BAD 84007 Fall 2006 Weinroth
B_AD 84007
Information Technology
Kent State University
Fall Semester 2006
Instructor: Dr. Jay Weinroth
Course Syllabus
Part I -- logistics
- Class meetings and Office information. Time and location for our class is something to be determined the first week. E-mail is gweinroth@gmail.com and phone is 330 672-1150. If I am not able to answer your call please leave a message.
- STUDENTS WITH DISABILITIES: In accordance with University policy, if you have a documented disability and require accommodations to obtain equal access in this course, please contact the instructor at the beginning of the semester or when given an assignment for which an accommodation is required. Students with disabilities must verify their eligibility through the Office of Student Disability Services (SDS) in the Michael Schwartz Student Service Center (181 MSC) (672-3391).
- ENROLLMENT: It is the student's responsibility to ensure proper enrollment in classes. If registration errors are not corrected, you are advised that you will not receive a grade at the conclusion of the semester.
- Last day to drop an individual class. Check the fall course bulletin for the last date to drop an individual class without special permission. If you stop attending a class without officially dropping, the probable result will be a grade of F.
- Cheating -- any form of copying another student's work and submitting it as your own will result in one or more of the consequences specified in the university regulations, for all students responsible for the incident. Obviously where students are given a team assignment the two or more persons both attach their names to the work. It is a quasi-legal requirement to mention this in the syllabus. I do not really regard it as relevant for the students of this class.
GRADE WEIGHTS:
|
Task
|
Percent of final grade
|
|
Outline for research paper
|
10%
|
|
1st draft of research paper
|
25%
|
|
Second draft of research paper
|
35%
|
|
Performance in editorial review – outlines
|
10%
|
|
Performance in editorial review– 1st drafts
|
10%
|
|
Performance in editorial review – second drafts
|
10%
|
(7). Academic complaints. University regulations, some of which are reprinted in your copy of the KSU telephone directory, govern many aspects of our classes, including academic complaints.
Part II Purpose and Format of the Course
B_AD 84007 was designed to familiarize the student with the environment of refereed journal research in the field of Information Systems/Information Technology. "Technology" is understood here in the sense that the Information Systems function in the business world is as often refereed to as IT as it is referenced as IS. We are still talking about the design, management, and use of computerized information systems for organizational objectives.
To this end, we will read and discuss a number of papers published in refereed journals, in order to understand several ways in which one can conduct some research that will fall successfully into some category that a reviewer and an editor regards as meriting publication. We will look for various papers published in refereed journals that are examples, respectively, of controlled laboratory experiment, survey, field study, case study, executive interviews, literature review coupled with theoretical model building, actual system development with testing and described usefulness.
We will have several class sessions focusing on discussion of papers we have read. I expect you to bring to class sets of systematic notes (See the section below on "Notes on Refereed Journal Articles") for each of the articles scheduled for discussion, and to use these notes to contribute to our understanding of the articles.
The rest of our class meetings will focus on writing for and performing editorial reviews as if we reviewed for a journal in information systems. Thus, the members of the class will be both researchers and reviewers. The review part of our course is an imitation of the refereed journal process. When someone submits a paper for possible publication, it is given a review by knowledgeable professionals who recommend accepting the paper, rejecting it, or suggesting a number of changes to the author. The instructor will act as an associate editor, receiving advice from the reviewers and guiding the decision process.
Each student will submit work to the rest of the class and the instructor in three stages – outline, 1st draft, and second draft of the paper.
It is also the responsibility of each student is to make available to the rest of the class and the instructor a small number (typically 3 or 4) of important published papers from the literature relevant to his or her ongoing research paper. You may do this by giving us a reliable online source, including the university library database, or by providing hard copies if online access is not readily available. We need access to these background papers in a timely fashion, that is, in time to have read them before we evaluate your outline.
At each stage the student will receive a critique from the reviewers and incorporate the recommended changes in her or his ongoing work. When a stage of your research is due, you will provide electronic or hard copy of your work to all members of the class and the instructor. Each reviewer, when writing the review, will provide abundant comments to guide the author toward the completion of an excellent research paper, and complete a copy of the author criteria spreadsheet as well.
As shown above in the summary of percentages of the course grade, for each of the three reviews we conduct (outline, first draft, second draft), each student will receive a grade on the quality of his or her work as a reviewer, using the second criteria spreadsheet created for this purpose. Each student whose work has been reviewed will fill out a grading spreadsheet for the student who did the review.
Spreadsheet critiques completed by the seminar members, both for one’s work as an author and a reviewer, are advisory to the instructor. All actual grades come from the instructor alone.
Part III Access at Kent State to refereed journals
- You can find some of these journals on the second floor of our library. Papers from past years are bound in large hard cover volumes. Issues from the current year are in a special area on the second floor. You can also avail yourself of the holdings of various other libraries that will honor your Kent State student ID, such as Akron. Hard copy versions of these journals are becoming more rare every year, in contrast with electronic copies.
- You can request the loan of various articles directly from the librarians working in our Interlibrary Loan offices.
- You can access much of what you will want to read and, as far as I as instructor am concerned, all you need to read in this course on line from the Kent State Libraries web site. Their site is www.library.kent.edu. There you will want to click on the link for Alphabetical List of Databases. From there select B and then go to Business Source Premier and click either on On Campus or Off Campus as needed. On Campus works in the college computer lab. Call the Reference librarians to find out what password you need if you are going to work Off Campus. Printing can be tricky. Often you need to print via the icon on the lower menu bar (the one directly part of the screen presentation of the article) rather than via the print command under the File menu.
- Finally, some journals are stricter at protecting their recent material than are others. You will see that in some instances the journal’s on line link ends up offering you the opportunity to pay for receiving a copy of the article. In these cases you will see that our library’s web site provides you with the alternative of getting the article through interlibrary loan. There will be a charge, but less than the journal itself wants to charge you.
But the bottom line on this is that I am NOT requiring you in this course to use any article from a refereed journal that you cannot access for free on line. If you are desperately curious to get an article unavailable online into your hands, the library will help you, for a fee. If you are seriously going to consider submitting your paper to a real journal, you may find it worthwhile to pay for some articles. However, I will accept your work – and I expect our in-course editorial reviewers to do the same – from issues that are a year or two old if those are the only ones you can get on line without paying. There is plenty of very good work you can do on that basis, and, after all, we are practicing here. Finally, some journals are much more generous than others about making their current or at least recent work available on line. I have given them my preference in the assigned readings.
Part IV ASSIGNED READINGS
You will be able to access all of these assigned readings on line through the KSU library database. Use Business Source Premier, and type in the title of the article in the search window for subject. You can then print the article. Note that the inconsistent fonts and reference sequences in the list below come from my saving time by doing a number of copy/paste sequences from the online articles. Do not use this a model for your style of citations.
Internet privacy
1. “PRIVACY RIGHTS ON THE INTERNET: SELF-REGULATION OR GOVERNMENT REGULATION?”, Norman E. Bowie and Karim Jamal.
2006. Business Ethics Quarterly. Volume 16, Issue 3
2. “Internet Privacy Concerns and Social Awareness as Determinants of Intention to Transact,” Tamara Dinev and Paul Hart.
International Journal of Electronic Commerce, Winter 2005–6, Vol. 10, No. 2, pp. 7–29.
3. “Internet privacy concerns and their antecedents – measurement validity and a regression model,” TAMARA DINEV and PAUL HART
BEHAVIOUR & INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY, NOVEMBER–DECEMBER 2004, VOL. 23, NO. 6, 413–422
Knowledge management
4. “Knowledge management and the competitive strategy of the firm,” Leila A. Halawi, Richard V. McCarthy, Jay E. Aronson.
The Learning Organization, Vol. 13 No. 4, 2006, pp. 384-397
5. “A Knowledge Assimilation Schema for Acquiring Technical Knowledge,” Myron Z. Sheu, Wang-Chan Wong.
Journal of Information Systems Education, Vol. 17(2), 223-229
6. “Fundamental Forms of Information,” Marcia J. Bates.
JOURNAL OF THE AMERICAN SOCIETY FOR INFORMATION SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY, 57(8):1033–1045, 2006
7. “RELIABILITY, MINDFULNESS, AND INFORMATION SYSTEMS,” Brian S. Butler, Peter H. Gray.
MIS Quarterly Vol. 30 No. 2, pp. 211-224/June 2006
8. “The Web of System Performance,” BRIAN WHITWORTH, JERRY FJERMESTAD, and EDWARD MAHINDA.
COMMUNICATIONS OF THE ACM May 2006/Vol. 49, No. 5, 93-99
Productivity paradox
9. “A process-oriented perspective of IS success: Examining the impact of IS on operational cost,” T.A. Byrd et al. Omega 34 (2006) 448 – 460
Methodology
10.“Managing risks in information systems outsourcing: An approach to analyzing outsourcing risks and structuring incentive contracts” {also outsourcing},
Kweku-Muata Osei-Bryson, Ojelanki K. Ngwenyama
European Journal of Operational Research 174 (2006) 245–264
11. “Overcoming theory-practice inconsistencies: Critical realism and information systems research,” Matthew Longshore Smith.
Information and Organization 16 (2006) 191–211
12. “STANDARD MAKING: A CRITICAL RESEARCH FRONTIER FOR INFORMATION SYSTEMS RESEARCH,” Kalle Lyytinen, John Leslie King.
MIS Quarterly Vol. 30 Special Issue, pp.405-411/August 2006
13. “FIRM PERFORMANCE IMPACTS OF DIGITALLY ENABLED SUPPLY CHAIN INTEGRATION CAPABILITIES,” Arun Rai, Ravi Patnayakuni
MIS Quarterly Vol. 30 No. 2, pp. 225-246/June 2006
14. “Validating measures of information technology outsourcing risk factors,” {also outsourcing!!!) Bouchaib Bahlia, Suzanne Rivard
Omega 33 (2005) 175 – 187
ERP
15. “Information technology and systems justification: A review for research and applications,” A. Gunasekaran, E.W.T. Ngai, R.E. McGaughey.
European Journal of Operational Research 173 (2006) 957–983
16. “What is IT? SAP, accounting, and visibility in a multinational organization,”
Paolo Quattrone , Trevor Hopper.
Information and Organization 16 (2006) 212–250
17. “Relative importance of evaluation criteria for enterprise systems: a conjoint study,” Mark Keil & Amrit Tiwana.
Info Systems J (2006) 16 , 237–262
IT Auditing
18. “Towards information security behavioural compliance,” Cheryl Vroom, Rossouw von Solms.)
Computers & Security (2004) 23, 191-198
Internet Security
19. “Formal analysis of modern security protocols,” Alec Yasinsac, Justin Childs.
Information Sciences 171 (2005) 189–211
20. “The Effect of Internet Security Breach Announcements on Market Value: Capital Market Reactions for Breached Firms and Internet Security Developers,”
Huseyin Cavusoglu, Birendra Mishra, and Srinivasan Raghunathan.
International Journal of Electronic Commerce, Fall 2004, Vol. 9, No. 1, pp. 69–104.
Part V Some examples of taking systematic notes on refereed journal articles. Access the article on the library data base and note how these notes reflect the important content.
Example # 1
|
Authors: Harding, William T. Assoc. Prof. Texas A & M
Reed. Anita J., doctoral student U of S. Fla; Gray, Robed L., Chair IS W. New Engl College
|
|
Journal: Information Systems Management, Summer 2001, Vol. 18, Issue 3
|
|
Title: Cookies and Web Bugs: What They Are and How They Work Together
|
|
Journal Type: Refereed/Practitioner
|
|
9 pp. w/ references
|
|
Question: What is the technology; what benefits & what threats
|
|
Method: explains & demos the technology; quotes & summarizes spokespersons
|
|
Method details: none
|
|
Findings: Web bugs can be detected
Synchronized servers at marketer sites can read cookie data from cookies from other cookies on your hard drive; could make personal info available to those not authorized
|
|
Conclusion: Synchronized cookies may bring vast invasion of privacy
|
|
Action: Follow up their references
Do search on "Web bugs" and on "Synchronization"
|
Example # 2
|
Authors: Venkatesh, Viswanath, Asst. Prof of IT, U of Md, several good journals; Morris, Michael, Asst. Prof of IS, Wright-Patterson Inst, good journals
|
|
Journal: MIS Quarterly, March 00, Vol. 24, Issue 1
|
|
Title: Why Don't Men Ever Stop to Ask for Directions? Gender, Social Influence, and Their Role in Technology Acceptance and Usage Behavior
|
|
Journal Type: Refereed/Academic
|
|
12 pp plus tables & references
|
|
Question: How do gender, social influence, and usage over time impact the Technology Acceptance Model of Davis et al
|
|
Method: field study
|
|
Method details: 342 workers across 5 organizations being introduced to new info retrieval systems completed questionnaires during training, one month later, and three months later; also their usage of new systems tracked by number of log-ons; linear regression software (PLS) used to analyze statistical significance of six hypotheses
|
|
Findings: Differences in organizations and personal data did not affect results
Initially men placed greater emphasis on Usefulness
Initially women placed greater emphasis on Ease of Use
Initially, Social Influence was significant for women but not for men
Over time, emphasis on Usefulness & Ease of Use continued
Over time, significance of Social Influence declined
Differences in actual usage were seen not to be influenced directly by attitudes about U or UOE, but only through Behavioral Intention
|
|
Conclusion: Perhaps Men and Women need different approaches in training in order to accept new technology, or at least individuals who differ in terms of sensitivity versus action-orientation do. This may be helpful with respect to the costly problem of unused new technology.
|
|
Action:
Search under "Gender" + "Technology acceptance"
Read Davis, MISQ, Vol 13, issue 3, 1989, pp. 319-339
Contact editors or authors – Means for Men vs Women on EOU appear reversed?
|
|
Gefen et al investigates gender and technology acceptance but NOT new technology.
There is no other gender-oriented research with respect to tech acceptance, to date!
|
Example # 3
|
Authors: Bharadwaj, Anandhi, Asst Prof of IT at Emory, several papers in quantitative journals of high quality
|
|
Journal: MIS Quarterly, Mar 00, Vol. 24, Issue 1
|
|
Title: A Resource-Based Perspective on Information Technology Capability and Firm Performance: An Empirical Investigation
|
|
Journal Type: Refereed/Academic
|
|
13 pp plus tables & references
|
|
Question(s): How can the resource-based view theoretical approach be applied to data to result in a reliable analysis of the relation between IT capability and business performance, in the face of inconclusive results to date
|
|
Method: the first part of the paper is a long theoretical exposition of what could be the components of organizational infrastructure needed for IT capability to give a firm sustained competitive advantage
The second part applies a matched-pairs statistical technique to existing data on two sets of firms, in order to test two hypotheses
|
|
Method details:
Variables to be compared are traditional accounting data, such as ROI, taken from the Compustat database
One set of firms selected for study because ranked by Information Week as having superior IT capability
The other set was matched with these by industry and average annual sales
|
|
Findings:
In each pair, profit ratios were significantly higher (statistically) for the IT leaders
In each pair, some costs of business were significantly lower for the IT leaders, but some were not
|
|
Conclusion: the fact that this study has partial success in demonstrating some empirical relations between IT capability and business performance can be construed as evidence for the view that other studies that fail to show this positive relationship are partly flawed in their research design
On 'practical' level, the study shows managers that the goal is not merely to invest in IT but rather to do so only with a strategy that shapes the role of IT as a part of the firm's unique capabilities
|
|
Action:
Follow up her references to papers that show inconclusive results for IT investment, and see if her critique of their research fits
|
|
|
Example # 4
|
Authors: Orlikowski, Wanda, frequent author, editor, MIT
Iacono, Suzanne, National Science Foundation
|
|
Journal: Information Systems Research, June 01, Vol. 12, Issue 2
|
|
Title: A Resource-Based Perspective on Information Technology Capability and Firm Performance: An Empirical Investigation
|
|
Journal Type: Refereed/Academic
|
|
13 pp plus references
|
|
Question(s): How can a research method be pursued that focuses on "the IT Artifact"?
|
|
Method: review of papers in ISR over past 10 years
Proposal of a new method of research
Argumentation
|
|
Method details:
188 articles were examined
|
|
Findings: Five views of IT were discovered in the literature -- IT as a tool; IT's measured as something else (proxy); IT as a form of system (ensemble); IT as computational processes; IT as a secondary topic (Nominal)
|
|
Conclusion: the systems approach, which is the only one that actually focuses on what constitutes IT, was used in only 12% of the articles
We need a focused theory of IT, and that theory will always be oriented to the social context of use of the particular system
|
|
Action: Contrast this study with patterns in other journals
|
|
|
Part VI Schedule of classes and assignments.
|
Week 1. 31-Aug
Introduction to the course. Discuss assigned readings # 1,2. Determine review sequence (order in which students are reviewed) -- examine author & reviewer criteria.
|
|
Week 2. 7-Sept
Discuss and identify individual research topics. Discuss assigned readings # 3,4,5.
|
|
Week 3. 14-Sept
Discuss assigned readings # 6,7,8. Discuss assigned readings # 9,10,11.
|
|
Week 4. 21-Sept
Discuss readings presented by seminar members in support of their research papers.
|
|
Week 5. 28-Sept
All students submit outlines. Discuss readings presented by seminar members in support of their research papers.
|
|
Week 6. 2-Oct – note – we need to meet on Monday this week.
Preliminary discussion of reviews of outlines.
|
|
Week 7. 12-Oct
Formal presentation of reviews of outlines.
|
|
Week 8. 19-Oct
Discuss assigned readings # 12, 13. Discuss assigned readings # 14, 15, 16.
|
|
Week 9. 26-Oct
TENTATIVE -- Discussion with Dr. Booth on preliminary planning of statistical tests when designing research. Discuss assigned readings # 17, 18.
|
|
Week 10. 2-Nov
submit first drafts.
TENTATIVE -- Discussion with Dr. Faley on design of survey research. Alternative for today is general discussion of progress and problems in papers.
|
|
Week 11. 9-Nov
Preliminary discussion of reviews of 1st drafts.
|
|
Week 12. 16-Nov
Formal presentation of reviews of 1st drafts
|
|
Week 13. 23-Nov ??? – Thanksgiving week – we need to meet on day other than Thursday.
Second drafts submitted.
Discuss assigned readings # 19,20.
|
|
Week 14. 30-Nov
Preliminary discussion of reviews of second drafts.
|
|
Week 15. 7-Dec
Formal presentation of reviews of second drafts.
|
Part VII. Important note on requirements for completion of research paper.
If this is your first semester in our doctoral program, and the design of your research requires data gathering that cannot reasonably be completed during the semester (administering a survey, conducting interviews, carrying out experiments), you are not required to complete that part of the paper. You will be required to complete the literature review, a research model, and a research design, all of which properly reference expected completion of the actual data gathering. In a minority of instances, for example, if your research is a meta-analysis, you may be able to complete the actual data gathering.
