Management Information Systems Concepts – MGMT 6249
Fall 2014
MBA Program
College of Business Administration
University of Northern Iowa
Instructor: Nikhil Mehta, Ph.D.
E-Mail: nikhil.mehta@uni.edu
Office Hours: MWF (10:30 am -11:30 am) and by appointment
Office: 260 CBB
Phone:(319) 273-2958
Course Schedule:
•
Wednesdays 5:30 pm – 9:00 pm from November 12 – December 17, 2014 (Room CBB 224) and
January 14 – February 11, 2015 (Room CBB 113).
•
Saturday Seminars 8:30 am – 12:00 pm, December 6/2014 (Room CBB 224) and January 17/2015
(Room CBB 113)
Required Material:
1. Business Driven Technology; 4th edition; by Page Baltzan and Amy Phillips; McGraw Hill.
2. Additional reading materials including articles/cases from New York Times, Wall Street Journal,
Harvard Business Review and/or online articles/movie clips.
eLearning (http://elearning.uni.edu): eLearning will be used for posting announcements, course
material, and grades.
Course Information:
This course provides topical coverage of contemporary information technology (IT) with a focus on
effectively planning, organizing, justifying, controlling, implementing and integrating IT within business.
Topics include: IT and competitive advantage, information and network architecture, software, hardware
and network fundamentals, systems development life-cycle, outsourcing, managing innovative technologies,
disaster recovery/contingency planning, and global applications.
Learning Objectives:
Today’s turbulent environment requires businesses to modify and extend their traditional approach to
change. Businesses now have to undertake strategic change and transform themselves into ‘agile enterprises’
in order to confront and respond to increasing complexity and uncertainty. One way of achieving this goal
is to use information technology (IT) effectively. IT plays a critical role in not only facilitating business
functions from marketing to customer support to production to accounting and finance, but also allows a
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company to create sustainable competitive advantage. IT also provides more innovative strategic choices so
that businesses are able to manage effectively such critical factors as quality, lead time, cost, risk and their
relationships with customers and suppliers.
This class focuses on exploring and understanding various aspects of IT and key issues in organizing and
managing it. Managers must understand the challenges facing their organizations, and also be aware of the
available technologies that could be employed to counter those challenges. They must also understand
issues involving the changing/design of business processes in order to effectively implement such
technologies. In addition, this class explores contemporary issues, such as IT outsourcing, security, privacy,
and ethical issues in information systems.
Course Policies:
It is your responsibility to read assigned chapters/cases/articles before class and be ready for class
discussion.
Read announcements and other materials on the eLearning regularly.
You are not allowed to use your laptop/cell phone during the class hours unless I require you to use
them to access certain websites or online articles that relate to class subjects.
Attend class on time. Your late attendance due to schedule conflicts from work or other classes is not
acceptable. You are also expected to participate in all class sessions.
o If you know that you will be away due to business trips and cannot complete a
quiz/exam/papers in a particular week (see grading components in relevant section below), it
is your responsibility to inform me "before", "not after" the deadline of a quiz/exam/papers.
This tentative syllabus is subject to change by the instructor. Usually, I will mention in class or send an
e-mail to the whole class for a major announcement, such as policy and schedule changes.
Communication:
o E-mail and eLearning announcements will be the primary method of communication. Each
student must have an active UNI e-mail address (userid@uni.edu). I will contact you through
the eLearning e-mail system, which contains your UNI e-mail address.
o Once I send a message to your e-mail account, I assume that you have the information. If you
want to forward UNI e-mail message to different e-mail address, please contact the IT
department to set it up for you. If you do not receive my e-mail in your UNI mail box, it is
possible that your mail box is full or suspended. You must contact the IT department to fix
this problem immediately.
o Important: When e-mailing me, please start your e-mail’s subject with RE: 6249 - For instance,
RE: 6249 - Questions on assignment #1. Put your name in full at the end of your e-mail.
o Please maintain professionalism in your e-mails.
o If you see something wrong with the schedule or other class material on eLearning, or notice
any technical problems, please inform me BEFORE, not after, the deadline of an assignment.
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Performance Evaluation and Grading Procedures:
Following traditional grade categories illustrate how your final course grade will be assigned:
A >= 93%, B >= 83%, C >= 73%, D >=63%, F < 59.9%
Plus and minus grades will be awarded. Your final grade will be a function of following major components:
Weekly Quizzes from Assigned Chapters (20%)
It is your responsibility to read assigned chapters to keep up with the foundational knowledge of IT
issues. This being an MBA class, we will typically not discuss the assigned chapters in class. In some
class sessions, I may give a basic explanation of certain topics before heading into article discussions.
Each week, you will have a quiz from assigned chapter(s) and articles for that week.
You may not make up a missed quiz.
Activities Pertaining to Assigned Articles
Each week, one to four assigned reading articles will be used as the subject of class discussion. The list
of articles will be available on eLearning.
The list will provide you with each article’s details (title/magazine/journal). It is your responsibility to
search the article through Rod library’s access to online databases. Sometimes, I may provide you the
article via eLearning.
Team Presentation of Assigned Article(s) (20%)
Working with 2-3 other students as a team, you will present 1-3 assigned articles. Articles (and
team presentation dates) will be assigned by the draw-of-lots. I will provide you with general
presentation guidelines.
o The presentations should be between 25-30 minutes. Points will be deducted for staying under
25 minutes.
o Every week, the presenting team(s) will need to email their presentation to me by Tuesday
(5:00 pm). Late submissions will result in a substantial penalty.
o The presented team(s) should bring a printed and stapled copy of their presentation for me on
the days they present.
o The presenting team will also need to email 3-4 discussion pointers/questions/issues to me by
Tuesday (5:00 pm) of the weeks they present. I may discuss these questions in class.
Excel/Access Assignments (10%)
We will spend a portion of some class sessions (and/or entire class sessions) working on various
software applications. Based on these lab sessions, you will be expected to complete 1-3 in-lab or outof-lab Excel/Access assignments.
I will announce the submission deadlines for these assignments later. Late submissions will be
penalized.
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Final Project Presentation (20%)
The team project is an opportunity for you to study “in detail” the IT architecture, processes, and
strategy of an organization. Depending upon the extent of organization’s IT function, your team may
even conduct an audit of one or more of these components. You also have the choice of studying these
issues in a specific scenario, such as an IT-implementation project of significant proportions (e.g.,
implementation of an ERP/CRM/KM system in an organization).
A 2-page (1.5 spaced) project proposal is due by December 3rd.
o Proposals may be denied if the team shows minimal grasp of the issues they intend to analyze,
or if the scope of the project is limited. To ensure timely approval of your proposal, I would
recommend that you discuss your project scope with me prior to submitting your proposal.
Detailed guidelines for project and presentation are available under the “Course Content” link on
eLearning.
Email me your final presentation by midnight Monday, January 26th irrespective of the day you
present.
Final Exam (20%)
The final exam will be in a multiple-choice format.
The final exam date is subject to change with notice by the instructor.
No makeup exam is allowed without the instructor’s approval in advance.
Participation (10%)
You are required to participate in the class activities actively and meaningfully. An example of active
and meaningful participation would include having read and analyzed assigned articles and making
valuable contribution to class discussion (not simply agreeing with what others have said).
Missing classes or inactive and ineffective class participation will negatively affect your grade.
ADA Policy:
The Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (ADA) provides protection from illegal discrimination for
qualified individuals with disabilities. Students requesting instructional accommodations due to disabilities
must arrange for such accommodation through the Office of Disability Services (ODS). The ODS is
located at: 213 Student Services Center, and their phone number is: 319-273-2676.
Academic Integrity:
Students of the University of Northern Iowa are required to observe the commonly accepted standards of
academic honesty and integrity. Except in those instances in which group work is specifically authorized by
the instructor of the course, no work which is not solely the student’s is to be submitted to the instructor
to fulfill the course requirements.
Cheating of any kind on examinations and/or plagiarism of projects or papers is strictly prohibited.
Plagiarism is defined as stealing or passing off the ideas or words of another as one’s own, or presenting the
idea or product from an existing source as one’s own.
Any student who cheats or plagiarizes, or any student who assists another student to cheat or plagiarize,
will be subject to a penalty determined at the instructor’s discretion. Penalties may include, but are not
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limited to, a reduction in points awarded, zero points awarded, and automatic FAILURE of the course.
The case may also be forwarded to the Office of Academic Affairs for university disciplinary action.
CBA Course Repeat Policy:
The following policy has been adopted by the College of Business Administration (CBA) with regard to
repeating CBA classes:
Students enrolled in a College of Business Administration (CBA) course at the beginning of the second
week of the Fall 2014 semester will not be allowed to register again for the same course until the end of
advance registration for Spring 2015. Students who wish to re-register for a course may place their name
on a waiting list. Registration accommodation will depend on course openings after the completion of
Spring 2015 advance registration. Summer session is excluded from this policy.
Tentative Schedule:
Date
November 12
November 19
December 3
(Project Proposal
Due)
Sat., December 6
December 10
December 17
January 14
Sat., January 17
January 21
January 28
Assigned
Articles
TBA
Chapter
Assignments
TBA
TBA
Chapters 1 & 2
Chapters 3 & 5
TBA
TBA
TBA
TBA
TBA
Chapters 7 & 8
Chapters 9 & 10
Chapters 11 & 12
Chapters 13 & 19
Chapters 15 & 17
Class Agenda
Syllabus; Course Discussion; Team
Assignment; Article Discussion
Quiz; Article Presentation & Discussion
Quiz; Article Presentation & Discussion
Quiz; Article Presentation & Discussion
Quiz; Article Presentation & Discussion
Quiz; Article Presentation & Discussion
Quiz; Article Presentation & Discussion
Quiz; Article Presentation & Discussion
Excel Lab
Project Presentations
February 4
Project Presentations
February 11
Final Exam/ Final Case Analysis
Note: This syllabus is subject to change by the instructor by written statement/class
announcement/e-mail.
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