Business Information Systems
Research Project in Information Systems
(IS4401)
Contact Fergal Carton f.carton@ucc.ie
2011 / 2012
Contents
• Outline objectives of this module
• Introduce supervisors
• Answer your questions
Course objective
• Undertake a research or development
project on a topic in information
systems
or
• to get involved in a substantial
development project in a commercial
environment
Weekly project group meetings
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Supervisor will be allocated to you
Time / venue of weekly meeting to be
decided with supervisor
Dual purpose of meetings
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Project management (progress with deliverables)
Communication (problems, issues, questions)
Group is your “sounding board”
Meetings are mandatory
Deliverables
Deliverable
Mark
Preliminary Proposal
Date
mid-October 2011
Project Plan
10%
end October 2011
System prototype
20%
December 2011
Interim Report & Prototype
10%
December 2011
Final Report & Comms diary
15%
end February 2012
System
40%
end February 2012
System demonstration
Innovative Systems Exhibition 2012
early March 2012
5%
early March 2011
Ideas from where?
• Where information volume is an issue
• Where speed of transacting /
communicating is an issue
• Where automation of a process is an issue
• Where information security is an issue
• Where duplication of information is an
issue
Ideas from where?
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Delivery technologies (broadband, GSM, …)
Content technologies (XBRL, GIS, …)
Applications (mobility, productivity, …)
Listening to people in business
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Customers
Products
Suppliers
Inventory
Production capacity
…
Tips on project ideas
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Ideas from placement?
Something you’re interested in …
Real business requirements
Think of benefits
What is the Unique Selling Point (USP)?
Can it be done in the timescale?
Proposal guideline
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Objective : aim of the project
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Project client, name of company if relevant
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Requirements : describe problem domain / business need
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Scope of project proposed : what it does / doesn’t cover
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Benefits for users : speed, efficiency, control, quality, ...
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Technical specification:
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Data requirements (eg. Customers, products, ...)
Interface requirements (does system need to talk to other systems)
Technologies used (hardware, software)
Proposed timeframe
When doing a project for a company
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Make sure the requirements are clear
Set-up a reliable communication channel
Client feedback on system is vital
Ensure that the final handover is clean
You must be able to demo the system here!