Course Outline

1
Business Information Systems Research Project in Information Systems (IS4401)
2008 / 2009
2
This week

• Have draft proposal ready
• Allocation of supervisors to students
• Establish schedule for weekly project group
  meetings
• Initial feedback from supervisors

3
What are we aiming at?

• Underlying the expectation of performance
  increases is the belief that information can be
  captured and disseminated throughout the
  organisation more quickly to help individuals do
  their jobs better by making better decisions
• Arnold, V. (2006), Behavioural research
  opportunities Understanding the impact of
  enterprise systems, International Journal of
  Accounting Information Systems, draft accepted
  Feb 2006

4
FYP 2007 segmentation
5
FYP 2008 segmentation
6
Coaching sessions

• Thursday 2nd Ocotober (Don OLeary, Google)
• Importance of customer requirements
• System specification
• Innovation
• Thursday 9th October
• Picking a database
• Development environments
• Thursday 16th October
• Web-site hosting and implementation
• Other technologies

7
Proposal guideline

• Objective aim of the project
• Project client, name of company if relevant
• Requirements describe problem domain / business
  need
• Scope of project proposed what it does /
  doesnt cover
• Benefits for users speed, efficiency, control,
  quality, ...
• Technical specification
• Data requirements (eg. Customers, products, ...)
• Interface requirements (does system need to talk
  to other systems)
• Technologies used (hardware, software)
• Proposed timeframe

8
FYP proposal guideline

• Scope of project proposed eg. inventory control
  for car repairs business
• Objective eg. automate sales order processing
  and purchase orders so that spare parts inventory
  is always up to date
• Project client or sponsor (eg. Dunmanway Motors
  Ltd.)
• Requirements eg. ability to record and transmit
  sales and purchase orders accurately and with
  minimal errors, real-time view of inventory
  levels
• Benefits for users eg. single source of data
  entry, better control of spare parts in stock,
  reports (for sales, purchasing and inventory)
• Technical specification
• Data requirements (eg. customers, products, ...)
• Interface requirements (does system need to talk
  to other systems)
• Technologies used (eg. ASP.net for development,
  MySQL for database)
• Proposed timeframe (Analysis Design,
  Development, Test, Implementation)

9
Frequently asked questions

• Are there more marks for an innovative project?
• How do I get the best marks?
• Can the project be for a placement company?
• Does project have to be for a real-life company?
• Can I use non-standard technologies?
• Can the project be done as part of a larger
  system?

10
When doing a project for a company

• Make sure the requirements are clear
• Set-up a reliable communication channel
• Client feedback on system is vital
• Ensure that the final handover is clean
• You must be able to demo the system here!

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Technologies non-standard s/w

• Requirement should first be cleared with
  supervisor (use standard s/w or laptop)
• Software must be licensed written approval from
  technical staff first!
• Any machine compromise is resolved by cloning!
• Machines in Lab 1.12 are shared, therefore
  installing specific software doesnt make it your
  machine