Types of information system, their acquisition and design

The focus of this session is on different types or categories of information system there are in organizations. The aim of the session is to give you a better understanding of what types of information system there are, what they do and the choices that need to be faced when developing or acquiring such systems.

By the end of this session you should have:

• an improved understanding of the range of different types of information system that are available to organizations

• an appreciation of the range of options that face an organization that wishs to make use such systems

• an appreciation of the social, tactical and strategic implications of the choices made when deploying them

In the previous session we reviewed at the key themes for the course and looked at both the classic pyramid model for the different types of Information system that can be found in an organization and the notion of strategy and tactics.

This session will begin to look at these issues more closely. In many ways this session itself will be a 'classic' example of this type of course; we will look at what types of information systems are available, the ways in which they can be obtained and the choices that need to be made in doing so.

This is not a technical course, nor is it a course on engineering. We will not look at the technical details of the different types of system, instead we will examine how they can affect the way an organization operates, the different ways in which an organization can go about obtaining the systems it needs and analyze the implications of the choices that managers make when attempting to align their technological and business strategies.

Additional reading / background information for session 2

Information System that do not fit into the Pyramid Model

• Legacy systems - from Wikipedia
  Legacy systems are often overlooked but their role is crucial

• Data warehouses - from Wikipedia
  A comprehensive review of Datawarehouses

• Data mining - from Wikipedia
  An equally comprehensive review of Data mining

• Enterprise systems - from Wikipedia
  A brief overview of Enterprise systems

• Enterprise Resource Planning systems - from Wikipedia
  A comprehensive review of Enterprise Resource Planning systems with links to related planning systems

The Acquisition of Systems

• Commercial off-the-shelf Software - from Wikipedia
  Just buy it "off the shelf"

• Systems Development Life Cycle - from Wikipedia
  Build it yourself - an introduction to the systems development lifecycle

• Open source software - from Wikipedia
  Share and go the open source route

• Outsourcing - from Wikipedia
  Don't bother and get somebody else to do it for you

Software engineering and the software crisis

• The Software Crisis.
  Some short notes on the background and nature of the software crisis.

• The Software Crisis - from Wikipedia
  Some thoughts on the same subject from Wikipedia.

• Systems analysis.
  Some short notes on the background and nature of the systems analysis.

Designing and Building Information Systems

• The history of software engineering - from Wikipedia
  Software engineering is the broad name for the discipline that deals with how Information systems are built.

• Lifecycle models.
  Some short notes on the background and nature of the models of software development that underpin systems design methodologies.

• Systems Development Methodologies - from Wikipedia
  A Systems Development Methodology is the general name given to a set of tools and techniques that can be applied to create an Information system.

• Programming paradigms - from Wikipedia
  There are different ways of thinking about the problem of how to write the code for an information systems, this article looks at some of them.

Choices and Change

• Technology, Ideology and Social Transformation
  Based on a three year longitudinal study of 40 work groups this paper presents six cases to illustrate commonly discussed transformations of work organization.

• The Fad That Forgot People
  One of business process reengineering's creators explains the iron triangle that turned a modest idea into a destructive fad.

• The Factors Influencing Information Systems Outsourcing Partnership
  This study focuses on the working relationship between the outsourcing service receiver and the service provider in the outsourcing on-going stage based on a social perspective. The purpose of this study intends to use the social theories to investigate the influencing factors of IS outsourcing partnerships between the firm and the service providers.

• Technological change - from Wikipedia
  Are we able to control or predict technological change?

• Social change - from Wikipedia
  Are we able to control or predict Social change?

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. The goal of this session was to introduce you to the range of different types of information system that exist and to begin to make you think about some of the issues you could face if you were in the position of being asked to obtain or implement such systems. The objective of these self assessment questions is to get you to think about the issues; as with the previous set of questions, there are no right and wrong answers.

The notes for this session are available as a presentation (in pdf format) - lecture notes for session 2