An Exploratory Approach
by Jean-Paul Van Belle, Jane Nash & Mike Eccles
Jean-paul.VanBelle@uct.ac.zaSouth African Universities Press
Cape Town, 2003
This Book is Now Freely Available for Educational Purposes
The Information Systems dept at the University of Cape Town used to have our own in-house textbook (though it was adopted by a number of smaller institutions as well) until 2003, after which we switched to one of the "big name commercial textbooks". However, in many developing countries IS textbooks tend to be expensive despite the best and, I believe, sincere efforts of educational publishers to keep their developing country rates as low as humanly possible. We thus decided to allow free (educational) use to the material for those who can make use of it. It is thus released, warts and all, to whomever can find an educational use for it. Remember that the book has got quite a few warts: the writing style is a bit on the dense side and some of the material needs updating. In addition, there is quite a bit of "South African" customization (which was one of the reasons for writing it in the first place). But we still believe that the notes have their use.
Refer to the "TABLE OF CONTENTS" below for coverage.
Click here (or on the cover image) to download the book. To be used for educational i.e. non-commercial purposes only. Users outside Africa are kindly requested to use one of the mirror sites e.g. from Richard Watson's GlobalText.Org (which will be much faster plus this site also has some other exciting stuff!)
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.5 License.
Anyone interested in a "Derivative" version i.e. wanting to edit it should
contact me via email.
Alternatively use the following license:
NO-NONSENSE LICENSE FOR FREE EDUCATIONAL USE
This edition is
released for open use for non-commercial purposes only.
It may be copied and printed freely for personal or educational use without
requiring permission from the authors.
This permission does not diminish the copyright of the authors in any way and use of any of the material must be appropriately acknowledged.
Incorporation into other works is subject to written permission by the authors
Notes to the 2003 Edition
This book was last revised and updated in 2003 (I made minor editorial changes in 2006). The updates include a re-organisation and updating of old material as well as several new chapters. In addition, each chapter has a "South African" section as well as end-of-chapter exercises.
Why Yet Another Textbook (WYAT)?
There are many excellent introductory information systems (IS) texts on the market. Why then produce our own text? Interestingly enough, when we sat down to critically review the first year Information Systems curriculum, the very last thing that we wanted was to get involved in writing yet another text. But after we had set the broad educational goals, the curriculum content and educational approach, we found that no textbook fitted our objectives or approach. Briefly, the following considerations forced us to fire up our word processor and compile the text you find in front of you.
| Technology Bias. A frequent criticism of the introductory information systems curricula is that many have a very strong technological bias: many courses are an in-depth treatment of hardware and software concepts with an avalanche of buzzwords, often reflecting some computer science origins. Although a sound understanding of the technology that underlies information systems is critical, this technology is subject to significant change and seems to receive a disproportionately large amount of attention. This is particularly prevalent in many of the American textbooks that we considered for this course: they all seem to be an "Introduction to Computers" rather than an "Introduction to Information Systems". We wondered where the broader scientific contexts are in these, admittedly very well illustrated but quickly out-dated, documentaries of computer technologies. This is in sharp contrast to a number of European and Australasian texts, some of which relegate all the technology concepts to a single chapter or even a mere appendix at the end of the book! We needed something of a balance between these two extremes. We hope that the three roughly equal sections (scientific, technological and organisational contexts) in this will provide a sufficiently balanced approach to the study of information systems. We wish to provide students with a sound technical understanding but also let them take into account the more philosophical, scientific and organisational aspects of information systems. | |
| Depth of Treatment. We needed a text where the conceptual or theoretical component would be equivalent to roughly half of a one-semester course. Most textbooks on the market are intended for full or half-year courses. A frequent comment, even of the newer "trimmed-down editions", is that there is just too much material. Students with little or no previous exposure to computer jargon especially despair when confronted with the many new terms and acronyms. In addition, many of these technologies may be outdated by the time the students have completed their studies. By limiting ourselves to twelve chapters and setting strict limits to the length of each chapter, we hope to stem the "information overload" without compromising the academic standard. We carefully considered "need to know" versus "nice to know". A good example of the latter are the typical detailed historical notes on historical devices such as the abacus, Babbage or ENIAC. | |
| Educational Approach. Contrary to our expectations, past student evaluations showed that the textbook previously use, a well-written American one with excellent colour photographs and illustrations, was not well received and lectures based on the textbook were judged to be "boring". It is clear that a different educational approach was needed, perhaps due to our unique South African circumstances. Based on our experiences, we hope that a participatory learning approach will make the "theoretical" section come more alive and replace the rote learning with genuine understanding. The integral part of this text is therefore in the supporting materials: readings, case studies, class assignments and group exercises. | |
| Cost. Although not a decisive factor, we also considered the fact that many students face financial constraints. By producing a local textbook, we hope to beat the exchange rate fluctuations. |
This text consist of twelve chapters, which can be grouped roughly into the following three sections.
It is important that this text not be seen separate from the practical worksheets, case studies, videos and group work, which will be provided in the lectures. The intention of these additional materials is to enhance the educational process through participatory learning units: you learn best when doing.
It is also our conviction that university students need to be introduced from the first year to academic pluralism: too often undergraduate students get the impression that there is a single correct approach or, even worse, that most problems have only one correct solution or answer. This text is therefor supplemented with additional readings, culled from the world-wide web, in which we hope to expose students to different views of the material presented in the concepts part.
Foreword i
Why Study Information Systems? i
The Importance of Information Systems ii
Information Systems and Related Disciplines ii
Contents of This Book iii
Section I: What is Information Systems? 1
1. The Role of IS in Business 2
1.1 Classification of Information Systems 2
1.2 Office Automation Systems (OAS) 5
1.3 Groupware 6
1.4 South African Perspective 8
1.5 Beyond the Basics 8
1.6 Exercises 9
2. Transforming Data into Information 10
2.1 Data 10
2.2 Information 16
2.3 Knowledge and Wisdom 19
2.4 Producing Business Information 19
2.5 South African Perspective 20
2.6 Beyond the Basics 20
2.7 Exercises 21
3. How Systems Function 23
3.1 What is a System? 23
3.2 Elements of a System 24
3.3 Systems Concepts 27
3.4 South African Perspective 30
3.5 Beyond the Basics 30
3.6 Exercises 31
CASE STUDY: GREENFINGERS GARDEN SERVICES 33
Section II: IS Technologies 35
4. Hardware 37
4.1 Input devices 37
4.2 Central Processing Unit (CPU) 41
4.3 Main Memory 44
4.4 Secondary Storage Devices 46
4.5 Output Devices 49
4.6 South African Perspective 53
4.7 Beyond the Basics 53
4.8 Exercises 53
5. Software 55
5.1 The User Interface 55
5.2 Application Software 58
5.3 System Development Software 60
5.4 Operating Systems 65
5.5 South African Perspective 68
5.6 Beyond the Basics 68
5.7 Exercises 68
6. Networks & Telecommunications 69
6.1 Computer Networks 69
6.2 Telecommunication Devices 71
6.3 SA Public Telecommunications Services 72
6 .4 The Internet 74
6.5 South African Perspective 79
6.6 Beyond the Basics 79
6.7 Exercises 79
7. Databases 81
7.1 From File-based Systems to the Database Approach 81
7.2 Data Structures 83
7.3 Database Models 85
7.4 Database management 88
7.5 Database Architectures 89
7.6 South African Perspective 91
7.7 Beyond the Basics 91
7.8 Exercises 92
CASE STUDY: GREENFINGERS GARDEN SERVICES 94
Section III: IS Applications 95
8. Business Support Systems 97
8.1 The Decision-Making Process 97
8.2 Batch vs Online Processing 98
8.3 Applications at Different Management Levels 99
8.4 Strategic Systems 103
8.5 Intelligent Systems 103
8.6 Data Mining and OLAP 105
8.7 South African Perspective 106
8.8 Beyond the Basics 107
8.9 Exercises 107
9. E-Commerce 109
9.1 B2C e-Commerce 109
9.2 B2B e-Commerce 110
9.3 C2C e-Commerce 111
9.4 Electronic funds transfer 111
9.5 Current issues in e-commerce 112
9.6 South African Perspective 113
9.7 Beyond the Basics 113
9.8 Exercises 114
10. Security and Social Issues 115
10.1 Security Within the Organisation 116
10.2 Security Beyond the Organisation 118
10.3 Operational Problems and Errors 120
10.4 Computer Monitoring and Privacy 121
10.5 Computers and Unemployment 123
10.6 South African Perspective 124
10.7 Beyond the Basics 124
10.8 Exercises 125
CASE STUDY: CREAM ADVERTISING 127
Section IV: IS Management 129
11. IS Planning & Acquisition 130
11.1 Frameworks for Analysing Information Systems 130
11.2 IS Planning 132
11.3 Software Acquisition Options 133
11.4 Project Management 134
11.5 People Aspects of Systems Development 136
11.6 South African Perspective 137
11.7 Beyond the Basics 137
11.8 Exercises 138
12. System Development 139
12.1 Systems Development Life Cycle (SDLC) 139
12.2 Development of Structured Methodologies 146
12.3 Alternative approaches to developing systems 148
12.4 Critical success factors 151
12.5 South African Perspective 152
12.6 Beyond the Basics 152
12.7 Exercises 153
13. Using Information Systems 154
13.1 Change Management 154
13.2 Ergonomics 155
13.3 Ethics 155
13.4 Data Processing Controls 157
13.5 Disaster Recovery 157
13.6 How IS Affects You 158
13.7 South African Perspective 159
13.8 Beyond the Basics 159
13.9 Exercises 160
CASE STUDY: CREAM ADVERTISING 161
INDEX 162
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