While teaching courses on computer information systems, in particular Systems Analysis and Design, it is easy to spot students' difficulties in incorporating what they have learned in one course into a different course or project. When subjected to testing how well they mastered the required prerequisites, students are surprised to realize that:
- Introduction to management information systems has already covered much, if not most, of the basic terminology and concepts needed in subsequent courses on information systems.
- Economics, accounting, production operations management, quantitative methods, marketing, and finances have provided the necessary business background with regard to how organizations should and do operate. Such a background is indispensable for developing viable business or administrative information systems. Relevant technological issues can be addressed later.
- Statistics, the basic tool in management science and the theory of information, is also indispensable for any meaningful quantitative analysis of business or administrative entities.
[T]here are several drawbacks with information system group projects within an academic environment, for instance:
- A student group does not provide an opportunity for a controlled selection of individuals possessing proper professional skills and knowledge to combine them for their synergy. If it happens, it does by chance.
- Accountability for individual contributions can be thwarted by wrongly understood camaraderie or “false friendship” with the consequence of undermining the learning process for academically weaker individuals.
- Students must be instructed how to implement a division of labor that does not compromise academic objectives, and how to react effectively from the very beginning to inevitable differences in quality and speed of individual contributions, before these differences endanger the entire project and the cohesion, morale, and performance of the team as a whole.
