Using a Wiki to Collaborate on a Study Guide

This paper introduces an end-of-semester assignment to create a study guide for the final exam. This assignment helps with two objectives of an introductory Management Information Systems course: collaboration and using Web 2.0 technologies. We argue that to truly understand collaboration, students must learn more than what collaboration is, they must see it work on a task that is meaningful to the student. The exercise provides a meaningful task that cannot be done by a single student; however, it can be done effectively by many students working together. As they work on the task, they are using a Web 2.0 technology, the wiki. They finish this assignment feeling more comfortable with the technology, and having seen it work. This assignment fits in with a learner-centered education model. The instructor facilitates learning by students in a collaborative method. The learning outcome moves from knowledge acquisition to knowledge integration

Writing IS Teaching Tips: Guidelines for JISE Submission

JISE has a lengthy history of inviting the submission of Teaching Tips for publication consideration in the journal. Past submission guidance for Teaching Tips has consisted of asking contributors to document the teaching experience and indicate what has worked, and not worked, in its execution within a journal page constraint of one to five pages. Over time, and with increased senior editor attention to the academic rigor of the journal, the editorial board and reviewers have exhibited more demanding expectations for the publication of Teaching Tips. Additionally, the kinds of Teaching Tips that are applicable to our information systems discipline have evolved into a recognizable set of characteristics that can be used to guide future authors of such articles. To encourage Teaching Tip submissions, the purpose of this article is threefold: (1) to provide potential authors with guidance for writing Teaching Tip manuscripts; (2) to provide reviewers and editors with advice for accepting manuscripts for publication; and (3) to contribute to the body-of-knowledge for the reflective practice of information systems education

Visualizing IS Course Objectives and Marketable Skills

Course and learning objectives are important tools for setting goals, navigating the course, and measuring performance. Unfortunately, when multiple interrelated objectives are presented as a list of statements, students perceive them as having little utility and tend to misunderstand or ignore them. To increase students’ attention to course objectives, to help them understand the arc, structure, and valuable outcomes of the course, and to engage in active learning, we propose an approach to presenting course objectives in a visual form. The evidence suggests that visualized objectives increased students’ interest in understanding them and provided aids to instructors to better explain how various components of the course fit together and translate into marketable skills. We recommend practical steps for visualizing objectives in any course and present examples of visualizations in two IS courses – “Enterprise Architecture” and “Systems Analysis and Design.

Using Activity Diagrams to Model Systems Analysis Techniques: Teaching What We Preach

Activity diagrams are used in Systems Analysis and Design classes as a visual tool to model the business processes of ‘as- is’ and ‘to-be’ systems. This paper presents the idea of using these same activity diagrams in the classroom to model the actual processes (practices and techniques) of Systems Analysis and Design. This tip accomplishes three things: (1) helps students better understand the purpose of drawing activity diagrams, (2) illustrates how useful activity diagrams are in understanding and communicating techniques and business processes at both high and low levels, and (3) teaches the various systems analysis and design practices and techniques in a creative manner that visual learners will appreciate

Play Ball: Bringing Scrum into the Classroom

Scrum has become a widely-used framework for technology development in both private industry and the government. As a result, Information Systems recruiters and executives have recently been placing a focus on students with Scrum knowledge. Unfortunately, current System Analysis and Design textbooks provide cursory attention to Scrum. Thus, the purpose of this paper is to suggest a starting point for teaching Scrum at the university level by presenting a classroom exercise (Ball Game) that can be used as a means for learning Scrum in more detail. This tip accomplishes three things: (1) introduces students to Scrum concepts with an engaging and memorable exercise, (2) provides a means for teaching students about estimation, and (3) offers an approach that allows students to witness firsthand how self-organized teams inspect, adapt, and evolve

Invited Paper: Ingredients of a High-Quality Information Systems Program in a Changing IS Landscape

This paper describes James Madison University’s undergraduate major in Computer Information Systems as an example of a high- quality Information Systems (IS) program and discusses our planned evolution in the context of the rapid changes of technological, business, and social factors. We have determined what we consider to be five essential ingredients of what makes JMU’s program a high-quality IS major. These are: (1) building an integrated, rigorous curriculum with a strong technical foundation; (2) developing a vibrant community of faculty, students, alumni, employers, and community service organizations; (3) respecting and supporting pedagogical scholarship; (4) committing to continuous improvement and assessment; and (5) accreditation. We believe these ingredients will continue to be highly relevant as the IS discipline moves forward, but also that curriculum content will need to adjust to meet changing demand. We discuss the increasing relevance of topics such as analytics, security, and the cloud to the IS curriculum and their implications for pedagogy, accreditation, and scholarship. We hope that sharing JMU’s experience, insights, and future directions will be useful to JISE’s readership

Impacts of an Integrated Information Center on faculty end-users: A qualitative assessment

This article describes an ethnographic study of a selected group of faculty end-users; the purpose of this qualitative assessment was to triangulate on several phenomena under investigation to better understand the impacts of the Integrated Information Center (IIC) on end-user work behaviors. © 1997 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/34254/1/12_ftp.pd

A Rubric to Evaluate and Enhance Requirements Elicitation Interviewing Skills

Eliciting effective requirements is vital for successful Information Systems development and implementation. Interviews with stakeholders and users are an important part of the requirements elicitation process. Thus, teaching students how to better perform requirements elicitation interviews is a critical task for information systems faculty. However, prior to this research, a common tool or rubric to evaluate the effectiveness of requirements elicitation interviews was not found in the literature. The purpose of this research was to develop a rubric that can be used to both evaluate (provide summative measures) and enhance (via formative training techniques) the requirements elicitation interviewing skills of information systems students. The results of this research provide both quantitative and qualitative evidence that the rubric developed and described in this paper substantially improved the ability of our students to conduct requirements elicitation interviews. Along with detailing the various methodologies we used, this paper provides practical pedagogical suggestions and lessons learned along with covering possible future avenues of research in this area