BSAD 8020 / ISQA 8060 - RESEARCH IN MIS

1. Your company hired a consulting firm to make recommendations on how to decrease turnover in the IS department. The consulting firm has completed its study and submitted a report to your supervisor, the head of the IS department. Your supervisor has asked you to critique the report and put in writing your comments on the report's quality. Discuss in detail how you will determine the quality of the research report.

2. Please answer all parts of this question. Clearly state and explain all assumptions. Appended on the following page is the introduction section of a proposed research project that you are planning to conduct. Based on this proposal, your assignment is to answer the following questions:
   1. State or define the problem under investigation… 10%.
   2. Specify all concepts and explain why you consider them to be a dependent variable, independent variable(s), intervening variable(s), and moderating variable(s)… 20%.
   3. Based on the answers above, now develop a complete theoretical framework and draw a schematic diagram. Provide a brief rationale for any relationships you may establish in your model… 10%.
   4. Develop four testable hypotheses and state each, both in the null and in the alternate forms... 20%.
   5. How would you establish the "scientific" quality of this research? … 10%.
   6. Would this be basic or applied research? Briefly state how, or under what circumstances, this very same research could become the opposite of whatever your answer is… 10%.
   7. Which research design would you use? Be sure to clearly explain your reasoning… 20%.

   PROPOSED RESEARCH STUDIES USER ACCEPTANCE OF INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY Understanding why people accept or reject computers has proven to be one of the most challenging issues in information systems (IS) research. Researchers and practitioners alike are working on finding some way to predict and explain future user behavior from simple measures taken after a very brief period of interaction with a system. Researchers have posited that two particular user-related beliefs, perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use are key determinants of attitude towards using a system, which in turn influences actual system use. Perceived usefulness is defined as the "prospective user's subjective probability that using a specific application system will increase his or her job performance within an organizational context." Perceived ease of use refers to "the degree to which the prospective user expects the target system to be free of effort." Studies have also found evidence to show that people's actual system use can be predicted reasonably well from their behavioral intentions (to use the system) and that perceived usefulness is also a major determinant of people's intention to use the system. In fact, there is empirical evidence to show that attitudes (towards computer use) mediate the effects of beliefs on intentions. In other words, attitudes towards use influences people's behavioral intention to use the system, which in turn impacts actual system use, in that causal sequence. It has also been found that perceived ease of of use is a significant secondary determinant of people's intentions to use systems. Finally, IS researchers have also reported that any other external variables that influence user behavior do so indirectly by influencing perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use. [This description is based on published research works including Davis et al. (1989), Davis (1989), and Vishwanath & Davis (1996). The description has been designed as an exercise and is the authors' interpretation of the cited works.] References: Davis, F.D., Bagozzi, R.P. and Warshaw, P.R. (1989). "User Acceptance of Computer Technology: A Comparison of Two Theoretical Models," Management Science, 35:8 (August), pp. 982-1003. Davis, F.D. (1989). "Perceived Usefulness, Perceived Ease of Use, and User Acceptance of Information Technology," MIS Quarterly, 13:3, pp. 319-341. Vishwanath, V. and Davis, F.D. (1996). "A Model of the Antecedents of Perceived Ease of Use: Development and Test," Decision Sciences, 27:3, pp. 451-481.

1. Analyze and discuss unstructured programming, structured programming, structured design, information hiding, and object-oriented programming. Be sure to discuss the relationships among these concepts. Be sure to include the impacts of each of these concepts on programmer productivity throughout the software life cycle.

2. Describe use-case scenarios; analyze and discuss their content, form, and use in CRC analysis and design and in O-O implementation, testing, and long term maintenance.

• Agility has become a popular buzzword in the world of systems development. Several new methods and approaches to systems development are focused on agility. For example, Agile Software Development is both a method and a movement. (See, for example, http://agilemanifesto.org/, http://www.agilealliance.org/home, http://www.agilemodeling.com/essays/agileSoftwareDevelopment.htm as just a few examples of the many web sites and people devoted to the concept.)

  Suppose that you are the CIO of Western Pacific Railroad, a large railroad company that has been in business for many years. WPR, as they are known, has many large-scale and complex information systems that are developed and maintained by a large department of in-house information systems professionals. For decades, your department has been using a structured systems development method that relies heavily on control, documentation, user sign-off, carefully specified processes and deliverables, and classic techniques of data flow diagramming and entity-relationship modeling.

  You have decided that your department and processes need to become more agile. You are considering introducing one of the agile development methods, but you have serious concerns about how to go about doing so and how to make the case to the CEO of the company. After all, there are sure to be training costs involved. And you have no idea how this is going to affect your well-established software project management process.

  Write your take-home paper as a report to the company's executive management team. At a minimum, the report should include:

  1. Description of the agile software development method that you feel would be most suited to your organization, and how it differs from your current structured systems development approach. Make whatever assumptions you need to make about the details of that approach, as long as you make clear what those assumptions are in your paper.
  2. Advantages and disadvantages of moving to an agile software development method for your organization. Be sure your discussion of the advantages and disadvantages takes into account the nature of the organization and the likely context of systems to be developed. Again, make whatever assumptions you need to, but make clear what they are.
  3. Implications for your project management process of moving to an agile method.
  4. Your plan for making the change.

1. Modern data communications system managers are implementing new technologies and tools to upgrade their networks. Discuss the following technology applications that are employed to transmit voice and data through modern communication systems:
   1. Maximizing the Web Channels to increase the business value of a firm's e-Commerce.
   2. Enterprise Computing Environment and Cost Assessment to enable corporations to compute costs of their planning, development, maintenance, and improvement.
   3. High Performance Technologies impacts on businesses to enhance Data Mining in data communications.

   Explain how these technologies and tools are used to transmit voice and data through modern networks. What are the advantages and disadvantages of each in optimizing and securing electronic transmissions?

2. Recent headlines on the Fox News Channel Web site (for 10/23/02) read, "Nine of 13 computer servers that manage global Internet traffic were crippled by a powerful electronic attack this week……." These servers were top-level Domain Name System (DNS) servers (i.e., root servers). Explain why the fact that these servers were down "crippled" Internet traffic (i.e., describe how DNS works by answering the following).
   1. What is the basic function of DNS?
   2. What is the function of these top-level DNS (root) servers on the Internet?
   3. Assume that you want to use an Internet browser to access the Fox News Channel Web site. Describe the steps that occur from the time you type in the URL until the time that the Web page is loaded onto your computer. (Assume, also, for this example that neither you nor any other user in your organization has previously requested this Web site.) Use the information provided below to structure your answer.

      For the sake of this example, assume that the Fox News Channel Web site resides on a specific computer within the Fox organization. That computer is called "headlines". The "headlines" server is located within the division of the overall Fox organization called "news". (Assume that each level of the organization is assigned its own DNS.)

      Lastly, assume that immediately following DNS access to "headlines" server, you again need to access "headlines". How will DNS behave differently (and more efficiently) for this second access?

1. One frequently desired quality of infrastructure is flexibility. What does flexibility mean? If you were architecting an infrastructure for an organization in which flexibility were of paramount importance, how would you do it? What kinds of technologies, design approaches, or practices will yield a relatively more flexible infrastructure? What kinds of technologies, design approaches, or practices will make an infrastructure less flexible? What kinds of trade-offs might you have to make against other desirable infrastructure qualities?

2. "In the world of distributed object architectures, the Microsoft approach, based on COM/DCOM/COM+ will ultimately prevail over that of the Object Management Group's CORBA." Discuss whether or not you agree with this statement. Begin by describing the key features of each approach. Compare and contrast the two approaches, and, based on your understanding of their features and prevailing trends in the industry, discuss to what extent you agree with the above statement.

1. The local YMCA ("the Y") manages a youth soccer league which has grown enormously in popularity over the last several years. It is now difficult for the league to keep track of all of the information regarding players, teams, coaches, etc. Consequently, the Y has asked you to build a database system to reduce the administrative burden of running the league.

   The league consists of 40 teams organized into five divisions of eight teams each. Divisions are defined by the ages of the players. For example, Division 5 is for 5-6 year olds; Division 4, for 7-8 year olds; Division 3, for 9-10 year olds, Division 2, for 11-12 year olds; Division 1, for 13-14 year olds. Each team has a name (e.g. Kickers, Wings, Jays, etc.) All 40 teams have unique names. Each team belongs to only one division. Each season, a team has a single coach and a collection of 8-20 players. Clearly, each season the team can have different players and a different coach. Each player can play for different teams in different seasons. For each player, the Y records the name, birth date, and gender of the player. Each player has one parent/guardian, but a parent/guardian can be the parent/guardian for several players. The Y needs to keep track of the name, address, and telephone number of the parent/guardian. The Y needs only to keep track of the current parent/guardian of a player. That is, if a player's family experiences a divorce and custody changes hands, the Y does not need to keep a record of which parent was the guardian last year. The Y also keeps track of the name, address, telephone number, and e-mail of each coach. A coach can coach different teams in different seasons.

   Each season, the Y keeps track of which players are playing on which team. Each season, the Y keeps track of whether or not the dues have been payed for a particular player.

   Each season, the Y creates a schedule. For each game in the schedule, the Y specifies two teams (Team 1 and Team 2), a date, a start time, and the number of the field (1-7) on which the game is to be played. Following the game, the Y records the Team 1 score and the Team 2 score.

   1. Create a conceptual data model using E-R or UML notation.
   2. Create a relational schema (a set of appropriately normalized tables) based on your diagram.
   3. Provide SQL queries that will provide the solution to the following questions:
      1. List the team name and the names of all of the players for all teams during the Fall 2002 season.
      2. List each team and the number of players on that team for the Fall 2002 season.
      3. List the schedule for the Kickers during the Fall 2002 season. That is, list the date, time, location, and opponent in each game.
      4. Create the Player table, including any foreign and primary key constraints.

2. The statement is often made that sound database design is the foundation for a quality application. Provide three specific examples of flawed database design. Each example should illustrate a different kind of flaw. For each example, explain the nature of the flaw and what kinds of negative consequences can result. Then, explain how to correct the flaw. Your answer to the last part should consist of more than just a corrected design. It should elaborate on some more general principle of database design that has been violated.

1. Describe the use of the Work Breakdown Structure in IT Project Management. Be sure to address details of its use in project processes in every project phase from initiation through closure.

2. List the project management processes and knowledge areas presented and described in PMBOK. Create a table of the knowledge areas and the 5 major processes, and then briefly discuss how each knowledge area applies to each of the proccesses.