Supplemental Background Resources
Module 1 -- The Internet as technology: tools, uses, and socio-technical interactions
Socio-technical Systems
The following links provide additional background on sociotechnical systems. All of these references are short.
Definition of Socio-technical systems
Eric Trist - Organisations@Onepine
Digital Libraries as Socio-technical Systems
Principles of Socio Technical Systems
Information Management
We will explore information, information technology, and information systems in more detail in Module 2. Below are a few links to professional associations involved with IS and IT to get your thinking stated.
Society for Information Management | Home
ACM: Association for Computing Machinery
Yahoo! Directory: Computer Industry > Professional Organizations
Knowledge Management
Good knowledge management portal:
Good introductory discussions of knowledge management
Knowledge management - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Knowledge Management - Emerging Perspectives
Knowledge Management consulting firms/resources
Knowledge Management (David Skyrme Associates)
Knowledge Management Knowledge Base
Knowledge Management magazines
KM Magazine, the original knowledge management publication
Knowledge Management academic/university resource
The Internet and the World Wide Web
The Internet is the highway that - essentially - connects server computers to each other. Clients request information/services from a server using an Internet browser. The server either provides the service itself or connects to the server that can provide the service. The World Wide Web defines that way in which clients make requests to servers and servers deliver information to clients.
Howstuffworks "Internet Channel"
Whatis.com, the leading IT encyclopedia and learning center
The following links provide very general definitions and discussions of data and information. All of these links are short.
A Discipline Independent Definition of Information
Module 2 - The Internet as business intelligence, decision locus, and political hotbed
The following links provide very general definitions and discussions of data and information. All of these links are short.
A Discipline Independent Definition of Information
Business Intelligence and Data-Mining
Business Intelligence and Data-mining software are one type of business software application. There are a number of other types of business software applications. However, rather than trying to cover the full range of business software applications, we will concentrate on a single type of application. Business intelligence is a relatively new type of application. You should pay attention to the sort of information that the application produces and the technology that the application runs on.
Computerworld Business Intelligence
The future of business intelligence - Computerworld
End-Users
For this Module, we will consider end-users to be either employees working on client computers in a client-server environment or customers working at home but connected to an organization over the Internet. (There are other types of end-users but this assumption keeps things a little simpler.) End-users typically have four types of issues, hardware-specific problems, operating-system specific problems, application-specific problems, and network/Internet specific problems. In this Module, we will ignore application-specific issues. As we saw in Module 2, the diversity of software applications is too great. However, hardware, operating-system, and network/Internet problems are fairly generic across organizations and across applications.
There are also different levels of end-user skills. Most organizations assume that employees (and potential customers) have basic "information technology literacy" or "information literacy" skills. That is they know the basics of getting on the computer, using Windows, using the fundamental parts of applications like Microsoft Word, and know the basics of surfing the Internet. What end-users often lack is training in specific applications and in advanced Internet searching. They may also may be unaware of good security practices and often need help solving unexpected hardware and software problems. The supplemental materials link at the end of this page provides references for an an overview of these problems. You should be able to find more examples by searching the Internet and you may be able to reflect on your own experiences as an employee in an organization.
IT Professionals
IT Professionals are trained to handle a wide variety of development, support, and administrative tasks related to keeping information systems operating efficiently and being used effectively. IT professionals may be housed in an IS Department within an organization or may be hired by an organization to do IT tasks. Often an organization will have both an internal IS Department and hire outside IT Professionals. Rather than provide a general description of IS Departments, IS Vendors and Consultants, and the variety of IT positions available, these links are to specific IT Departments, specific Vendors and Consultants, and Lists of IT positions. By looking at these companies and jobs, you should be able to get a good sense of how the professional IT workforce is organized. (Pay particular attention to the staff and functions in the different IS departments.)
IT Management
The pinnacle of IT Management is the position of Chief Information Officer or CIO. The CIO is responsible for the day to day operations of an IT Department and the work of any contracted IT employees. Network administrators, database administrators, program and project managers, tech and customer support managers all report to the CIO. The CIO is also responsible for working with the CEO, COO and other members of the top management team to coordinate IT strategy and business strategy. The optional supplemental materials provides references for insights into the CIO role and responsibilities.
Note that you can easily expand on this list of articles. The world of end-users, IT professionals, and IT managers is constantly changing and no static description can capture the full range of possibilities.
Module 03 - The Internet as social media: connectivity and immediacy
End Users
Information Literacy: definitions and models
Focus on Generic Skills for Information Technology Literacy
Learn when and how to implement end user training
End-user training should be customized to fit the audience
How to identify and recruit power users
Power Users - GNU Project - Free Software Foundation (FSF) (Amusing!)
CyberLynk Network, Inc. :: Computer/End User Support
Computerworld | Security: End users are your first line of defense
Microsoft bolsters security service for novice end users - Computerworld
Quiz: Security Awareness for End Users - a Whatis.com definition
Examples of IT Departments:
Corporate Information Systems - Health and Hospital Corporation of Marion County
The University of Liverpool - Corporate Information Systems
ANU - Corporate Information Services
Integrated Management Information Systems Department - Organizational Chart
RI Information Technology Division: Orginizational Chart
Examples of IT Vendors and Consulting Firms:
CGI - Business solutions through information technology iSOFT
Examples of IT Jobs Available:
Computing & Technology: The Riley Guide
IT Management
The CIO time bomb: ZDNet Australia: Insight: Toolkit: IT Management: Strategic Planning
Amazon.com: CIO Survival Guide: The Roles and Responsibilities of the Chief Information Officer
The best place to get overviews of the systems development lifecycle and the different systems analysis and design methodologies is to search through the following web-based encyclopedias.
Whatis.com, the leading IT encyclopedia and learning center
Module 4 - The Internet as somewhere else: everything as a service and the idea of "the cloud"
Module 05 - The Internet as "enterprise glue": information mobilization and deployment
Strategic Analysis
Executives do not make information systems strategy in a vacuum. Rather, information systems strategy has to fit with the overall strategic vision of an organization (or socio-technical system). Organizational strategy lays out the objectives of an organization and the basic paths that the organization will follow to meet those objectives. Generally, the CEO and the top management team will determine strategy and set the strategic direction of an organization. The CIO will work with the top management team to help them understand how information systems can contribute to those overall business strategies. He also takes charge of seeing that those strategic initiatives are implemented.
The following three links provide general analytic overviews of the linkage between business strategy and information technology strategy.
Knowledge Management for E-Business Performance
The following link presents an overview of how Dell Computers implemented their IT strategy.
Dell Business Strategy Secrets
IT System Selection
Once an IT strategy is set, alternative systems have to be evaluated and one system needs to be selected. This selection process may involve putting out an RFP (request for proposal) to an IT vendor or initiating a new development project for an internal IT development staff. It involves determining system requirements and insuring that a vendor or internal developers can meet those requirements.
There are many articles and presentations that provide advice on how to generally select information systems as well as how to select specific types of information systems. Below are a collection of advice links.
Selecting an information system without an RFP - request for proposal
Myths of Information Systems Selection
Information System Selection (Power Point)
The following links provide information on RFPs and what they involve.
Orchard Software Corporation: Sample Request For Proposal
RFP software to select information systems
Systems Development and Project/Contract Management
Systems Development
You should search for the following terms: systems development life cycle (SDLC), unified modeling language (UML), object-oriented programming, computer-assisted software engineering (CASE), and structured systems analysis and design methodology (SSADM), and software engineering. Follow any hyperlinks for terms or topics that you do not understand. Also, take a look at the any online references.
The following articles provide more topical discussions of systems development issues.
Building bug-free O-O software: An introduction to Design by Contract
CACM Guest Editorial on Software Patterns
Computerworld | System Development Life Cycle
On demand business process lifecycle
Software Development Life Cycle
A somewhat less managerial/IT professional and more end-user approach to systems development is called participatory design. The following link provides an overview of participatory design.
Personas, Participatory Design, and Product Development
Contract/Project Management
Software design and development is either contracted out or done inside the organization. The systems development life cycle describes the stages of this process. Contract and project management insure that systems are designed and developed on time and within budget. Contract management, though an important topic, is beyond the scope of this class. The links below all focus on project management.
The three online encyclopedias listed above also contain good introductions to project management. To get started, you should read through those articles.
The following links are to articles describing how specific projects were managed successfully or unsuccessfully. Notice how much all of these articles focus on the social side of design and development and the difficulty of managing projects.
Study: Many Major IT Projects Still Fail
Tarnished image: The state of IT credibility - Computerworld
Software Project Failure: The Reasons, The Costs
Computing Technology (for those who have to know)
Computer Hardware
The first concern of Chief Information Officers is to insure that a company has access to the information that it needs. This involves making decisions about business software applications. However, these applications run on computer hardware. So it is essential that CIOs and their staff have an idea of how computers and computer networks are put together and the performance characteristics that they should pay attention to.
Howstuffworks "Hardware Channel"
Howstuffworks "Peripherals Channel"
Whatis.com, the leading IT encyclopedia and learning center
System Software
Business applications cannot run on directly on computer hardware. There is a wide range of system software that manages the operation of the hardware (operating systems and utilities), managing files (file management), and general purpose programming tools (assemblers, compilers, interpreters). These system tools have an immense effect on how well business applications run on particular computer hardware.
What is application? - A Word Definition From the Webopedia Computer Dictionary
Howstuffworks "Software Channel"
Howstuffworks "How Operating Systems Work"
Whatis.com, the leading IT encyclopedia and learning center
Computer Networks
Computers are routinely hooked up into networks and that allow the computers to communicate. The most common type of architecture for computer networks is a client server architecture. End-users have client computers and make requests of server computers. Server computers either provide services to the client directly or contact another server computer that can provide the service. (Note: There are also peer to peer networks such as file-sharing networks like Napster or Kazaa. However, we will not cover these types of networks in this class.)
What is network operating system? - Word Definition From Webopedia Computer Dictionary
What is client/server architecture? - Word Definition From Webopedia Computer Dictionary
Client/Server Networking - An Introduction to the Client/Server Model
Whatis.com, the leading IT encyclopedia and learning center
Information Architecture and Usability
Information Architecture and Usability stress that it is not just the information provided by a software application but the manner in which the information is presented to the user that is important. With the emergence of the World Wide Web and complex business applications, information architecture and usability have become much more important.
Boxes and Arrows: The Information Architecture of Email
Boxes and Arrows: The Sociobiology of Information Architecture
Content Management and Information Architecture -- Interview -- CMS Watch
Information architecture - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Information Architecture for Everyone : evolt.org, IA/Usability
O'Reilly Network: Information Architecture Meets Usability
Information Architecture Glossary
Usability experts are from Mars, graphic designers are from Venus: A List Apart