Course Description / This course will cover the structure and management of an information technology infrastructure. From the management aspect, the course will touch on principles and practices of managing both people and technology to support an organization. The course will emphasize how to make an information technology infrastructure effective, efficient, and productive. The management of hardware, software, data, networks and other supporting IT functions will be studied.
Prerequisites / WBIT 1100
Course Objectives/Outcomes/Goals / Upon successful completion of the course, students will be able to:
- Discuss the value, roles, and goals of IT as a part of the corporate infrastructure.
- Discuss ways in which IT might be used to gain competitive advantage.
- Discuss the main roles and functions of computer operations management.
- Explain the impact of capacity and availability management for systems.
- Discuss the role of service level agreements.
- Identify challenges to information technology budgets and discuss strategies for addressing these challenges.
- Describe the role of teams in information technology projects and evaluate team effectiveness.
- Identify common ethical issues surrounding the use of technology in organizations and analyze strategies for addressing these issues.
- Explain how telecommunications policies and regulations affect the application of information technology.
Textbook Information
Required text: Applegate, Austin and McFarlan, Corporate Information Srategy and Management, Seventh Edition, Text and Cases, McGraw-Hill Irwin, 2006, ISBN 0-07-294775-6.
Beware: There is a paperback version of this book without the cases in it. You will need the cases, so don't buy that. Only the Text and Cases version will do.
Instructor Information
Name: Bhagyavati (Dr. B for short) Email: from within WebCT Vista (preferred) External email:
Instructor Contact Policy / Email will be the official tool for contacting the instructor. The email policies for this class are as follows:
- Students are required to use their WebCT email account for all communications.
- Students are expected to check their email accounts on a daily basis.
- The instructor will respond to student emails within 24 hours of receipt EXCEPT on holidays and weekend.
- Follow-up to unanswered email is welcomed, as there are instances in which messages get “lost.”
I can also be reached by telephone at 706-565-3523 and by Internet email at . However, the WebCT email and discussion boards are the preferred means of communication.
Policy on Changes to the Syllabus / The instructor reserves the right to change the syllabus and class schedule, including assignments and tests with prior notice given to the class.
Class Cancellation Policy / While class cancellation does not apply to an asynchronous online course, should instructional delays occur due to server or connection problems or other unforeseen circumstances, we will endeavor to remain on schedule. Such remedies may include adjustments to due dates, online discussion or tutoring sessions, etc.
Attendance/Participation / All students enrolled in the WebBSIT Program must verify their enrollment via WebCT Vista.
Enrollment verification information is provided to the Financial Aid Office of your home institution. To verify your enrollment you must log-in to each of your WebCT Vista courses by 5:00 PM on the first day of course instruction.
Consistent participation is required. Activities include, e-mail correspondence, discussion threads and study groups, assignment submissions, etc.
Withdrawal / Withdrawal policy varies by institution. In general, students who stop attending class without a submission of the necessary withdrawal paperwork will receive an automatic grade of ‘F’. Students who withdraw after midterm will receive an automatic grade of ‘WF’. Withdrawal policy and procedures are published in the Academic Catalog of your consortium institution.
No-Show / Students must log into each of their WebCT Vista courses by 5pm of the day classes begin (see Academic Calendar) to confirm their attendance. Remember, you are taking an online course and participation in the course is the only way the instructor can "see" you.
If you fail to log into your courses by 5pm of the day classes begin, or fail to complete course activities within a two-week period at any time during the semester, the instructor will consider your lack of activity as an indication of your intention not to continue in the course. At this point, the instructor may choose to remove you from group activities or interactions. Failure to participate without officially withdrawing from the course will result in a grade of F.
The special circumstances of taking a WebBSIT course demand regular and consistent participation. Be sure to pace yourself throughout the semester making sure your responses to communications and assignments are timely. If you are not able to participate in any assigned class activities, contact your instructor immediately.
A registered student, who has failed to attend class (in person or by electronic equivalent) by the final payment deadline for the term, is considered a “no show.” The “no show” student will be administratively withdrawn and will not be reinstated. The “no show” student is obligated to pay for all registration in effect at the end of drop-add even though he or she did not attend.
Academic Honesty / Unless otherwise indicated, all assignments, projects, examinations, etc are individual assessments and evidence of excessive collaboration between students will be treated as cheating. Note that representing the work of another is considered cheating. The usual penalty for cheating is an 'F' in the course.
Any student guilty of a dishonest academic activity such as (but not limited to) copying sections from another student's paper or plagiarizing from another source such as a website will receive an F in this course.
For further information on Academic Dishonesty review that section of Academic Catalog of your consortium institution.
Technology Requirements / Technology Requirements
Computers located in on-campus labs or libraries cannot be used as the primary computer resource for taking online classes. You will need the reasonably small suite of hardware and software listed below
Required Hardware:
- Computer: A personal computer with Windows XP or higher, or a MacIntosh with OS X.
- Sound: A sound card with speakers or headphones.
- Monitor: A VGA (or equivalent) or better monitor.
- Printer connected to the computer
- CD-ROM drive
- Microphone
- Internet access. For a dial-up connection, at least a 56k modem is recommended. Slower dial-up connections will affect course performance. High speed Internet connectivity (cable or DSL) is strongly recommended.
- Microsoft Office XP or beyond, including: Word, Excel, Access, PowerPoint
- Web Browser: A JavaScript enabled Web browser. These include Netscape 7.1, Internet Explorer 6.0 or newer versions of either. (Note: Internet Service Providers [ISP] with proprietary browsers such as Prodigy or some versions of AOL, may have difficulty with JavaScript-based activities. Contact the ISP to determine if the browser will work with JavaScript.)
- Virus protection software
- Flash Player
- Animations (Tutorials) used in this course require the installation of the cross-platform Flash Player.
- Download Flash Player 8 for Windows or Macintosh
Assessment Policies/ Grading Policies
Your course grade will be calculated as follows:
10% Discussion Participation
40% Individual Assignments
25% Group Assignments
25% Individual Term Paper
This course does not have examinations.
All assignments and term paper will receive numerical grades.
In order of significance, the most important factors determining your assignment grade are completeness, correctness, organization, and readability. If we think of your writing as a collection of answers, completeness is a measure of the total number of the problems that you successfully covered. We consider a problem to be covered if the underlying answer looks reasonable and it explains your thought in a non-trivial fashion (i.e., simply quoting text from somewhere as an answer is considered trivial). You should try your best to write in your own words. Correctness becomes a grading issue only for problems that are completely answered or covered. A correct answer is the one that addresses the problem according to the well-defined arguments and knowledge from assigned reading materials. Specifically, if you have got a problem mostly covered, you will get credit for answering it, but we will take off points for the errors or ill-conceived arguments that we find. If you don't have a problem mostly covered, you will not get credit for it. We try our best to be fair both to the person that we are grading and to the class as a whole. We also subjectively evaluate the quality of both the organization and quality of your writing. There are two aspects of these qualities that can affect your grade: (a) If there are statements in your writing that significantly and noticeably affect readability, we consider them to be significant, and (b) If there are problems that make it very hard for the instructor to understand your writing, resulting in a drastic increase in the amount of time required to review your assignments, we consider it to be significant.
All assignments and term paper may not be revised after the due date. The grade you get is the grade you earn. There is NO do-over in the college-level study.
Discussion Participation Policies / PAY CLOSE ATTENTION TO DISCUSSION OPENING AND CLOSING DATES. ABSOLUTELY NO LATE DISCUSSION WILL BE ACCEPTED.
A portion of your course grade (10%) is based on participation. In addition, if you don’t participate, you are missing an opportunity to discuss things that may not be clear to you, to ask me questions, and to interact with your colleagues and me.
For each unit and case you will be required to create at least two meaningful posts AND two thought-filled responses, thus, four posts for each unit and case.
Unit and Unit Discussion are two weeks long in duration and begin with Unit 1 on Thursday January 15th. Check the course calendar for all unit opening and closing dates. You must post your initial discussion comments when the unit opens. You must respond to classmates’ postings before the unit closes.
Assessment Deadline Policies / Don't procrastinate! No late assignments will be accepted.
It is my strict policy not to accept late assignments. Exceptions will be made only under the most dire of circumstances. Note, however, that I am generous with partial credits, so turn in what you have.
Proctored Exams / This course has no proctored examinations.
How to Succeed in this Course / Here are six things you can do that will greatly improve your chances of earning a satisfactory grade in this class:
Read the syllabus: It is a lot of trouble to prepare so detailed a syllabus. You should assume I had a reason for it. You should read every word in the syllabus during the first week of classes. I will not be sympathetic to complaints that you didn’t understand something about the course if it’s written down in the syllabus.
Read the textbook: You will get a lot more out of this class, and so be able to give back more on the assignments and examinations, if you read the assigned parts of the textbook before the material is first due to be discussed. In my experience, students who don’t complete the reading before it is discussed either never complete it or try to cram it all in just before work is due. That doesn’t work.
Learn from the on-line lessons: The lessons cover some of the material in the text, it is true. Sometimes an explanation from a different point of view will make material clearer to you. Furthermore, the lessons present material not in the textbook, including information on best practices. You are responsible for this material.
Participate in the online discussions: A portion of your course grade is based on participation. In addition, if you don’t participate, you are missing an opportunity to have things that may not be clear explained to you, to ask me questions, and to interact with your colleagues and me. If classes weren’t important, we wouldn’t have them.
Do the homework: The assignments are designed to help you learn and the principal method by which I will assess your progress.
Allow enough time: More unsatisfactory grades are due to procrastination than any other cause. Do not assume that you can complete the homework in the thirty minutes before the due date and time; you cannot. The most successful students start this work several days before it it due.
Online classes, particularly, seem to invite procrastination. So, online students should be particularly careful to avoid it.
Course Calendar / The course calendar is your friend. The course calendar tool shows the due dates for all assignments and provides a unit-by-unit reading guide for each week of the term. You should check the calendar each week.
From time to time the instructor may revise the course calendar. If that happens, you will see the "New Calendar Entry" icon next to the course on your "My WebCT" page. Click the icon to be taken directly to the revisions.
There is also a PDF file in the "Course Resources" section that contains a GANTT chart for the class. Print this out so that you will have a quick reference on how long you have to complete assignments and when they are due.
Style Guideline for Assignments / Failure to adhere to these guidelines could result in point reductions to your work.
Style Guideline: Your work should be prepared in a form that can be opened with Microsoft Word. Use a type face of approximately twelve points and leave at least a one-inch margin on all four sides of the page in order to give me a place to add comments to your work..
If the work you are turning in has more than one part, include all parts in a single file; do not turn in two or more files.
In the upper right corner of the first page of each assignment, put the following information in the order shown:
Your name
The date the item is turned in
Identification of the item (Homework #1, Term Paper etc.)
Here is an example:
JoeW.College
January 10, 2006
Homework 1
The first line of your homework answer goes here.
Remember, this information goes in the upper right corner. Do not use a cover page.
Removal from a Group / As in "real life" the members of each group are expected to make allowances and take up the slack when one member of the group has an emergency.
Also as in real life, a group may "fire" a member who consistently fails to carry his or her part of the load. The mechanism for firing a member is that every other member of the group, individually, must send the instructor email requesting the individual's removal. All emails must arrive within a single seven-day period.
A member who is removed from a group must complete the group assignments individually, must submit them on time, and will receive a grade based on his or her individual work.
Note that if one is removed form a group just before an assignment is due, the person removed is still expected to turn that assignment in on time or receive a zero. That may be very difficult when time is short. In other words, getting fired is an extremely bad thing which each of you should try to avoid.
Your Term Paper / A portion of your course grade will be derived from a term paper. As explained in Preparing Your Term Paper in the "Course Resources" section, a successful term paper is one that earns a grade of A and doesn't kill you in the process! The key to a successful term paper is a narrow scope. That's how you get enough depth with a reasonable amount of work.
Choose a general topic from one of the units of this course. Then find a very specific area within that topic which you will research further. You have some time to think about this.
In about the sixth week of the course (the exact date is in the Course Calendar and the Assignments tool) turn in a Term Paper Proposal. In your proposal, provide the title of your paper, a draft "Statement of the Problem," an abstract that explains in a paragraph or two the topic you intend to research and write about, and list at least three references to material on that topic. (You will have to have done some research to list the references; that's how you know you can find enough material on your chosen topic.) Your proposal will not be a part of your grade, but will be marked "Approved" or "Not Approved." If your proposal is approved, proceed. If it is not approved, the instructor will tell you why. You must then submit a revised proposal for approval. While late proposals will be accepted, an automatic 2 point per day penatly will apply against your final term paper grade.
Your term paper will not be graded (and will count as a zero!) if you do not work from an approved proposal.
About two weeks before your paper is due, you will submit a term paper draft. Your draft will not be graded, but will be approved or disapproved with comments. The purpose is to be sure you're on the right track so that you earn a good grade on the final paper. Your term paper draft must have all the required sections described in Preparing Your Term Paper, and the problem statement must be in final form. The literature review may be in draft form, but should be mostly complete. The discussion and conclusion may be in draft or outline form.
Your term paper will not be graded (and will count as a zero!) if you do not work from an approved draft.
Your final paper must be at least six and no more than 12 typed, double-spaced pages, exclusive of references and figures. It must be prepared in the format described in Preparing Your Term Paper. You must cite at least six references, of which one may be from the class text. Your remaining references must come from books or papers published in respected journals. At most three references may come from popular publications or Internet publications.
Refer to the Standards of Academic Conduct paper and be careful to attribute comments, observations, and ideas which are not your own. There is a writing example in the "Course Resources" section that will show you how to do this.
Plagiarism, fabrication, reference padding, or other academic misconduct will result in a grade of zero on the paper, a letter-grade reduction in your course grade, and possibly other penalties. I reserve the right to screen your papers using an anti-plagiarism service like Turnitin.com. (I am sure no one will plagiarise, but I have to put it in the syllabus.)
Be careful what you upload. I will not accept, "I uploaded the wrong thing" as an excuse for unsatisfactory work or academic misconduct.
Important Dates / Spring Semester 2009
WebBSIT Term Calendar
First Day Students May Log into Vista Courses
Classes Begin
Students Must Log Into Course to Confirm Attendance for Financial Aid
Drop/Add
Last Day for students to request alternate proctored exam sites
Midterm exams
Midpoint Date Last Day for Students to Withdraw with a grade of "W"
Classes end
Final Exams / 1 Jan
9 Jan
9 Jan
9-14Jan
6 Feb
16-21Feb
2 Mar
15 Apr
16-20Apr
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