Management Information Systems
Case study report
The case study assessment item involves the preparation of an academic report with the following topic:
Select an information systems case study for which you are familiar and are able to get access to appropriate information. The information system of concern should have experienced some sort of significant incident or failure sometime over the last 2 years. Details of the report are specified below.
The assignment can be done either individually or in groups of two students.
The preliminary report provides students with an opportunity to get feedback on their selection on an appropriate information system for the case study along with the early parts of the assignment. If students have not selected an appropriate information systems case for this assignment, then they will be given the opportunity to resubmit their preliminary report, however the maximum mark for the resubmission will be limited to 6/10.
Preliminary report
You will need to provide a preliminary report at the end of week 6 that provides a description of the system, the incident of concern and the key stakeholders. Your description of the system should include a rich picture diagram along with an activity diagram (business process model) providing details of the associated business processes the information system is embedded within.
Final report
You final report should start by describing the information system and the incident of concern - it is recommended that this is essentially an updated version of the material provided in the preliminary report, taking account of the feedback received for that report. You should then provide an analysis the information system with respect to the major topics that have been covered in this unit. The issues you should cover in the report include:
• a description and the major components of the information system. This should be facilitated by using models of the information system and its associated business processes using the tools covered in the unit - for example, you should provide, as a minimum, a rich picture of the situation and at least one business process model. The description of the system should include an identification of key stakeholders and their needs with respect to the system and a brief description of any significant technical elements of the system;
• the organisation this information system sits in, and the connections the system has with organisational innovation. The strategic context for the system is likely to be relevant to this, and you might find that the Porter's Five Forces model might assist with the analysis in this area;
• a brief summary of issues that may appear in a business case for this system. For example, consider the rationale that management may have used to justify an investment in the system and the risks they may have attempted to mitigate during its implementation;
• a discussion of the decisions that the information system might provide support for. Are there any business intelligence applications associated with this system? If not, do you see that there could be a potential for such application to be created?
• a discussion of the information security issues associated with the information systems. A useful starting point for this discussion would be the CIA model as discussed in class;
• an analysis of the incident and/or failure of the system. What caused the incident or failure? What impact did this have on the system? How were key stakeholders impacted? Was the system able to fully recover following the incident? Were there any information security connections with the incident?
In compiling the information about your case study, you may need to draw on news reports (written and video), press releases, interviews, and company reports. As an academic report, you are generally expected to draw on academic sources outside of the materials provided in this unit if you are looking for a distinction or higher grade for this report.
Students should aim for a report that is around 2,000 to 3,000 words long plus any diagrams.
Presentation
Students will also need to present the more interesting aspects of their case study to the class. Given the time constraints, these presentations will need to be limited to 5 minutes each. It is suggested that you have a couple of slides to support the presentation - for example, a rich picture could be used to describe the system and no more than two other slides used to highlight a couple of the more interesting aspects of the issues emerging from your analysis of the system.
Selecting a suitable system for the report
A reasonable amount of flexibility is provided for the selection of a suitable system for this report. Ideally, students should select a system from their own personal experiences. In these cases, it is important that you have access to suitable material about the system and that you are able to write about the system without disclosing confidential information. Where you are unable to come up with a suitable personal example, you are able to use case study material from other sources (eg. by searching the internet) but it is important that this material is sufficiently detailed and properly acknowledged.
There is also a reasonable flexibility with what could be considered to be a suitable incident or failure. A relevant failure may not need to the total abandonment of the system - for example, it could just be a significant failure to address the needs of an important stakeholder. Other examples of incidents might include significant information security breaches.
If you are having any issues or doubts about selecting a suitable situation for this assignment, you should discuss this with your tutor or raise this as an issue for class discussion.
It is important that students properly acknowledge the work of others in the writing of this report. All work quoted from other written sources should be appropriately referenced using the UC version of the Harvard style (both with in-text references and all sources used included in the bibliography).