INSY 526

Information Technology Management
Singapore, December, 1996

Instructor: Ron Vyhmeister
E-Mail: vyhmeisr@andrews.edu

Course description

A study of the management of computer resources within an organization. Emphasis is placed upon data management, resource allocation, performance analysis, security, financial management, etc. A significant portion of the course work is dedicated to a research project using a computer to solve business problems. Prerequisite: INSY 460 or INSY 505.

Textbook:

Mensching, James R. and Dennis A. Adams. Managing an Information System. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1991.

Objectives and Content:

Over the past 20 years, information technology (computers, telecommunications and office automation) and the management of information technology have changed dramatically. In many industries, obtaining competitive advantages became directly related to the deployment of information technology to design, create and provide the main products or services. Often information technology became an integral part of the product or service.

The role of managing the information systems function changed from (passive) support to the overall operations of the organizations, to (active) contribution to the overall organizational strategy. In this course we take the internal view of managing the information resources, that is, how the IS function can contribute to organizational strategy and competitiveness. The course provides you with learning experiences regarding this approach. This course, with its readings, cases, project and reports is designed to enable each student to have the ability to:

1. Describe the elements of the information resources environment (global, industry, organization, management and social impacts).
   
2. Describe the various tasks involving the management of information resources.
   
3. Apply basic managerial skills (decision making, interpersonal relations, etc.) to the management of information resources in a controlled and/or simulated environment.
   
4. Describe alternative organizational arrangements of information resources management and their implications, including quality management initiatives, project management techniques, human resources management.
   
5. Describe the operational and strategic impact of information technology on organizations and society, including strategic planning of information resources, information architecture.
   
6. Understand basic concepts of management control and their applications to information resources, for example budgeting, performance measurement, etc.
   
7. Understand basic concepts of operations management and their applications to information resources, for example software maintenance, scheduling, etc.
   
8. Understand the issues in procurement and selection of software and hardware, with an emphasis on the performance measurement and evaluation.
   
   

Grading and course policies

Grades will be assigned based on the following scale:

Late work receives a grade of 0. I will grade it for your edification, if you would like. If you must be late to (or miss) some class period or test, please make arrangements before-hand. I do not make arrangements after the fact, and missing a test or quiz means a 0. Quizzes will only be handed out to those who are there at the beginning of the quiz. If you are late, you will not be given the opportunity to take the quiz. Quizzes may or may not be announced. You are responsible at any time for the material covered the last class period, as well as the assigned reading for the current period.

Except when specifically told otherwise by the instructor, everyone should work on their own. If you do work with a friend, make sure that your work is not a copy of theirs. If cheating does occur, a grade of "F" will be assigned for the course.

Homework submission may be required in electronic format. You should own at least two (2) 3.5" HD disks for your work and backups.

Article Reviews

Three journal article reviews will be required. Each article chosen should be current and correspond to the topics being covered in the course. Each review should be one or two pages of word processed text. The review should contain a critical analysis of the article and your personal thoughts on the article. The articles reviewed should be from academic journals such as CACM, Transactions on SE, or other such journals. On occasion there may be valuable articles in trade journals, where a specific issue is analyzed in depth. Article reports are not to be from trade journal articles which merely describe a situation. For a detailed description of what I want to see, see http://www.andrews.edu/~vyhmeisr/classes/reviews.html For a list of possible journals (not all of the articles here are valuable for class) see http://www.andrews.edu/~vyhmeisr/journals.html. These sites generally have searchable engines which can assist you in finding relevant articles and information.

Assignments

There will be regular assignments in class. The due date will be announced as they are assigned. Each student is responsible for all material covered in class, as well as knowing what assignments are made.

You have three initial assignments:

Send me e-mail,, no later than Dec 1, including a brief description of your background in management and administration, whether of information technology or of other areas.

Read the articles found at the following URL: http://www.andrews.edu/~vyhmeisr/classes/i526read.html

Perform an analysis of the following queuing problem. This assignment will be due at the time we discuss performance evaluation.


Course Schedule

Following is a tentative schedule. Please note that this may change at any time. Please keep tuned to in-class announcements. For each session you will find the topic to be covered, as well as the expected reading. I expect that you will have read both the book and the articles assigned for that session. Everything not from the Textbook is to be found on the