~ MIS TOPIC OUTLINE Fall 1999
"How systems work"

1. Introduction to MIS: Perspectives of MIS:

• MIS as a System: LVBertalanffy, RNolan, GBDavis
• MIS as a Management Function: MoIS, RNAnthony, GBDavis
• MIS as an Industry: WSJ, vendors, people, products.

Reading: GBDavis

2. Information Systems:

• Realworld (events, states of being, tangible entities)
• Data Format Types (text, sound, image, video)
• ASCII & Nesting Blocks
• Processing methods (Abstraction, parsing,...)
• Presentation Format (see also ERTufte),
• User & Interfaces(psychological, physiological, ergonomics)
• Decision Models(e.g. accounting, behavior, legal, financial models)
• Objectives of the firm (or of the individual)

Reading: Drucker, Data Literacy, and Discussion Notes #2

3. Hardware:

• Physical I/O Model (the tangible components)
• Logical I/O Model (or CPU I/O model) with peripherals,
• CPU generations, metrics, & vendors,
• Secondary storage (cards, tape,floppies,hard, CD, chips),
• Writing signals to media (the technology, band model)
• Configurations (PC internals, parallel, cache, networks,mainframes - micros, workstations)
• Alpha, RISC, PowerPC, Pentium,

Reading: History of the Microprocessor

4.Software:

• Levels,
• applications,
• proprietary packages
• programming languages,
• operating systems,
• architectures, & firms.
• Reading WindowsNT.

5. Database:

• 1st Generation Models(Hierarchical, Network, Relational), graphical representations,
• ERModel,
• ANSI/SPARC,
• Normalization (thru 3NF),
• SQL.
• Reading: Ullman & Widom, Database Design

6. MoIS:

• Systems planning,
• Systems development,
• Systems maintenance,
• Systems operations.

IBM's BSP, MSPs, PSC's CAB, Nolan Norton, Andersen Consulting AA, Life Cycle. CASE tools

7. Telecommunications:

• Media (twisted pair,fiber, microwave);
• Signals & waves;
• Frequency Spectrum;
• Techniques(multiplexing, packet switching, compression),
• Protocols (ISDN, ISO/OSI, TCP/IP). Internet and Intranets.
  
  8. Industry: Major market segments [hardware, software, services] people, vendors, products) and what's happening (as it happens) technological advances, market shifts, mergers, consortiums, legal trends.
  Reading: The Wall Street Journal
  
  9. Exercises: 1.tutorial; 2. email a file; 3.Exer3, See also: html, more html2& directories, Exer4,Exer5; Exer#6
  10. Index:
  • Click here to see an index on student papers for Spring'98.
  • Check out Fall98 or Spring99 or Fall99for some recent student homepages. Quick link to WebCT
  • Glossary of MIS terms.