Handouts and Notes for Management 4322 Spring 2000

Office Hours:

These notes are copyright © 2000 Michael Wolfe. They are intended to accompany Stair, Ralph and Reynolds, George, Principles of Information Systems, 4th Ed., Course Technologies, 1999

Anyone having trouble or needing help, please send me email at mailto:wolfem@stjohns.edu

All handouts and notes will, eventually, be available from this website. Assignments and quizzes will be at a site called cyber-class. This site comes with the book. When you buy your textbook, you'll get a password to the site.

Outline of Classes

Class 1. Introductions and groundrules. This course is a hybrid, in which we will be experimenting with Web-based teaching. All lecture material is going to be placed on this website.

A bulletin board and quizzes may be found at http://www.cyber-class.com/ By Friday, 28 January, you must complete the Pre-test at this site. Taking the test is worth 50 points. You will receive full credit if you make a reasonable effort at taking it. Some of the questions may appear on the final. The purpose of the exam is

1. to see how much you already know about management information systems; and
2. to give you an idea of what the questions will be like on the real exams.

In order to access the quizzes, you must buy a password to cyber-class from the bookstore.

The first and last two weeks of this class will be devoted to student presentations, for which you have to come and present. The exams will be given on paper, in class. Attendance at other classes is optional.

In addition to taking the pre-exam, all students must provide the professor (i.e., me) with the email address they wish to use for this class. St. John's would like you to use your official St. John's email, and plans to let you keep the address after you graduate. They also provide free access to the Internet, if 718-990-xxxx is a local call for you. After that ad for St. John's Internet service and email, I realize many of you have email and do not plan to change. I need an email address you will check regularly, as class information will be sent out via email, as well as posted here and at cyber-class.

Attendance Policy: Attendance is mandatory for the first two weeks of class and the last two weeks of class. Attendance at the written in-class exams is mandatory. Other than that, all assignments may be emailed to me, and all notes taken from this website.

All students, whether attending or not, are asked to keep a journal of classes attended in person vs. classes taken via the notes on the web, and why you selected the delivery system for that class.

Chapter Slides

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3 (Hardware)

Chapter 4. Software

Chapter 5. Data

Chapter 6. Telecommunications

Chapter 7. The Internet, Intranets, and Extranets

Chapter 14. Security, Privacy, and Ethical Issues in Information Systems and the Internet

Chapter 12. Systems Investigation and Analysis

Chapter 13. Systems Design, Implementation, Maintenance, and Review

Calendar

Assignments

Excel 1 (Due Feb 11, 2000)

This is to do problem 2 on p 130 of the text. Note that it requires you to submit a spreadsheet and a cover memo (spellchecked) via the cyber-class site. You are not required to come to class if you can do the assignment, but are encouraged to come if you're having any trouble whatsoever. Help and hints are available online.

Access 1 (Due 25 Feb, 2000)

All Access assignments are to be done in teams of 2 – 4.

1. Find the Northwind database. The filename is northwind.mdb It is included with Microsoft Access, and may be found on the St. John’s network or on the Internet.
2. What does Northwind do? Travel agency? Sailboat rides? Look at the database and figure out what it is Northwind does.
3. Write up on one page what Northwind does. Make sure the cover sheet includes your names, title, description of project.

International Email (Due 1 March 2000)

This assignment is to establish contact with someone registered with a foreign registry, or top level domain. The top level domain is the two or three letters at the end of an internet address, the most common being .com The .com, however, is registered in Virginia, USA, as is .net, .org, .edu, .gov, .mil, and .us

Everything else is foreign, like .uk, .ru, .fr, .de, etc., etc. Remember, only the last 2 or three letters are the top level domain, so it's OK to use .com.uk or .org.ru

Good starting places are Yahoo, Excite or any of the other big portals.

Response rate tends to be around 2%. so you'll need (on average) to write 50 emails to get a response. About 1 student in 50 will get a response from her first letter; others will need to send out all 50 to get one response. Please get started on this ASAP. You may work in teams of 2. For credit, you must forward the email with a cover indicated what you did, and the team members. No cover means no credit. Good luck.

Access 2.

1. Which of Northwind's suppliers were from the USA?
2. Who was the most productive employee at Northwind in 1994?
3. Who was Northwind's best customer in 1994?
4. What was their most profitable product in 1994?

Webpage (due 15 April)

Since this isn't on the syllabus, it will carry a bonus to help you improve your grade.

1. The assignment is to create a webpage. Start by filling out the form. Most students have finally had their forms received by the website administrator. If your name isn't on the list, please try again. (10 pts)
2. Create a Web page. You may use PowerPoint or FrontPage. If you use PowerPoint, use the Web Page Wizard, then Save As HTML. Save to your H: Drive. If you use FrontPage, just create a simple Web Page.
3. Using WS-FTP, upload your web page to your website and send me email with your web address. To use WS-FTP, the site name is stupub.stjohns.edu, your name is your St. Johns name, and your password is your St. Johns student ID. (40 pts)