BA 3351 Syllabus

INTRODUCTION TO MIS - BA3351

Spring 2005
January 10 – May 2
Revised 01/05/2005

Instructor: Dr. Wei T. Yue

Phone: 972 883-2316
Email: wei.yue@utdallas.edu (Please use WebCT for communications)
Website: webct.utdallas.edu

Course: BA 3351 Section 503

Class Hours: Section 503 Monday 7:00-9:45pm Room SOM 1.217

Office Hours: Monday – Through Wednesday 10:00-11:00 pm or by appointment

Room SOM 3.212

Textbooks:

PRINCIPLES OF INFORMATION SYSTEMS: A Managerial Approach, 6th Edition,

by Ralph M. Stair and George W. Reynolds, Thomson-Course Technology, 2003

Course Objectives:
The course is designed to introduce students to the use of Information Systems as an essential tool for
conducting business in an increasingly global economy. The course will provide an overview of
Information Systems and the conceptual foundations underlying the design, control and operation of
computer-based systems used by business. The course will help you achieve the following skills:

1. You will become familiar with the Information Systems terminology used to support business.
2. You will gain critical thinking skills needed to solve business problems with Information
Systems.
3. You will learn to use Microsoft Word, PowerPoint, Excel and Access for solving many different
types of business problems.

Software: Microsoft Office XP or 2000

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Schedule:
Week Date Description

Course Administrative Procedures

Introduction to WebCT
1 1/10 Stair Text Chapter 1 - Introduction to Information Systems
Stair Text Chapter 2 – Information Systems in Organizations

Martin Luther King Day (Holiday)

2 1/17

Introduction to Excel
Assignment 0 due
3 1/24 Stair Text - Chapter 3 – Hardware: Input, Processing and Output Devices
Stair Text - Chapter 4 – Software: Systems and Application
Assignment 1 due (Word)

Stair Text – Chapter 5 – Organizing Data and Information

4 1/31
Review for Quiz 1

Assignment 2 due (PowerPoint)

5 2/7
Quiz 1 - Chapters 1 to 5

6 2/14 Stair Text – Chapter 6 – Telecommunications and Networks

Assignment 3 due (Excel)

7 2/21
Stair Text – Chapter 7 - The Internet, Intranets, and Extranets

8 2/28 Stair Text – Chapter 8 - Business Information Systems

3/7 Spring Break

Stair Text – Chapter 9 – Transaction Processing and Enterprise Resource

Planning Systems
9 3/14 Assignment 4 due (Excel)
Introduction to Access
Review For Quiz 2

10 3/21 Quiz 2 - Chapters 6 to 9 and Excel

11 3/28 Stair Text – Chapter 10 – Information and Decision Support Systems

Stair Text – Chapter 11 – Specialized Business Information Systems:

Artificial Intelligence, Expert Systems, Virtual Reality and Other
12 4/4 Specialized Systems
Assignment 5 due (Access)
Stair Text – Chapter 12 -Systems Investigation and Analysis

Stair Text – Chapter 13 - Systems Design, Implementation, Maintenance

and Review
13 4/11
Stair Text – Chapter 14 – Security, Privacy, & Ethical Issues
Review For Quiz 3

Assignment 6 due (Access)

14 4/18
Quiz 3 Chapters 10 to 14 and Access

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Grading: We are planning to use WebCT to help with the course and grading

Quizzes 75%
Application Assignments 20%
In-class Exercises and Judgment 5%
Total 100%

To compute your final letter grade use the following scale:

A+ > 96.7% B+ > 86.7% C+ > 76.7% D+ > 66.7% F < 60.0%
A > 93.3% B > 83.3% C > 73.3% D > 63.3%
A- > 90.0% B- ≥ 80.0% C- > 70.0% D- > 60.0%

Grades will be posted on WebCT after each exam or assignment is graded. Access to your grades will
be through WebCT.

Assignments:
Assignments will involve the use of Microsoft Office 2003. There will be assignments relating to
Word, PowerPoint, Excel and Access. You must use Microsoft Office 2003 or newer; previous
versions of the Microsoft Office are not allowed. Assignments must be submitted through
WebCT; submission of electronic copies by e-mail or on floppy disk is not acceptable. Your
NAME and NetID should appear on the top of each page that you submit. All assignments
should be completed on time and submitted on WebCT before the submission deadline as shown on
WebCT. Assignments submitted after the deadline will be considered late. A penalty of 20% of the
assignment value per day (including weekends) is assessed on late assignments beginning on the
day due.

All changes in assignments or schedules will be posted on WebCT. It is your responsibility to

keep up with the changes that are posted on WebCt.

If you are dialing into UTD to access E-mail or the World Wide Web, you may have trouble getting
connected for various reasons. Make sure that you give yourself enough lead time to complete
assignments. Because you will almost always have access to these systems on campus, busy modems
or other technical problems are not accepted as excuses for late submission.

Questions on Exams:
Questions on the Exams will be taken from the assigned readings of texts, class lectures and
assignments. Exams will consist of true/false and multiple-choice type questions. The Exams will be
machine graded. Please bring a full page Scantron sheet (1712 Pink Form) for Exams. No other
type of Scantron forms will be acceptable. If the answer to a Exam question is disputed, the student
should submit a written appeal, citing the source (text page) to the instructor. The instructor will take
these appeals into account during grading. If you know in advance that you will miss an exam,
contact the instructor and make arrangements for a make-up exam.

Missed Exams
If an Exam is missed, a COMPREHENSIVE Exam covering all material for the course will be given
in place of Exam 3 and will count for Exam 3 and quizzes missed.

The Internet:
If you are new to the Internet and World Wide Web it is recommended that you review Internet
Basics and World Wide Web at http://www.learnthenet.com. You will need a NetID account to
access WebCT. There is no additional charge for a Net ID. To get your NetID (if you don’t
already have one) see https://netid.utdallas.edu:4443/guam/servlet/MAIN. If you already have a
NetID account, check and make sure that it works correctly.
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Internet Warning:
There is material on the Internet that you may find objectionable. Most of this material has
disclaimers. Believe them and stay away so that you will not be offended.

Working Together:
You are encouraged to work together when learning how to use computers and applications. WebCT
has a message board and you are encouraged to use the bulletin board for clarification or questions
that can be answered by the instructor or other students. Each student, however, is expected to do
the assignments on their own. Copying the computer files of some other student amounts to
scholastic dishonesty (see below) and will invite penalties.

Scholastic Dishonesty:
We expect UTD students to be academically honest. Because the value of an academic degree depends
upon the absolute integrity of the work done by a student for that degree, it is imperative for students to
maintain a high level of individual honor in his or her scholastic work. Scholastic dishonesty includes, but
is not limited to, statements, acts or omissions related to applications for enrollment or the award of a
degree, and/or the submission as one's own work of material that is not one's own. As a general rule,
scholastic dishonesty involves one of the following acts: cheating, plagiarism, collusion, and/or falsifying
academic records. Students suspected of academic dishonesty are subject to disciplinary proceedings.
Specifically, copying another student's computer files or buying assignments from a third party could
result in a grade of Fail and/or expulsion from the University.

Introduction to WebCT:
WebCT is a software tool for the use of instructors, teaching assistants (TA) and students. It is accessible
from the Internet both on and off campus and has the following features:

1. Syllabus: A current copy of the course syllabus.

2. Lecture Notes: Notes provided from the textbook vendor and the instructor.
3. Practice Tests: Copies of sample tests that can be used by the student for practice; these grades will
not count as part of the student’s final grade.
4. Online Quizzes: These are electronically graded and may or may not be reported as part of the
student’s grade. In this course online quizzes will not be used.
5. Bulletin Board: Communications about topics that would be of interest to the entire class can be
placed on the bulletin board. Students are reminded that all notes posted on the bulletin board are
visible to everyone in the class and should contain appropriate material.
6. Chat Room: Groups of students can sign up for chat room sessions to work on group projects.
7. Mail: WebCT contains a mail system that can be used for communicating to any member of the class
or to the instructor. This is primarily used when the message is of a personal nature and hence not
appropriate for the bulletin board.
8. Grades: You can access your grades here. If you have questions about your grades, communicate
through WebCT mail with the instructor. Check the bulletin board to see if there is a message to the
class about the posting of grades.
9. Links: This contains a number of web links that are related to the course. The publisher of the
textbook might have additional material, such as student downloads of data or files, and their web site
links can be found here.
10. Assignments: Assignments will be posted here and can be downloaded to your PC. Each assignment
will have a deadline. This is the latest time the assignment can be submitted without penalty. You can
upload your assignment file many times and submit it many times until the given deadline. After the
deadline your assignment will be considered late. Once your assignment is graded, comments on your
assignment will appear along with your grade on WebCT.
11. Calendar: There is a calendar that can be used by both the instructor and the student to schedule
activities for the semester.
12. Student Homepages: WebCT allows students to build their own homepages. Follow the instructions
under Student Homepage.
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Course Access and Navigation:

To enter WebCT and access the course material, you will need a UTD NetID and password. If you don’t
have a UTD account yet, go to https://netid.utdallas.edu:4443/guam/servlet/MAIN to initiate your account
as early as possible in the semester. The URL for the WebCT login page is: http://webct.utdallas.edu. You
can login to the course whenever you want. You should login to the course site regularly to check course
updates, discussion board messages and so on.

The “My WebCT” page will appear on the screen after you login. The page lists all the courses for which
you are a registered student. You can click the course title to access the course Home Page. This page
displays several icons. Each icon will take you to subsidiary pages containing course material or built-in
course tools. The Navigation Bar with Course Menu on the left side, the Menu Bar and the path link on
the top, and the Action Menu on the content page can help you to navigate within the course site.

For more information about WebCT, see the WebCT’s Student Help Index. Within the course site, you
can always click HELP on the WebCT Menu Bar to get more information. You can also check out the
Orientation Center to Online Learning and WebCT provided on the WebCT web site. More information
can be found on the WebCT Home Page.

Communication:
There are four built-in communication tools to facilitate learning, communication and collaboration. A
course conferencing system, the Discussion, allows communication among all course participants.
Discussion topics or groups can be set up for topic discussions and homework assignments. You can use
the course Email tool to communicate privately with the instructor and with classmates. The Chat tool can
be used for real time communication among course participants.

No whiteboards will be used in this course. Students can contact the instructor by email, discussion board
and phone. The instructor will be available during scheduled office hours for questions and discussions.
Extensive use of the discussion board is encouraged. The student should check the discussion board
frequently for changes and updates.

If you have any problem with your UTD account or in connecting to the UTD WebCT server, contact
assist@utdallas.edu or call the student help desk at 972-883-2911.

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