MIS at UZ, specifically
CBIS101/102
Mr. B.F. Nel
D-Block: Office 210
Email: NelB@unizulu.ac.za
1
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)
2
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…
3
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.
4
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)
5
System/IPO:
STORAGE
INPUT
PROCESSING
OUTPUT
6
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.
7
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 systems analyst.
 These specifications will be communicated to
the programmers, who are responsible for
CODING.
8
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
9
ATM System:
 As a customer, what do want from the ATM?

NEED of he client?
10
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.
11
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
12
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
13
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.
14
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:
15
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.
17
Teaching methodologies:
 The methodologies are categorized into four
teaching-learning approaches:




instructional,
intellectual,
clinical, and
technical
18
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.
19
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?
20
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.
21
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
22
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 Hossein Bidgoli, 2011: B.Comm
Fundamentals of Business Information
Systems by Stair, Reynolds, Chesney, 2012
23
Technical approach:
 Prescribed Book:

Microsoft Office 2010 Introductory, by G Shelly
and M Vermaat
24
Revision:
25
YEAR 2
Semester 1
Semester 2
Maths & Stats: SSTT121
Stats: SSTT122
Commercial Law : CLAW101
Commercial Law: CLAW102
Introductory Computing: SCPS111
Database : SCPS232
Computer Comm & NW: SCPS231
VB: SCPS242
YEAR 3
Semester 1
Accounting IS: CMIS301
OO Analysis & Design1.1;CMIS311
Computer Architecture: SCPS221
Database: SCPS331
Semester 2
OO Analysis & Design1.2;CMIS302
Managerial Acc: CMIS312
Client Server Comp: SCPS332
Project; SCPS322
26
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
27
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.
28
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
29
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.
30
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
31
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
32
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!
33
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
34
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”
35
Timetable:
36
Groups:
 CBIS101 is divided into four groups: A, B, C
and D.
 Group A: according to student numbers
 Group B:
 Group C:
 Group D:
37
LOG-ON
 User Name: .uz133456.3.students.uz
 Password: Surname