BCO6653: Management of Information Technology- Report Writing Assignment

Internal Code: 1GIAI

Report Writing Assignment:

Task: Assignment One: In-depth topic analysis and discussion You work on this assignment as an individual. Please give your topic preference to your lecturer. Your lecturer will assign you one of the topic areas after receiving your topic preferences. Synopsis Learning about IT management involves: (a) appreciating the various theories of IT management, and (b) being able to conceptually apply these theories to real-life situations. Objectives After completing this assignment, you should be able to: 1. Perform a literature analysis targeted at an IT management issue 2. Use the literature to prepare answers and investigate current practice in a particular area 3. Prepare a report / paper Prerequisites Before starting this assignment, you should be familiar with the following topics: 1. The issues in the topic area you have been assigned 2. How to do a literature analysis 3. How to write an academic report / paper The topic assigned will fall under any one of the subtopics of the IT management topics covered in this BCO6653 (see list of topics earlier in this guide). Activities 1. Prepare a concept map or mind map for assignments 1 and 2 to help understand and plan what needs to be done. 2. Perform a literature analysis for the sub topic you have been assigned. You will need to be familiar with how to do a literature analysis, and the structure of a literature analysis write-up. The literature analysis should only include references gathered from the university’s online databases, such as: Academic Search Premier; Business Source Complete and Emerald Fulltext 3. Outline ‘current practice’ in the subtopic area. To do this, you should refer to the following web sites and include materials based upon your allocated subtopic*: CIO Magazine                http://www.cio.com/ CIO (Australia)              http://www.cio.com.au CIO (New Zealand)       http://cio.co.nz/ CIO Council                    http://www.cio.gov/ CIO Insight                     http://www.cioinsight.com/ ZDNet Australia            http://www.zdnet.com.au/ AustralianIT                   http://australianit.news.com.au/ Information Age ACS   http://www.infoage.acs.org.au * These are only to be used in Assignment 1. You should reference material in this section of the report as you do for the literature analysis. 4. Compare the literature analysis with current practice. Does current practice match theory? Is the ‘real world’ ahead or behind what the literature tells us? 5. Write the paper. You must use the template provided on the BCO6653 website. You will need to make sure that your current practice section relates to your literature as this shows how you match applied concepts/theory to the ‘real world’. 6. Lead a discussion of your paper in class. On the day of your allocated tutorial, you will need to give a short oral summary of your paper for your classmates (ca. 10 min). You do not need to prepare presentation slides. After your summary, you will lead a 15 min discussion in class about your paper. Assignment Two: Literature Analysis and IT Manager Interview Report and Presentation Introduction The lecture/seminar series and assignment work centre upon the theme areas identified in the BCO6653 outline: • IS Planning/Strategy • Organisational Impacts of IT Use • IT Organisation • Use of IT for Competitive Advantage • Analysis of IT Investment: Value and Risk • Knowledge Management • Managing the Human Resource • IT Security & Business Continuity Management • IT Governance • Green IT • Other (as discussed and approved by your lecturer) Synopsis Learning about IT management involves: (a) Appreciating the various theories of IT management, and (b) Being able to conceptually apply these theories to real-life situations. Groups of two or three students will do this assignment. You will conduct email interviews with the IT managers of at least two business or government organisations that have IT departments. For each organisation you are to prepare a report analysing their policies related to ONE of the major theme areas for the semester (except for IS Planning/Strategy, which each group will ask questions about in addition to their selected topics): • IS Planning/Strategy plus ONE other topic Each group must select one topic to work on for the paper, which cannot be the same as a topic that was covered by the group in Assignment 1. The IS Planning/Strategy topic is dealt with as a group effort. *** You must ensure that each topic has at least two IT manager’s responses ***