IT Review

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The Edge of Information Technology

ITEC 200 - Spring 2008

Prof. J. Alberto Espinosa

Individual (5%) + Team (20% - min 3 - max 4 students)

Last Updated on 12/12/07

Introduction

IT is everywhere in our personal and business lives these days. It would be impossible to cover the wide variety of currently available ITs in a one-semester course. The idea in this assignment is to give you some freedom to explore an IT that interests your team and give you an opportunity to investigate one IT of interest to you and develop an understanding of what it does and how it works. At the same time, cool and interesting ITs are only of interest to us if they can contribute business value. Therefore, you will also have the opportunity to explore and discuss how/why the IT you selected adds value to business.

Scenario

You and your teammates work for a consulting firm and one of your clients has asked you to recommend an interesting IT for their company. Your job is to work with your team members to identify one intereseting IT for your client and then put together a brief presentation and short written report for this client describing what the IT does and how it works, and how/why it contributes to business value. Both, the presentation and written report should be brief and concise, yet informational, as you would address an audience of busy clients.

IMPORTANT: to help you work on this review effectively and in a timely manner, this review requires you individually and then your team to turn in a number of deliverables throughout the semester. Please ensure that your team turns in all the required work on time, per the class schedule, so that your team earns proper credit for these deliverables.

General Guidelines

As you chose, study and describe the IT your team selected, it is important for you to consider which aspects of your topic are about IT infrastructure and/or which aspects are about a business application. This will enhance your understanding of the IT.Generally speaking, you can select an IT from one of these categories: (1) IT infrastructure; (2) Business application; (3) a product that combines both; or (4) an important IT service or issue that has business impact (we provide some examples of these later on):

The IT review consist of an evaluation of an important, interesting and/or innovative IT. Therefore, you are free to select an IT that interests you and your team. A successful IT review will be one in which:

The IT is specific (good examples: RFID's, Bluetooth, XML, SAP 's ERP software) and not too general (bad examples: relational databases, the Internet, ERP in general)
The IT is relatively new (i.e., students are not likely to know much about the IT; good examples: WiMax, Voice over Wireless IP; bad examples: iPods, PDA's)
The team demonstrates depth of knowledge of the IT, in particular, ones that demonstrate your knowledge of material covered in class; and
The student demonstrates a good understanding the business impact/value of the IT. Teams need to clearly articulate how the IT impacts or can impact a specific company, type of company, industry or market.

Deliverables for the IT Review Assignment

The final deliverables of the IT review assignment are: (a) an oral presentation and (b) a written report. In order to help your team deliver a high quality review in a timely maner, this assignment has a series of deliverables due at different points of the semester. The first deliverable is and individual assignment in which each team member explores one IT that interests them individually. The remaining components of the IT review then need to be prepared with your team. The complete set of deliverables includes (please see the class schedule for due dates):

Team formation: students need to form their own team by the due date. Students that don't have formed teams will be randomly assigned to teams
Topic exploration (INDIVIDUAL): each team member needs to explore and identify individually one candidate IT for the team's review. The individual team member needs to prepare 1-page double spaced (or 1/2-page single-spaced approx.) written discussion of why the team should consider the IT for the review. This discussion should concisely describe both, the IT itself and its business impact. Submission: This discussion MUST be posted in the IT Review page of the student's web site through the link or button labeled "My Individual Topic Exploration". In addition, at the end of the written discussion, the student needs to include at least one web link pointing to the reference information used for the analysis (e.g., a web piece, an article, a book chapter, etc.).
Topic analysis (IN TEAMS): the team needs to get together and discuss all IT's identified by individual team members and prepare a brief topic analysis and make a selection of their final topic. The topic analysis needs to have a short paragraph (5 lines max. each) for each of the individual IT's, numbered and ranked in the order of preference (i.e., number your team's prefered topic #1 and list it first, then the second choice, etc.). Each paragraph should briefly discuss why the topic was selected or not. Your arguments should be specific in terms of why the IT is important for business. General arguments like "our team is interested in reviewing an ERP system because this is very important for business" are unacceptable and will receive no points. You need to be specific. Submission: one member in the team needs to post the analysis on the IT Review page of his/her web site. All students in the team must have a web link labeled "My Team's Topic Analysis" pointing to the analysis.

IMPORTANT: this discussion will NOT be used to grade individual IT topics, but to help the instructor finalize team topics, especially if more than one team select the same topic. This is simply your team's preference ordering. Often good topics are not selected by a team for good reasons.

Technology draft (IN TEAMS): 1 page double-spaced (or 1/2 page single-spaced approx.) draft description of the IT selected. IMPORTANT: the client for which this report is being written needs to be identified in this draft -- i.e., you must clearly list the general type of client you are writing for (e.g., senior financial manager, chief operations officer, chief information officer, small business owner, etc.), which will help you focus on the language and terminology you need to use. This description must be based on material research for the IT review, which could include articles, company reports, etc. Two important things: (1) this report may be partly based on the individual topic submitted by one of the team members in 2 above, but it CANNOT be the same. This is a more completed and informed description; and (2) at the end of the draft, the team needs to include at least two web links pointing to two external references used in for the draft (e.g., a web piece, an article, a book chapter, etc.), at least one of which must be different than the one used in 2 above. Submission: one member in the team needs to post the draft document on the IT Review page of his/her web site. All students in the team must have a web link labeled "Technology Draft" pointing to the draft document.
Business impact draft (IN TEAMS): 1 page double-spaced (or 1/2 page single-spaced approx.) draft description of some of the business impact and benefits you have identified, which may be of interest to your client. These should be benefits or impacts that your client would be interested to hear about. At the end of the draft, the team needs to include at least one link on their web site pointing to the reference information used for the draft (e.g., a web piece, an article, a book chapter, etc.). This reference must be different than the one used by a team member in 2 above. Submission: one member in the team needs to post the draft document on the IT Review page of his/her web site. All students in the team must have a web link labeled "Business Impact Draft" pointing to the draft document.
Written report (IN TEAMS): your team's paper is due on the last day of class, about one week before the final presentation. You can re-use some of the material you wrote for sections 2, 3 and 4 above, but you need to be sure that your text is edited so that your descriptions and paragraphs flow. The main tex body of the IT review report should contain no more than 5 pages of double-spaced, 12 pt. font, 1 inch margins all around. Approximately 3 of these pages text should describe the IT itself (i.e., what it does and how it works) and about 2 pages should describe how the IT adds business value to or has impact on a specific business, type of business, market or industry, which may be of interest to your client. In addition, you can supplement your report with figures, charts and tables in appendices. You can add as much material as you wish in the appendices (these don't count towards the page limitation). Please note that writing style (grammar, typos, clarity, etc.) weights heavily on the grade of your report. Submission: one member in the team needs to post the report on the IT Review page of his/her web site. All students in the team must have a web link labeled "Final Written Report" pointing to the report document.
Executive summary (IN TEAMS): the team needs to submit an executive summary of the review. This is NOT an introduction, but a summary of what's on the paper and, therefore, should be written after the paper is finished. We will distribute the executive summaries to all students in class the day of the presentation. Submission: one member in the team needs to post the summary on the IT Review page of his/her web site. All students in the team must have a web link labeled "Executive Summary" pointing to the report executive summary document. Note: if your executive summary is included in the written report, don't create a link, just type in parenthesis (see Final Written Report).
In-class presentation (IN TEAMS): everyone in your team will need to present the review to the class on the day of the final exam (there is no final exam, just the presentation). The presentation will take approx. 10 minutes with 5 additional minutes for questions and answers. Submission: one member in the team needs to post the presentation slides on the IT Review page of his/her web site. All students in the team must have a web link labeled "In-Class Presentation" pointing to the PowerPoint presentation slides.

IMPORTANT NOTE: The material in the written report, presentation slides and executive summary should be consistent with each other. Some times students present material that is very different than what is described in the paper, resulting in lower grades. We suggest that you write and turn in your paper and then prepare your presentation and executive summary based on what you wrote in the paper (don't add new material, don't remove important material).

General Guidelines on Deliverable Submissions

ALL IT Review deliverables need to be submitted by posting the corresponding materials to student web sites. All the material must be linkable from any team member's IT Review page on the web, except for the Individual Topic Explorations, which only need to be posted in the respective student's web site.

It is not necessary for one member to host all deliverables. Different members can host different components in their web sites. However, ALL members must have working links to all deliverables.

All written materials are due as of the beginning of class on the dates listed in the class schedule. The presentation slides are due NO LATER than 5 PM on the DAY BEFORE the presentation. It is your responsibility to ensure that all deliverables are properly uploaded and that all the materials are available through your web sites. TECHNICAL DIFFICULTIES WILL NOT BE ACCEPTED AS VALID EXCUSES FOR LATENESS. We encourage you to submit your deliverables early and check with your professor to ensure that your materials are properly posted.

Required file formats: (1) your presentation MUST be submitted in a PowerPoint file; (2) your final written report must be submitted in MS Word file; (3) your executive summary can either be submitted as a separate MS Word file or included as the first page of your final report. All other materials can either be typed direcly on the IT Review web page, MS Word or PDF files.

Evaluation of the IT Review

Individual Work: 5% of final grade

Team's Work: 20% of final grade, distributed as follows:

IT Review Deliverables (25 pts) -- due when indicated in the class schedule. This portion of the grade will be based on the timely submission and quality of each deliverable listed above and in the class schedule.

IMPORTANT: one team member must host the deliverable files or text in his/her WWW folder in the G drive. The Powerpoint presentation file MUST be named ITReview.ppt; The final paper MUST be submitted in an MS Word file named ITReview.doc. All other students don't need to host the file, but need to have links to view all deliverables. Deliverable points will only be earned when the materials are effectively posted on student web sites. If not all students have working links to these materials, only students with working links will receive credit for this part.

(5 pts) Team formation and topic analysis

(5 pts) Technology Draft

(5 pts) Business Value Draft

(5 pts) Executive Summary

(5 pts) Files loaded on www folders and links work OK

IT Review Team Presentation (25 pts) -- 10 min max + 10 min for Q&A -- due when scheduled

(5 pts) Quality of visuals, slides, good use of graphics, etc.

(10 pts) Delivery of the presentation (clarity, informational, businesslike style, etc.)

(10 pts) Content (adequate information about the technology and its business value)

Note: ALL team members need to present

IT Review Written Report (50 pts) -- due towards the end of the semester, as noted in the class schedule

(20 pts) IT description quality -- completeness, accuracy, knowledge and clear description of key aspects of the IT -- the description needs to clearly describe, in terms the client can understand, what the IT does and how it works

(20 pts) Business value description quality -- completeness, accuracy, knowledge and clear discussion of how this IT adds value to a particular business, market or industry -- again the description needs to be written in language the client understands

(5 pts) References -- you need at least 5 verifiable and reliable reference sources to support your report. Important notes: Note: not having references or having bad references will not only make you lose points here, but will serve as a signal to the instructor that your research of the IT topic is weak and probably inaccurate, thus making you lose additional points for content. You can use your textbook and other class materials as references, but these must be IN ADDITION to the 5 required references that you need to supply on your own.

IMPORTANT NOTES on references, citations, plagiarism and integrity -- PLEASE READ CAREFULLY:

References: (1) URL's are not references per se, but part of a reference -- you need to cite the specific source (e.g., Computerworld) and the source must be verifiable (volume number, issue number, date, etc.); (2) References need to indicate list the author, source and date of publication, unless these are not available in the source; (3) References can be listed as footnotes in the appropriate page, but the most popular format on paper is to list all references at the end of the paper.

Citations: (1) References alone are meaningless. They need to be matched to citations throughout your text. Citations is what supports your arguments and discussions. Every citation must have a corresponding reference and every reference must have at least one citation. Orphan citations or references are misleading and confusing. Citations need to list the author's last name and year. If there are more than one author you can list the first author with et al (e.g., DeLone et al, 2005).

Integrity and Plagiarism: (1) We conduct extensive reviews of all your work to ensure that the material is yours. Please do not copy work from other students or from external sources. Any evidence of plagiarism will be referred to the Dean's office as required by AU's Academic Integrity Code; (2) Write the paper in your own words and only use verbatim text extracted from external sources to support your arguments. Verbatim text extrated from external sources needs to be used sparingly and needs to be enclosed in quotes with the corresponding citations and references. Verbatim text without quotes, citations and references will be considered as plagiarism; (3) For your presentation slides, either create your own graphics or acknowledge the source where you obtain your graphics -- your work will be posted on the web and if the original authors of the graphic images you use happen to run into your material they will not be happy if you don't acknowledge them.

(5 pts) Writing style -- these include organization, clarity, interest, creativity, and good writing (i.e., no grammatical or spelling errors). Some times papers are grammatically correct but difficult to understand because things like: paragraphs don't flow; use of undefined technical terms; convoluted arguments. Please ensure that your writing flows from paragraph to paragraph (i.e., your paragraphs connect well) and that the material you submit is readable so that we can give you proper credit. Bad writing not only will cost you writing style points, but instructors may not be able to understand what you are trying to tell us.

List of IT Review Topic Examples

You can pick any of the topics listed below. Alternatively and preferably, your team can pick another important IT of interest to you, provided that this topic is approved in advance by your instructor. We highly encourage you to find your own topic and not to feel restricted to the topics below. Over the history of these course, instructors have learned about important technological developments from innovative presentations by students.

1.      IT Infrastructure:

A wireless technology (e.g., Bluetooth, WiFi/WiMax, RFID's)

A network security technology not discussed in class

An electronic payment technology or product for e-commerce not discussed in class

A network technology or product not described in detail in class (DSL, packt switching, routers, middleware)

System development tools (e.g., AJAX, Java server pages, PhP, Microsoft's Active Server Pages)

Linux operating system (compete with Windows?)

Extensible Markup Language (XML)

2.   Business or End-User Applications:

Electronic Data Interchange (EDI)

A specific Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) software product (e.g., Oracle, SAP)

A specific Supply Chain Management (SCM) software product (e.g., i2, Manugistics)

A specific Customer Relations Management (CRM) system product (e.g., Siebel)

A specific distributed collaboration or groupware software product (e.g., Lotus Notes, Lotus SameTime --both available at AU, Groove, etc.)

A specific project management software product (e.g., Microsoft Project)

A specific functional software product (e.g., accounting, human resources, marketing research) -- need to pick a specific product by a specific vendor

3.      Mixed IT's (Infrastructure + Application):

A specific wireless IT (e.g., Smartphones, Blackberries, EZ Pass)

Wireless home and small office networks

Social networking technologies

Music and file sharing systems (e.g., iPods and Podcasting, RSS data broadcasting/streaming)

Digital consumer products (need to be innovative)

4.    Important IT Services or Concepts

Open source software development

IT Outsourcing

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