PROJECT DESCRIPTION

In this project, you will investigate and evaluate an information system (or systems) within an organization. You will apply the material and thought processes learned in class to the assessment of a real-world MIS. As part of a four- or five-person team, you will also practice teamwork and allocation of work within project planning.

Each team will select an organization, obtain its co-operation, interview one or more employees within the organization to learn about its MIS, and write a paper describing its investigation and assessment. Each team member will complete a peer evaluation of the others.

Each paper will differ depending on the organization and MIS investigated, but all must include:

1. A description of the organization and the products and/or services it provides.
2. A description of the system functions and a categorization of the system(s) analyzed.
3. The impacts of the MIS on the organization.
4. A criticism of this system.

Other information that may be included, as pertinent to the company, the system(s), and your interests, is:

5. A description of the hardware, software, and telecommunications system.
6. A description of how the system was built or acquired.
7. A discussion of how the system is used to gain competitive advantage.
8. A description of its use.
9. A comparison to other systems discussed in class and/or studied in the text and readings.

When narrowing the topic for your paper, consider the person(s) to be interviewed. Interviewees who are end-users of systems are likely to know more about topics 7 and 8 than about 5 and 6. The reverse is probably true for interviewees who work in Information Systems departments.

Also, consider that most organizations have multiple information systems; you may choose to cover one in very extensive analytical depth or to do an overview of all (or several) systems within the organization, in which case a detailed "compare-and-contrast" among the systems is required. Here too, the person(s) you choose to interview may be a factor in this choice.

PROJECT STEPS

1. Select a team containing four or five members.
2. Select an organization and make contact. You may find it necessary to make contact with more than one person in an organization, or even more than one organization, to elicit a promise of co-operation and participation. If needed, I'll write a letter to a prospective contact person promising confidentiality. If you select an organization that employs one or more team members, you must interview someone besides the team member(s).
3. Write a project plan. This plan will include a roster of the team, the organization and contact person(s), the scheduled interview date(s), and a short description of what you will be investigating at the organization. This plan will be typewritten and no more than one page.
4. Prepare for the interview(s). Determine interview format and write out questions you will ask (the organization may wish to see this list of questions in advance). I will review these questions if you wish.
5. Interview. Conduct the interview(s) professionally (e.g., with respect to attire, punctuality, and demeanor). You represent the University of Michigan - Dearborn. Follow up on the interview(s) professionally.
6. Work as a team. You will need to set goals, co-operate, allocate responsibilities, and learn from each other. Organizations emphasize teamwork and value the ability to provide it (a thought for job searches in your future). This term project will give you valuable practice in honing these skills.
7. Write the paper, which is emphatically not just a transcript of the interview. Analyze the information system, consider how it relates to systems and concepts discussed in class and the text, and assess its effect on the organization. Writing the paper may bring to mind follow-up questions for discussion with your interviewee(s) by follow-up telephone call or e-mail.
8. Peer review. Each team member must evaluate all others. List all team members (including yourself) and assign each a number reflecting that member's contribution to the team effort. The numbers must add to 100. Add any other comments on your team you wish. If the team members agree on apportionment of effort, only one peer review need be turned in per team; if they cannot agree, multiple peer reviews (as many as there are disparate opinions) must be turned in.  The signatures of all team members must appear on the review or reviews.
9. Thank you letter – I'll write this if you provide me a contact name and address.

DELIVERABLES

• Project step 3 is due 14 July 2005. This step isn't separately graded; it provides reassurance to instructor and team members that the project has embarked on a promising track.
• Project steps 7 and 8 are due 18 August 2005.

PAPER FORMAT

Papers are to be typed (use a word processor) and single-spaced with double spacing between headings and paragraphs. The paper should run 8 to 12 pages, single-spaced (double-spaced between paragraphs). The first portion of your paper (after a title page listing the authors and specifying the organization and interviewee(s)) should be an executive summary which provides highlights from the paper and summarizes the topics to be discussed in the paper. It is well for the paper to provide a bibliography. An appendix page (last) will specify the date(s) and location(s) of the interview(s) and list all people present at the interview(s).

Avoid relying overmuch on web sites for definitive references (as opposed to guidance to sources of reliable, vetted information). If you doubt the need for this caveat, visit http://www.lhup.edu/~dsimanek/fe-scidi.htm. The Sheridan Libraries of The Johns Hopkins University provide an excellent site providing guidance in the evaluation of a web site's intellectual and academic reliability and validity.

Avoid even more (indeed, eschew) transcribing paragraphs from an organization's web site into your term paper (in Fall 2001 semester, this intellectual cancer metastasized alarmingly).  Indeed, plagiarism, like exposure to bubonic plague or stepping on stonefish, is best avoided.  The following sites will help you avoid it.

Professor Zachary M. Schrag, a historian and scholar of Columbia University, has courteously permitted linkage to his excellent guide The Anatomy of a Ten-Page Term Paper.

PROJECT EVALUATION

The best papers will synthesize material from the interview(s), the text, the lectures, other classes, and other experiences of the team members. A paper which only reports on the interview, without including your assessment of the MIS and your defense of that assessment, is deficient and its grade will be at most a "C".

As I read and grade a paper, I will assess:

Content:

1. Does the paper describe the system and its functions?
2. Does the paper discuss the impact of the system on the organization?
3. Does the paper evaluate the system and make recommendations for its evolution and improvement?
4. Does the paper synthesize material from the interview with material available from other sources (e.g., textbook, class lectures, and class discussions)?

Presentation:

5. Is the paper well-organized, with divisions into sections (with headings) and paragraphs?
6. Is the paper well written and readable?
7. Does the paper invoke an image of four or five pieces written by different people in different styles and tied together with pieces of a broken shoelace, or does it invoke an image of an integrated whole carefully honed and polished by a team of people working co-operatively?
8. Are spelling errors, grammatical errors, and garbled or incomplete sentences conspicuous by their absence?
9. Does the paper use technical terminology appropriately and correctly?

All team members will receive the same grade on the project unless the peer reviews advise and convince me otherwise.

INTERVIEWING SUGGESTIONS

Your interviewee(s) presumably have not taken this class: be prepared to explain terms such as "Transaction Processing System" or "Strategic Information System." They may know the same concepts by different names or terminology.

As you plan the interview, decide on its major themes. Some possible themes are:

1. how the system influences day-to-day business of the organization
2. the technology involved in the system
3. how employees use the system
4. how the system affects the customer
5. how the system helps gain competitive advantage
6. how the system was developed, installed, and tested
7. how management uses the system.

Remember: this list is indicative, not exhaustive. Not all themes will be appropriate for all systems, nor for all interviewee(s).

Consider obtaining background information about the organization before the interview(s).

There is a place for three types of questions within the interview:

1. Open-ended, e.g., "What's your opinion of the computer system?"
2. Closed-ended, e.g., "Who receives reports from this system?"
3. Follow-up, e.g., "Can you please give me an example of…..?"

Arrange your questions in logical sequence.

Take notes during the interview(s). Even if you tape the interview (doing so requires explicit permission of the interviewee(s)), your notes will help you remember important items. Taping may inhibit the discussion, and tapes have a way of being unintelligible at just the wrong places.

Stay flexible – if your interviewee brings up an interesting subject that the team didn't anticipate, follow up on it.

Ask your interviewee(s) if you may call or send email if follow-up questions arise.

Professor Lending's advice to assign a project of this type, and her permission to adapt her materials, are gratefully acknowledged.