[AISWorld] Seeking Guidance/Materials for Non-MIS major-oriented undergraduate Intro to IS course

[Robbins, Russell W]

Information Systems Educators:

I am looking for guidance or materials for mini-projects or other experiences, demonstrations, case studies, etc. that could be used in an undergraduate Introduction to Information Systems course. This course is offered to sophomore, junior, and senior-standing students who are primarily finance, accounting, and marketing majors and IS NOT targeted at students who might become or are MIS majors. The purpose of using new mini-projects, experiences, etc. is to increase the percentage of students that find the course a valuable contribution to their knowledge base. In other words, I am interesting in transforming how non-MIS majors view the utility of the course.

Three types of mini-projects I am currently interested in piloting are below but I am very open to other suggestions for helping non-MIS majors see the value in an Introduction to IS course:

Type 1: Students analyze and subsequently report a company's successful use of information systems, primarily by researching the web.

Type 2: Students analyze business information using analytics tools (as basic as Excel pivot tables to as complex as Cognos/SPSS) to do one of the following (or similar) tasks:

Detect quality problems early; minimize them.
Identify customers with the greatest profit potential; increase purchases; retain loyalty.
Identify prices that will maximize yield or profit.
Identify transactions that might be fraudulent and/or otherwise illegal.
Improve quality, efficacy, and where applicable, safety of products and services.
Select the best employees for particular tasks, jobs, or organizational levels.
Simulate and optimize supply chain flow; e.g., by reducing inventory and stock outs.
Understand the drivers of financial performance and the effects of non-financial factors.

Type 3: Students analyze, rebuild, and expand their social media presences to obtain professional employment or enter professional communities.

I am also interested in including two or three interesting/entertaining stories about executives or managers that were adamant non-IS "believers" but became ardent IS "believers." Any help in this area would also be greatly appreciated.

Please do not reply-all to the AISWorld listserv but instead send your ideas directly to me, Russ Robbins, at rrobbins at katz.pitt.edu or call me at 412-624-2346.  I will organize and post a link summarizing all responses to the listserv. If appropriate I will also post to the Pedagogy wiki of the AISWorld portal.

Thank you so much in advance!

All the very best,
Russ Robbins

Russell W. Robbins, Ph.D.
Visiting Assistant Professor - Decision, Operations, and Information Technology
Katz Graduate School of Business & College of Business Administration
University of Pittsburgh
361 Mervis Hall
Pittsburgh, PA  15260    USA
Tel: 1-412-624-2346
e-mail: rrobbins at katz.pitt.edu
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.aisnet.org/pipermail/aisworld_lists.aisnet.org/attachments/20120713/0041b2c8/attachment.html>