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IS 100: Introduction to Information Systems

Office: DSB 1117
Email: v vinekar [AT] fairfield [DOT] edu (preferred method of communication)
Phone: (203) 254-4000 extension 2831
Hours:
Tue & Fri: 10:45am-12:15 pm
Other Days: By appointment

Course Description
This course provides a managerial perspective on Information Systems (IS) by examining their necessity in contemporary business strategy. The emphasis is on the use of Information Systems to solve strategic business problems.

Topics include:

• Transformative power of IT on industries
• IT entrepreneurship: IT entrepreneurs, mobile applications, web 2.0, social networks
• Information Systems for small organizations and non-profits
• Information Systems for large organizations

Learning Objectives:

• To understand and discuss the role of information systems in contemporary business.
• To gain a working understanding of redesigning organizations using information systems.
• To apply new-acquired technical knowledge and analytical skills to business projects.

Required Text Books
None! Reading materials will be assigned for each class.

Grading Criteria:

• Blogs (5%): You will be required to maintain a blog throughout this semester with at least one entry per month. Each blog post has to be on any current IS topic you find in the news in the current month. In each blog post, you should write a few lines summarizing the article with your thoughts on it, and a link to the article you found. This assignment will assess your ability to be regular, self-motivated, self-directed and self-regulated. Your grade will depend on your ability to complete each post on time. Each post also has to be a good-faith attempt. Points will be deducted for incorrect spelling and grammar – make sure you use a good spelling and grammar check before posting.
• Group Projects/Presentations (35%): You will be assigned at least five group projects through the course of the semester. These projects will be based on class topics. Although you will work in groups, grades for these projects are individual! Each group project will have to be presented to class. You will be required to evaluate your own contribution as well as your group members’ contributions at the end of each project.
• Individual Projects (5%): There will be two projects on which you will work individually, although you can get help from your classmates. These two include one spreadsheet project using Excel and one database project using Access. These two projects will not have presentations and will be graded by your instructor.
• Quizzes (30%): There will be three quizzes during the course of the semester. I reserve the right to add another quiz if the class participation is low.
• Final Exam (20%): The final exam is comprehensive and is on the date and time listed in your final exam schedule.
• Reading Material Presentations (5%): Each group will present at least four of the class readings (approximately once a month).
  

Course Policies:

Group work:
The work of information systems professionals requires large amounts of collaboration with diverse people from various departments, firms, and countries. To prepare you for such collaboration, a good amount of class work with be done in groups. Your teammates may not have similar work habits or styles and learning to work with them can help prepare you for future collaborations in your career.

Presentations:
All group work will have presentations! One of the major tasks of information systems professionals is to communicate their ideas to various stakeholders, potential investors and the general public. Some of you may be very comfortable with public speaking while others dread it. During your careers, you may face a hostile audience with people trying to find fault with your presentation for personal, professional or political reasons – I have seen this happen several times. The classroom is a safe space for you to practice your public speaking and receive constructive feedback. Use this opportunity to improve your presentation skills.

Rules for presentations (Grades will be deducted for not following these rules):

• Dress formally
• No reading!
• Be loud, so the entire class can hear you.
• Introduce yourselves at the beginning of the presentation.

Grading for group work with presentations:
In current culture in IS and IT organizations, evaluations are not done by the manager, but by peers. This has not only reduced “loafing” in groups, it has also resulted in higher quality of group work. For this reason, all group work will be evaluated through peer-review. Each group project will have to be presented, and you will have to evaluate your classmates’ group work. You will also have to evaluate your group member’s contributions to the group project. Your grade will be a combination of the class’ evaluation of your group project as well as your group members’ evaluation of your contribution to your group.
If I see something spiteful or irrelevant written in the comments, this will negatively affect the raters grade.

Less-paper policy:
As opposed to a paperless policy, a less paper policy simply means that as little as possible of the course work will be on paper. There are two reasons for this – The first, of course, is to conserve trees and minimize recycling effort and waste. The second reason has more to do with the content of the course – offices of the future will require documents to be transferred digitally using various systems. The system we will primarily be using for assignments is mentor. You can access it at www.fairfield.edu/mentor. We will also be using Google Docs. You can access this through your student email account, or if you have a personal Gmail account, you can access Google Docs at docs.google.com. Using Mentor and Google Docs is a requirement of this course and you can receive a grade penalty for not using them. Avoid sending attachments over email – faculty email accounts have lower storage capacity than your student email accounts. You will incur a grade penalty for sending assignments over email or handing me a printed copy. Exceptions will only be made if you have prior, explicit permission from me.

Missed Classes:
If you miss class, it becomes your responsibility to find out and make up what you missed.

Course Calendar:
The following course schedule is subject to change based on class interests and emerging topics. All changes will be announced in class.

Day	Date	Month	Topic	Deliverables
Fri	7	Sep	Course Introduction; Blogs
Tue	11	Sep	Industries transformed by IT Image editing tutorial, Image1, Image2, Image3.	Blog URL due (in Google Docs)
Fri	14	Sep	Finance and IT; Image editing project
Tue	18	Sep	Marketing and IT; Image editing project
Fri	21	Sep	Image editing Presentations	Images due – upload to Mentor
Tue	25	Sep	IT Entrepreneurs, IT Entrepreneur Project
Fri	28	Sep	IT Startups 1; IT Entrepreneur Project	Blog Post 1 Due
Tue	2	Oct	IT Startups 2; IT Entrepreneur Project
Fri	5	Oct	IT Entrepreneur Project Presentations	IT Entrepreneurship Projects Due - Share with me on Google Docs
Tue	9	Oct	Quiz 1; Mobile Apps intro
Fri	12	Oct	Mobile Apps, Mobile App Project
Tue	16	Oct	Labor Shortage in IS; Mobile App Project
Fri	19	Oct	Mobile App Project presentations	Mobile App presentations due – share on Google Docs
Tue	23	Oct	IS Careers; Website Design project
Fri	26	Oct	Social Media, Website Design project
Tue	30	Oct	Website Design presentations	Websites due – share with me or post link in assignment sheet
Fri	2	Nov	Social Media, Social media project
Tue	6	Nov	Social Media, Social media project
Fri	9	Nov	Quiz 2; Social media project
Tue	13	Nov	Social media project presentations	Social Media presentations due – share with me on Google Docs
Fri	16	Nov	Social media project presentations
Tue	20	Nov	Corporate Social Responsibility; Excel project
Fri	23	Nov	Thanksgiving
Tue	27	Nov	Enterprise Resource Planning;Excel Project
Fri	30	Nov	Enterprise Resource Planning;Excel Project
Tue	4	Dec	Supply Chain Management, Access Database Project	Excel Project due – upload to Mentor
Fri	7	Dec	Supply Chain Management, Access Database Project
Tue	11	Dec	Quiz 3, Access Database Project	Database due – upload to Mentor Blog Post 4 Due
Sat-Fri	14-21	Dec	Final Exam - See Final Exam Schedule

The instructor reserves the right to change the course schedule. All changes will be announced in class. It is your responsibility to keep track of any changes.