Introduction, scope and key themes

This session is an introduction to the course as a whole. The aim of the session is to introduce you to the broad themes that will be covered and to provide a firm foundation upon which to build.

By the end of this session you should have:

• a broad understanding of the range of technologies that fall within the scope of the course

• an appreciation of the technical and managerial issues that face the organizations that use these technologies

• an appreciation of the link between IS strategy and business strategy

As this is the first session the main aim is to give you an overview of the course and the key concepts that you will be dealing with. The emphasis will be on the first part of the course (Sessions 1, 2 and 3) where we deal with the fundamentals of aligning IS and Business Strategy. The second part of the course (Sessions 4, 5 and 6) are rather more specialized and deal with particular cases of what we will talk about here.

Below is a selection of material that you might useful as a supplement to the material we cover in class and any additional reading you do. At the end of the page, there is a link to the powerpoint presentation that I will use and some self assessment questions should help you to judge your progress / strengths / weaknesses and take remedial action where appropriate.

Additional reading / background information for session 1

Most of the sources on this page have been taken from Wikipedia. You should be aware that Wikipedia is constantly edited and re-edited and so is unstable as a source of information. Similarly, some aspects of what you will find in its pages may be unreliable and the subject of disputes. Because of this you should not normally cite Wikipedia as a source of authority in written work. However, as the goal of this session is to make you think about the key concepts, these aspects of Wikipedia make it particularly suitable for its use here.

Organizations and Work

• Organizations (From Wikipedia)
  A broad discussion that touches on many aspects of organizations.

• Organizational Development (From Wikipedia)
  A rather more focused view looking at organizational development.

• Organizational Structure (From Wikipedia)
  Looks at the different ways in which organizations organize themselves.

• Work-Life Balance (From Wikipedia)
  A look at the meaning of work in the broader sense.

Strategy, Corporate Strategy and Business Strategy

• Some Definitions of Strategy and Tactics
  Some notes on the various ways in which "Strategy" and "Tactics" have been defined in management.

• Strategy (From Wikipedia)
  A useful introduction to the concept of strategy. Also see tactics.

• Strategic Management (From Wikipedia)
  A broad and comprehensive article that deals with several areas of strategic management.

• Strategic Planning (From Wikipedia)
  Deals with some of the techniques associated with strategic management.

Business Models

• Models (From Wikipedia)
  A selection to descriptions of many different types of model.

• Business Models (From Professor Michael Rappa)
  A through discussion of business models with links elsewhere.

• Business Models (From Wikipedia)
  A broader discussion with more of a focus on business models being a model.

• Enterprise Models (From Wikipedia)
  A related topic with more emphasis on building enterprise level information systems.

Data, Information and Knowledge

• Data (From Wikipedia)
  A rather broad and general look at this term.

• Information (From Wikipedia)
  Looks at the way we use the term information.

• Knowledge (From Wikipedia)
  A comprehensive discussion of knowledge including tacit and explicit Knowledge.

• The duality of knowledge (From the journal Information Research)
  The first section of this article contains a discussion of the various ways in which people have attempted to classify knowledge.

Technology, Information Technology and Information Systems

• Technology (From Wikipedia)
  A broad discussion of the ways in which technology can be viewed.

• Information Technology (From Wikipedia)
  A short article on Information Technology.

• Information and communication Technology (From Wikipedia)
  A longer article on Information and communication Technology, perhaps reflecting the importance of convergence.

• Information Systems (From Wikipedia)
  A general discussion of information systems that contains links to different types of Information System.

The 'classic' pyramid model of Information System

• The Pyramid Model
  Some notes on the classic view of Information Systems as a pyramid that reflects the structure of an organization: an EIS, which is built on DSS, which is built on MIS, which is built on TPS.

• Transaction processing systems (TPS) (From Wikipedia)
  Here Transaction Processing Systems are discussed in a very abstract way, there is also a whole category of Transaction Processing in Wikipedia for those who are interested in this area

• Management Information Systems (MIS) (From Wikipedia)
  Discusses Management Information Systems as a broad subject area and contains links to other topics.

• Decision Support Systems (DSS) (From Wikipedia)
  This article deals with decision support systems, which also feature in some variants of the 'classic' IS.

• Executive Information Systems (EIS) (From Wikipedia)
  Contains a fairly factual description of Executive Information Systems.

Convergence of Information Systems and Strategy

• Convergence (From Wikipedia)
  A general discussion of the concept of technological convergence.

• Convergence in telecommunications (From Wikipedia)
  An article that takes more of a strategic view of convergence.

• Digital Convergence (From Wikipedia)
  A short article focusing on convergence around digital technologies.

Reading

There is no specified reading for this session but the text books for the course will provide additional information on the topics we have covered.

For private study

Self Assessment

There is a set of self assessment questions to go with this session. As this is the first session and has the goal of introducing you to broad themes and providing a foundation for the rest of the course, the questions are quite general in nature. There are no right and wrong answers; the objective of these questions is to get you to think about the issues rather than give a 'right' answer.

Lecture notes

The notes for this session are available as a presentation (in pdf format) - lecture notes for session 1