Assessment: Report

Length:
3000 Words (excluding title page, bibliography, charts, diagrams, tables, etc) Harvard Referencing with In-text citation

Submission:.

.The pages should be numbered, and the document should also contain a clearly laid out table of contents.

Font should be Size 12, Times New Roman, with a Size 14, Bold for headings, and no more than 1.5 line spacing. All headings and subheadings should be labelled appropriately. Please provide the document in some sort of protective covering and have it stapled.

Check the main assignment details in the next page.
The Assignment:

You are a consultant who has been commissioned to produce an Information Strategy for a Scottish Higher Education Institution. The University has 3000 students and 300 members of staff, divided into academics, administrators, secretarial support, librarians and 4 member of the Executive. Two unions represent academic staff; students are represented by their own union.

The management of the IT facilities is centralized. There is a network with several servers that interlink workstations. There is an average of 1 workstation per 5 students. Most members of staff have their own workstation. There is a management information system with access restricted to only some administrative and executive members of staff.

Part of your new job consists of developing and promoting a telecommunications and IT -use policy. There has been no telecomm or IT use policy in place before. Developments in this area have been ad-hoc with different departments setting internal rules of operation. There have been numerous thefts of computer equipment in communal IT areas, corruption of files by students using infected disks have entered the network and use of non-licensed software by staff and students is suspected. There has been no training of users and the level of user self-sufficiency is low.

Please write a report in which you state the steps (should include those detailed below) you would take in developing and effective IT and Telecomm-use policy, which takes into account user-training needs. State the ways in which you would secure participation in the development of such a policy from relevant stakeholders. Detail the elements that a strategy for information for the university should have. Present the steps by which you would test the compliance with such a policy once it is implemented and present the steps you would take to promote awareness and compliance with the policy. Document your answers with references and citations from pertinent literature.

The 3000 word report should cover the first 3 items below and marks will be allocated according to the percentages given in brackets:

• An evaluation of methods to analyse the university’s information and knowledge resources (20%) – tied into the IT & Telecomm issues

• An assessment of the university’s competitive position, using appropriate methodologies (20%)

• An outline information strategy for the university (50%)

•     Bibliography and use of literature (10%)
•     How to formulate IT policies as an IT manager (
•     Evaluating how much knowledge you have knowledge you have in on organization and methods you can follow to analyze and evaluate knowledge and information resources. (check the link he sent)
•     How do you know you are short of knowledge
•     How do you evaluate your competitiveness in IT to other universities as an IT manager. (Speak about your university first,…).

• How do you develop an information strategy or information policies in a university (Try to make it related to IT)
• References
To help with coursework:

The following references talk about methods for evaluating effectiveness of IS in organisations. You can adapt them to the specifics of the coursework which is in the context of a university IT system.

1. http://www.emeraldinsight.com/journals.htm?articleid=1728173&show=pdf

This one states thre methods: user satisfaction, usage, and economic evaluation.

2. http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb924363.aspx

This one give a more systematic approach. You can pick out the main methods you think are relevant for your coursework. These two items may be more relevant than others:

• Capture system functions and/or business processes.

• Capture user activities.

3. This one is also helpful:

Evaluating Information System Effectiveness — Part I: Comparing Evaluation Approaches

http://aisel.aisnet.org/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1866&context=misq&sei-redir=1&referer=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.bing.com%2Fsearch%3Fq%3Dmethods%2Bfor%2Bevaluating%2B%2BINFORMATION%2BSYSTEM%2Beffectiveness%2B%26qs%3Dn%26pq%3Dmethods%2Bfor%2Bevaluating%2Binformation%2Bsystem%2Beffectiveness%2B%26sc%3D0-0%26sp%3D-1%26sk%3D%26first%3D21%26FORM%3DPERE1#search=%22methods%20evaluating%20INFORMATION%20SYSTEM%20effectiveness%22