MGT 418 Management Information systems
Syllabus and Course Schedule
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Lectures
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Homework
| HW # | Description | Due date |
| 1 | Read and take notes on Chapter 1. | |
| 2 | Turn in to me at the beginning of class on Tuesday, 4 Sep, a printed description of a system influenced by external factors (reference Figure 1-6 in the textbook and my Chapter 1 powerpoint charts). The paper should have a brief introductory description of the system, followed by a description of each of the system elements: inputs, outputs, processing, feedback and the environment. Two pages max, double or 1.5 spaced. It can be any system you want, e.g. a production process, biological, politicial, social, economic, religious, artistic, educational, entertainment, etc. Emphasize the informational aspects of the system as much as possible. We will discuss them in class. | 4 Sep |
| 3 | Turn in to me at the beginning of class on Thursday, 20 Sep, a printed description of the attributes of the inputs, processing, outputs, and feedback for the system you described in HW 2. The attributes are typically short descriptions of the data you will collect and then use to generate reports (think of columns in a table that are used to describe records). For example, in a student-learning system, attributes describing the process could be : amount of time spent reading per week, time doing homework per week, time practicing per week, # of homeworks given that week, # of chapters covered in class per week (classes you are taking would be in rows). DRAW A PICTURE of the system with the attributes incorporated as part of the picture (see example below -- be sure and describe the attributes separately). | 20 Sep |
| 4 | Complete the database homework posted on the O drive under mlewis/MGT418. Email the homework to me before class (mlewis14@missouriwestern.edu ) as an Excel attachment. Create a new worksheet for each question and label the worksheet appropriately. | 25 Sep |
| 5 | This homework is an exercise in Supply Chain Management
and PivotCharts. It is based on the Application Software Exercise
on page 66. The starter file
is located here. Use the data in the spreadsheet to improve
SCM by identifying the Best/Worst Suppliers according to the following
metrics: Average Days Late, Average A/P terms (bigger is better)
and Total Order Cost (who are you currently doing the most business
with). In addition, for each item find which vendor has the
best/worst deliveries (average of days late). For each question,
create a seperate pivot chart (follow Excel screen prompts when making
multiple pivot charts of the same data).
There is not enough data in the original spreadsheet to answer these questions, you will need to add some columns with formulas. The Actual Delivery Time can be calculated by subtracting the Promised Ship Date from the Arrival Date. The number of days late can be calculated by subtracting the Promised Transit Time from the Actual Delivery Time. If the number of days late is negative, it indicates that the order arrived early. I will be creating & posting movies to help you along. One "problem" with the starting data is that PivotChart cannot always easily determine where the data is. Others include possible formatting problems and bad input data. Email it to me as an attachment. Late homework cannot receive full credit. |
23 Oct (email it) |
| 6 | Using the starter file for HW 5 (don't use
your Excel answer, it will create problems in Access), import the .xls
file into Access, you jmay need to remove any info above the actual data
that is not related to column headings. Create a query that
calculates the days late for each order. Include the following
attributes in the query (Vendor name, item description, cost, quantity,
cost per order, A/P terms, Ship date, transit time and the
two calculated fields -- actual transit time and days late). There will be test questions on using Access. |
6 Nov (before class, email) |
| 7 | Create an Entity-Relationship Diagram of the system you
described in HW 3. ER Diagrams are described in the book and in
Wikipedia pages, but the basic idea is to describe your system using
nouns, verbs and adjectives. This page
contains some examples,
do not be overly concerned with the diagrammatic symbols, support your
diagram with text to explain the relationships. For example, a musician (noun-entity) performs (verb-relationship) many songs (noun-entity). A song is played in many regions. A song has lyrics. A musician has many fans. A musician has many supporters/promotors (I'm not sure about the details of the artist's supporters.) The verb-relationships are often simple, such as "has a" or "has many". The attributes you described in HW 3 are adjectives (field names) for the entities. Your system diagram from HW 3 is a guide, you do not have to follow it exactly, but the diagram should be as complete as possible. You can draw these by hand, then turn it in next Thursday, 15 Nov. If you want to get fancy, try downloading a free Visio-like program designed for this task.
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15 Nov in class |
| 8
xtra credit |
For extra credit, worth up to 1/2 a letter grade
towards your course grade, implement all or part of the system you
have been working on this semester into Access. At a minimum, you
must have three tables which have 1:Many relationships between them
(other tables can have 1:1). Base your database on the ER
Diagrams you have created. You must populate your database
with enough data records to generate at least 2 reports, with
at least one report based on a query. You must have at
least 2 queries. A report or query with a calculated field
will add points.
You can make up the data you use in your database (it doesn't have to be
real). You will want to generate forms for table data entry (try
using auto-forms). The reports should be formatted appropriately
-- default formatting is typically not enough. An Entity-Relationship Diagram for a database developed for the exercise on page 408 is shown below. It is a good example of what I am asking of you. The DBMS is for a repair service company where a customer account has many requests for service and a service rep handles many types of these service requests. This structure is common in many databases and is used to create a Many:Many relationship between customer accounts and service reps, that is, a customer may have many service reps take care of problems, and a rep will take care of many customers. The data in this database can help answer the question, "Who are our valuable customers?" and "Which service reps are most associated with which companies?". If you get stuck at any point, email me your database with your questions/dilema.
Here's a database of students taking many classes and a class having many students. Try adding a table for the Instructor info and one for Instructors & Classes (InstructorID & ClassID and class days and times). I also made a movie showing how to make this database, it is on my movie page, that has several instructional tutorials for this extra credit. |
Monday, 10 Dec |
My NEWS Blog
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