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Syllabus for 1106ISAS6509041 Faculty Contact Information

Please use the Web Tycho messaging system, and my jnicolay@faculty.umuc.edu. If you wish to speak with me, I am very glad to call you as long as you are within the USA geography. I am generally hard to reach by phone during the day. I check my email often. I am obsessive that way.

Course Introduction
This course examines the role of the CIO in shaping organizational strategy and how the CIO is a distinctive position within the organization. The CIO possess a unique set of competencies, and these competencies often set him/her apart from the strategic framing for the organization. Every student should ask him/herself, "Are there practical limits to strategic planning? If so, how do we overcome them?" Our goal in this class will be to engage in discursive dialog, and to come to a better understanding as to how all of us can fill the executive function. Through a hard, critical analysis of existing literature and experience you will achieve an appreciation for your own career trajectories.

Course Description
(Formerly ADMN 645.) An examination of how information technology can affect the strategic direction of an organization, how IT enables new ways of operating, and how the Chief Information Officer can serve as a trusted member of the organization??s top management team to help it exploit information technology effectively.

Course Goals/Objectives
Upon successful completion of this course, the student should be able to: Analyze the role and qualifications of the effective Chief Information Officer, and express an informed opinion on the future outlook of this position in organizations. Evaluate current major developments in information technology and their effects on an organization's business and operating environment. Analyze how information technologies can support and influence the strategic direction of the organization it serves. Explain the pros and cons of different organizational forms and ways of operating that have been enabled

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by the latest information technologies. Apply frameworks for analyzing and proposing solutions to complex ethical problems in the management of an organization's information resources.

Course Materials

Click here to view the required and recommended materials to be purchased and to access ordering information.

Graduate School's Read Me First Document

Additional Readings/Materials
Through out the course we will build a library of readings. In many of the conferences suggested readings are posted to further deepen your knowledge of the subjects under discussion. I hope each of you will make it a point of at least following my major conference postings. They are intended to be mini-lectures.

Grading Information and Criteria

(1). One short essay (2 pages, DS) for writing correction. Use APA for citation and references. 2% of your grade. The reference page is not included in the count. There is no need for a title page or an abstract. (2). Nine conferences worth 68% of your grade. Please note that the 9th conference has no points associated with it. While it is graded, I use the last conference to substitute the grade for the weakest conference. (3). One term paper. The body of this paper is 10 pages ds with standard 12 point New Roman font. Additionally, include a title page, an abstract page, and a references section. All tables, figures, graphs so on are to be placed at the end of the paper as "end matters" and not included in the page count. It is

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due week 11.The term paper is valued at 20% of your total grade. All writing in the course will be submitted to Turnitin by the professor. Copies of these reports will be provided to you. (4). One final paper (examination). This paper will be due at the end of the term, and made available to you approximately 1 week before the term ends. The final paper is valued at 10% of your total grade. It is a paper drawn entirely from a reading of the conferences and it is not a traditional research paper. No title page or reference section will be required. All writing should be clear, edited, grammatically sound, and reflect APA standards. All term papers will be validated for authenticity using Turnitin. Plagiarism or misuse of citations is not acceptable of a graduate student. These conferences are a significant portion of your grade. For nine weeks, this is what we will do: Each week, read the assignments, review the question with source material, and develop a response independent of what others in the class are doing with the question. Post this as a new thread in the conference. Every week, visit the conference often and participate in the discussions that challenge or intrigue you. You do not need to respond to every comment. The conference would be impossible to read if this happened. But do participate in discussions, and if an idea interests you, bring your experience to the table and do some additional work. Do not wait until Friday evening to begin your discussion. Do not go on a frantic posting frenzy Friday evening. I do not count total postings. I do count quality postings. The grading rubric before reflects postings that engage and build the knowledge base of this course. I will grade over the weekend. The following is my rubric for grading the discussions: 1. Show civility. Only one excellent initial "title" or "main" thread - this represents only a 75% score. Student adheres to APA and principles of academic integrity. The writing must demonstrate that the student has done the required reading, reported out what the author's evidence brings to the question asked, and provides additional insights necessary for stimulating discussion. 2. Above requirements in addition to 5-10 or so substantive arguments/contributions over a few days - 80-85%. This is what I expect of graduate students and warrants a B. Points between 86 - 89 are awarded for incremental improvements over the basic requirements. 3. Above requirements with 10-20 postings over time, excellent, well-written, grounded, building the discourse, showing civility so forth - 90 - 95%. Points between 96 - 100 are awarded for incremental improvements. A 100% reflects an assessment that the student's work in a particular conference was a key anchor to the knowledge built during this discussion. The following are my guidelines for grading the essay projects 1. Student adheres to the requires of APA, academic integrity, and writes a term paper my topic with effective use of resources. No fewer than 10 resources are used. Less than 5% of the paper is direct quotes. None of the paper is plagiarized. This is a B. 2. Student does all of the above (item 1), and in addition, uses 20 resources; demonstrates the ability to analyze the problems critically, and provides original thought, that is, ideas not drawn directly from the literature. This is an A.

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In keeping with UMUC graduate guidelines, the award of a B demonstrates a comprehension of the material and a commitment to process. An A reflects work that is consistently performed at an outstanding level. It demonstrates a clear understanding of source material, and an ability to analyze critically the problem presented. Faculty are expected to grade fairly and expect that students who show competency in the course will achieve a B. Roughly 20% of the students in the past have gotten As. Students who get Cs generally do not participate in the conferences. Students who get Fs really have no business in graduate school at this time. An F is exceedingly rare. During one typical past term, there was one F due to plagiarizing. There were two Cs, for the reasons above. There were four As. Most were Bs. Advice: Maintain at least a B average. If you are consistently getting Cs, please contact me. I truly want all students to succeed, and they can. If you are convinced that I am ignoring you, this is not the case. I did not receive your message. You should know that I have a very high view of UMUC and the quality of its programs. I endeavor to keep the standards of performance high but manageable.

Project Descriptions
Small Paper Whilemanystudentsthinkthispapercanbeblownoff,afterall,itisonlytwopoints,Ihavefoundthat studentswhodoblowitoffarealwaystheoneswhoneededtodoit.Doit.Thetopicis"DoestheCIO bringvaluetotheorganization?Thistopicbuildstowardsyourtermpaper.Thegradingrubricisthe samethatIuseforallwritingassignments.Thisresearchwillserveastheopendoortoyourterm paperresearch. Term Paper

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DuringthetermwehavespentagreatdealofenergythinkingthroughtheroleoftheChief InformationOfficer,grapplingwiththeideasattachedtoexecutiveleadership.Thereisamethodtomy askingyoualltowriteonthesametopic,namely,toconsolidatetermlearningobjectives. This is the challenge. JustifythenecessityofhavingaCIOatall,orperhapsmergingthistitleintoanewexecutivepositionor anexistingexecutiveposition.BaseyouranalysisonorganizationsthatcurrentlyhaveCIOs.Youare nottowriteacasestudythatfocusesononeorganization.Youarenottowriteanessayexploringyour ownorganization.YouaretowriteapaperthatexploresthepracticalsideoftheCIO,theCIOposition mergedwithanotherexecutiveposition,andtheCIOtransformedintoanewexecutiveposition.Once youhaveresearchedanddiscussedeachofthesethreepositions,youaretoelaborateanddefendone ofthethreeasthechoiceyouwouldmake. Reviewthegradingrubric.YouaretouseAPAstyle.Reviewmyconferenceonacademicintegrity.Do notassumethatyouknowAPAifyouhavenotactuallyreferredtothemanualofstyle.Youarenotto plagiarizeanyofthispaper.Anymeansnone.Thereisnoexcuseforthis.Startyourtermpaperearlyin theterm.Thebodyofthispaperis10pages,excludingtitlepage,abstract,andreferences. Performancedetailsareinthegradingrubric,butIamverygladtoclarifyfurther. Final Examination Thistopicwillbegiventoyouwhentermpapersaresubmitted.Itwillbeabriefdiscussionofa problemarisingfromthetermdiscussions.Youwillhaveaccesstoalloftheconferencesforyour argument,butnoadditionalresearchisrequired,norallowed.Youwillthinkofyourconferencesas yourcollectiveintellect,sousetheideasofyourcolleagues,nottheirreferences.Thisfinalpaperistwo pages,doublespaced.Iwillprovidetheformatforthecitationtobeusedinthispaperwhenyou receiveit,oneweekbeforeitisdue.Inpreparation,keepacopyoftheconferencesavailable.Iwill providesearchableversionsoftheseconferences.Thefinalisworth10percentofyourgrade.Itisan opportunitytonudgeagrade.

Additional Information

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TECHNICAL ASSISTANCE AND WEBTYCHO SUPPORT Understanding and navigating through WebTycho is critical to successfully completing this course. All students are encouraged to complete UMUC's Orientation to WebTycho Tour at http://tychousa.umuc.edu/wtdocs/tychotour/index.html. UMUC 360 Support is accessible directly in the WebTycho classroom. Technical support is available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year via self-help, phone, and chat at http://support.umuc.edu or toll-free 888360-UMUC (8682), or 301-985-6710. LIBRARY SUPPORT Extensive library resources and services are available online, 24 hours a day, seven days a week at http://www.umuc.edu/library. Information and Library Services provides research assistance in creating search strategies, selecting relevant databases, and evaluating and citing resources in a variety of formats via its Ask a Librarian service (http://www.umuc.edu/library/help/ask.shtml), which includes 24/7 chat and e-mail. The Search by Subject area of the library's Web site (http://www.umuc.edu/library/subjects.shtml) provides a listing of resource guides for each subject area, with each guide containing relevant databases, Web sites, books, and other resources along with technical and citation assistance. The Online Guide to Writing and Research is available at http://www.umuc.edu/writingcenter/onlineguide/Online-Writing-Guide-Chapter-6.cfm?

Academic Policies
Graduate School of Management and Technology's Academic Policies (GSMT)
GRADING GUIDELINES According to the Graduate School of Management and Technology's grading policy, the following marks are used: A (90-100) = Excellent B (80-89) = Good C (70-79) = Below standards F (69 or below) = Failure FN = Failure for nonattendance G = Grade pending P = Passing S = Satisfactory U = Unsatisfactory I = Incomplete AU = Audit W = Withdrew The grade of "B" represents the benchmark for the Graduate School of Management and Technology. It indicates that the student has demonstrated competency in the subject matter of the course, e.g., has fulfilled all course requirements on time, has a clear grasp of the full range of course materials and concepts, and is able to present and apply these materials and concepts in clear, well-reasoned, well-organized, and grammatically correct responses, whether written or oral. Only students who fully meet this standard and, in addition, demonstrate exceptional comprehension and application of the course subject matter earn a grade of "A."

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Students who do not meet the benchmark standard of competency fall within the "C" range or lower. They, in effect, have not met graduate level standards. Where this failure is substantial, they can earn an "F." The "FN" grade means a failure in the course because the student has ceased to attend and participate in course assignments and activities but has not officially withdrawn. ACADEMIC STANDARDS

Graduate students are expected to maintain a 3.0 or higher grade point average (GPA) at all times, with no grade of F. An assessment of academic standing is made of each student at the end of every semester. Each student's GPA is computed for all UMUC graduate-level graded coursework to make a determination of academic standing as described in the policy below.
UMUC policy on academic levels of progress WITHDRAWAL Students who officially withdraw from a course receive a mark of W (Withdrawal). The grade of W will appear on the official transcript but will not be used in calculating the grade point average (GPA). Students must follow the withdrawal procedures as outlined in the catalog, schedule of classes, or Web site. Graduate students must officially withdraw at least two weeks (14 calendar days) before the final class. Students who do not officially withdraw by the deadline receive the grade earned for the course. WRITING STANDARDS Effective managers, leaders, and teachers are also effective communicators. Written communication is an important element of the total communication process. The Graduate School of Management and Technology recognizes and expects exemplary writing to be the norm for course work. To this end, all papers, individual and group, must demonstrate graduate level writing and comply with the format requirements of the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association, 6th Edition. Careful attention should be given to spelling, punctuation, source citations, references, and the presentation of tables and figures. It is expected that all course work will be presented on time and error free. POLICY ON ACADEMIC INTEGRITY AND PLAGIARISM UMUC policy on academic dishonesty and plagiarism Tutorial: UMUC offers the VAIL Tutor, a tutorial covering academic integrity and strategies to help students avoid academic dishonesty and plagiarism. Turnitin.com: The University has a license agreement with Turnitin.com, a service that helps prevent plagiarism from internet resources. Your instructor may be using this service in this class by either requiring students to submit their papers electronically to Turnitin.com or by submitting questionable text on behalf of a student. If you or your instructor submit part or all of your paper, it will be stored by Turnitin.com in their database throughout the term of the University's contract with Turnitin.com. If you object to this temporary storage of your paper, you must let your instructor know no later than two weeks after the start of this class. Please Note: If you object to the storage of your paper on Turnitin.com, your instructor may utilize other services to check your work for plagiarism. COURSE EVALUATION FORM

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UMUC values its students' feedback. You will be asked to complete a mandatory online evaluation toward the end of the semester. The primary purpose of this evaluation is to assess the effectiveness of classroom instruction. UMUC requires all students to complete this evaluation. Your individual responses are kept confidential. The evaluation notice will appear on your class screen about 21 days before the end of the semester. You will have approximately one week to complete the evaluation. If, within this 21-day period, you do not open the file and either respond to the questions or click on "no response," you will be "locked out" of the class until you do complete the evaluation. This means that you will not be able to enter the classroom. Once you have completed the evaluation, you will regain access to the classroom. If you have any problem getting back in your classroom, you should immediately contact UMUC 360 support by phone toll-free, 888-360-UMUC (8682), or 301-985-6710 or via chat. The Graduate School of Management and Technology takes students' evaluations seriously, and in order to provide the best learning experience possible, information provided is used to make continuous improvements to every class. Please take full advantage of this opportunity to provide constructive recommendations and comments about potential areas of improvement. STUDENTS WITH DISABILITIES Students with disabilities who want to request and register for services should contact UMUC's technical director for veteran and disabled student services at least four to six weeks in advance of registration each semester. Please email disabilityservices@umuc.edu or call 240-684-2287 or 240-684-2277 (TTY).

Course Schedule

Session

Themes

Readings/Assignments

1. Complete 2 page research essay answering the question "What value does the CIO bring to the organization?" Submit this essay through your assignment folder. The purpose of this essay is to prove guidance on writing, and to frame a major concept for your term learning. You must use APA. 2. Post a greeting to your classmates. This will allow you to connect to your classmates. The full story of your life should be posted in your class member biography. 3. Read and acknowledge within the academic integrity conference that you understand what plagiarism and paraphrasing are all about. If you read through my illustrations, you should understand the differences. Discuss if you wish. You must use APA in all your writing, even conferences. If you do not own a copy of the APA Manual of style, bookmark http://owl.english.purdue.edu; read the section, "What is plagiarizing?" http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/589/02

Begin reading the alignment materials and the strategic thinking materials. Closes end of day, June 3.

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The first week closes end of day June 3, a Friday. Conference 1 Is there a lack of information on strategic planning? Nope. I think the process of planning is poorly understood, and rarely endorsed. The reasons are simple enough. Planning requires a commitment of resources (time, talent, money); it requires insight; it requires a total Focus on the readings immersion in the corporate culture. While organizations do plan, planning is invariably attached to the budget process. It is typically regarding alignment and strategic thinking. here that the CIO lays out his/her vision for the coming year. Closes end of day June Now a few years ago Luftman began writing on the value of 10 aligning IT purpose to organizational purpose. He wrote at a time when enterprise architectural planning was fairly new, and enterprise resource management was on the lips of every executive. My view is that alignment is a natural process driven by the availability of the tools to accomplish it. Twenty years ago making sense of IT was more about processing power, and database management. We are in a new age of IT, and it is the computer that is the network, not the network as an independent self-contained exchange of information. If you will spend some time reviewing the basic materials I provided on strategic planning and alignment, we can begin our discussions for the course. The chart from Bryson may be exhausting to decipher, but it will tell you quickly the actors and the concerns any planner must address. Here is the problem I would like for us to tackle: If the CIO is to be valued as a strategic actor, how can he bring to the table the ethos of alignment, bound to the demands of process strategic planning to move IT to the forefront of the organization's future? Conference 2 Discuss the conditions that lead to the freedom with fences (the ability to be innovative and creative within certain prescribed boundaries) organization. Can the fences stall the very ideal the executive seeks to achieve? And if we cannot train to these ideals, but only hire to them, is there a real measure of these talents that translates into the behavior that Stephens seeks? Conference 3

Chapter 1, Conference 2 CIO Best Practices Closes end of day June 17. Chapter 2 CIO Best Practices

This week we explore the complications of financial management from the perspective of treating IT as if it were a separate financial Closes end of day June 24 entity, on contract, to the corporation or agency. Flemming's treatment of the problem comes from a company known for its financial metrics, that is, SAS. How realistic this model remains we can discuss. The chapter is rich in ideas, and long. There are many divergent points of interest. Broadly speaking, how realistic is his

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approach? At what intersections does being thought of as an "independent" actor conflict with the CIO's ability to be "nimble" in strategic planning? Does strategic planning suggest that the IT department, like a vendor, must persuade decision makers to "buy into" systems and approaches not of its immediate concern? Think about these questions, and think about how sacrifices will be made to accommodate these two contrasting views of the corporation or agency. Conference 4 Chapter 3, CIO Best Practices

Hugos is a name you will soon come to recognize easily. He is a Closes end of day July prolific blogger and writer for CIO.com. You will have no difficulty 1 supplementing your positions in this conference. He carefully outlines the emerging cloud computing environment, and no will dispute the vitality of this IT sector for a variety of reasons. I use cloud computing for storage, web services, student information systems, trouble ticketing, blogs, course ware delivery. Curiously, I did move email from the cloud back inside the buildings for here the cost of Outlook on the cloud was considerably higher than running it on an in house server. But all of us have cloud email accounts, and what you pay for "in house" is branding only. How important is branding? Not terribly important in my view. So let's address the chapter with a memory of Flemming. Discuss the ABC/M and the SPM considerations attached to the modeling at the CIO presents in making the case for or against cloud computing in a knowledge based industry(as opposed to a manufacturing industry).

Conference 5

Chapter 4, CIO Best Practices.

Going green! You could easily be very cynical on the one hand, or Closes end of day July very Pollyannaish on the other regarding this chapter. My first reaction, frankly, was that Stenzel included it in the book because it 8 was the correct thing to do. I really doubt that "green" is a selfconscious act of the executive to save the planet. Much of what we read in this chapter arises because the technology has presented itself, and there is a business case to be made for using it; virtualized servers is an example. I operate a virtualized computing environment because it is cheaper and easier to maintain. Many organizations have shifted to low energy fluorescent lighting. LED lighting will come into vogue as well when the cost comes down. What is the CIO's concern with "going green"? Do the benefits outweigh the costs at some point? If you are interested, you can introduce other "green" technologies to the discussion. Nanotechnologies are very prevalent in these conversations.

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Conference 6

Jonathan Hujsaks chapter on sustainability really tails Hugos closely as it does the previous chapter on green. Many of the arguments in both previous chapters are reincarnate in this chapter. Closes end of day July I do not see much value in re-discussing electricity and the carbon 15 footprint. I was struck by several aspects of this chapter. The author writes (187): Information technology holds the promise of revolutionary improvements in global enterprise sustainability that will dramatically enhance enterprise agility, increase operational efficiency, and even turn cost centers into profit centers. Several innovations in data management are reshaping the IT landscape. These are discussed in the chapter: server virtualization, storage virtualization, desktop virtualization, and the near future network virtualization. As an executive, the question raised by the chapter regarding virtualization as a sustainability strategy is less than a yes/no, but a when/how. We will ask ourselves, and discuss, the extent to which the virtualization of processing portends the removal of a dedicated IT staff. We will discuss the extent to which the CIO is no longer the manager of a dedicated expert staff, but fully engaged in vendor management and service oversight. Finally we should ask ourselves the extent to which bricks and mortar will even define the corporation as an entity. The corporation, or at least its administrative wing, is more of an abstract. Does it matter if the processing engine of your corporate data is in Bangladesh or Nairobi? Does it matter what flag the vendors employees salute or what god they worship? Once we have achieved global network infrastructure stability and redundancy, we may find ourselves seriously questioning our understanding of corporation or even employment. Conference 7 In the first edition Cokins also provided a discussion of what I called "the customer question". Customer centricity certainly stands paramount among the corporate planners and executives. For the CIO you have to work hard to glean from this chapter the role of the CIO. The case made here by Cokins, although it is not his argument at all, is for the corporate statistician and data analyst. How does the CIO come prepared to decide which analytical tools are appropriate for addressing the CLV problem? As you read this chapter, read it through the eyes of a CIO, and seek relevance.

Chapter 5 CIO Best Practices

Chapter 6 CIO Best Practices. Closes end of day July 22

Conference 8 This chapter is quite a different read from the balance of the book. I think it is a pleasant way to end this 2nd edition. Shubert tackles a discussion I know I have had with my colleagues many times,

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namely, the value of social networking at work. Shubert writes (288): "It is the delivery of technology and capability to business and society that lies at the heart of the delemma for CIOs and CTOs today; Businesses want and need access to networks (electronic communities) to reach... their current and potential customers. Businesses are concerned that access to these same networks by their employees could pose a security or competitive risk... ." The ability to spill one's guts then used to be isolated to the bar; now you can do so at every opportunity. It is true that some employees are addicted to staying in touch, and Facebook is the rage. I would hazzard the guess that these same slackers are IM'ing their friends or on the phone yacking it up with momma. I don't think Facebook or for that matter Smart phones have made people more secure in their social networks. There is simply a pathology that manifests itself when the conditions are ripe. Excuse me. I see some practical marketing uses for product simiulation, tourng the plant, getting to know folks; Second Life has shown itself to be useful in a variety of settings, even organizational development where you want everyone to get together anonymously. But the part of the chapter that intrigues me the most is the discussion on democratization and socialization of information. Has the boundry between expert and amateur blurred? My answer to this would be yes, if all the experts agree but the amateurs do not. For many of the problems facing the corporation, crowdsourcing probably works as well as formal expertise. Given sufficient monkeys, sufficient time, Shakespeare. Any of you who have had to endure the vendor pitch knows that truth is relative to the need for profit. So we come to the a practical discussion of the role of the CIO in moderating access to social media, framing what stands as truth in the information world of the corporation, and the extent to which the explosion of personal authority on the Internet has diminished our ability to sort out truth from hyberbole. Conference 9

Chapter 7 CIO Best Practices Closes end of day July 29

Readings

10

11

Closes end of day August 5 Guidance for the paper is in the Projects Your term paper is due end of day August 13. There is a 10% grade section of the syllabus. I am glad to answer penality for every day this paper is later than August 13. any questions you have. Coming This small project is not a research project in the typical sense, but will rely on your your of the class conferences. It will be made available to you

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Your "final examination" is due at the close of day August 20 . If it is not there, you will not receive credit for it.

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on August 12.

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