a business project.

22. The technical approach • Students receive first-hand experiences of MIS through learning computing techniques for business, • word processing, • databases, • spreadsheet, • and other end-user tools. • UZ: To design, implement and query a DB

23. Instructional Module • There have been many introductory MIS textbooks on the market. In terms of topics, they do not have much difference and seem to follow IS 2002.1 model. • The commonly adopted textbooks , • Laudon & Laudon, 2004; O'Brien, 2005; Oz, 2004 • Prescribed Book: • MIS2, by HosseinBidgoli, 2011: B.Comm • Fundamentals of Business Information Systems by Stair, Reynolds, Chesney, 2012

24. Technical approach: • Prescribed Book: • Microsoft Office 2010 Introductory, by G Shelly and M Vermaat

25. Revision:

27. Test: • Does MIS stand the test of providing jobs? • Programmer/Analyst/System Developer • Business/System Analyst • Business Consultant • Database Administrator • Network Administrator • Web Master/Developer • Chief Information/technology Officer • Procurement/Management Support

28. The World is Flat: T Friedman • Columbus proved in 1492 that the world is round • Sailors maneuvered the seas discovering lands, people, languages as nations began trading goods around the world • The world has become flat due to technological advances connecting people in China, India and the US as if we were all next door neighbors.

29. Examples: • Physicians in India are reading X-rays for US hospitals • JetBlue Airways ticket agents take plane reservations for the company from the comfort of their Utah homes • Technology has eliminated some of the economic and cultural advantages developed countries enjoy, making the world a level playing field for all participants: • Globalization 3.0

30. Overview: • Globalization 1.0: Columbus discovered the world is round and the world shrank from large to MEDIUM • Globalization 2.0: around 1800, with the industrial revolution, the world went from medium to SMALL, and international companies dominated • Globalization 3.0: Early 2000, distance is removed from the business equation, and the world went from small to TINY.

31. Globalization 3.0 • In this era, people of all colors from the four corners of the world dominate business. • Farmers in remote villages in Nepal carry an iPhone to access the world’s knowledge at, say, Wikipedia or the stock market closing prices at Bloomberg. • Boeing 777: Using the Internet to build a world class airplane

32. Friedman’s 10 Forces that flattened the World 1. Fall of the Berlin Wall 2. Netscape IPO 3. Work flow soft ware 4. Open source 5. Outsourcing 6. Offshoring 7. Supply chaining 8. In-sourcing 9. Informing 10. Wireless

33. Future: Wireless Electricity • Imagine a future in which wireless power transfer is feasible: cell phones, MP3 players, laptops, any portable electronics capable of charging themselves without ever being plugged in, NO power cord! • Prototypes are out, developed by MIT scientists, called WiTricity. • Looks like a mouse pad and can send power through the air, over a few centimeters, called eCoupled!

34. Conclusion: • It’s not unusual to hear about business students starting a multimillion-$ company from his hostel room! • Mark Zuckerberg: Facebook • Michael Dell: Dell Computers • Bill Gates: Microsoft • Steve Jobs: Apple

35. Conclusion (cont.) • If you have an aptitude for IT and you understand business, you have a future in MIS!! • Best of luck with your studies at UZ!! • “You are the architect of your own future”

36. Timetable:

37. Groups: • CBIS101 is divided into four groups: A, B, C and D. • Group A: according to student numbers • Group B: • Group C: • Group D:

38. LOG-ON • User Name: .uz133456.3.students.uz • Password: Surname