Does IS Education Address Enterprise IT User Concerns? Bart Longenecker University of South Alabama Paul Rosenthal California State University, Los Angeles Jack Russell Northwestern State University Linda T. Taylor Science Applications International Corporation ISECON Phoenix

This panel will discuss whether the IS2002 and MSIS2006 model curricula and supporting textbooks meet the requirements of our students in the current environment of knowledgeable users, packaged application systems, and complex infrastructures, interfaces, and architectures. Panel Overview

Questions to Be Addressed Does our IS education enable our students to answer the very important user and CIO questions: why will it cost so much and take so long? how can I be sure this will be one of the 50% of projects that succeed* rather than the 50% that fail? * How do we define “success” so that it is mutually understood and agreed to by all of the stakeholders?

Upgrading Our Curriculum Paul H. Rosenthal Professor, Information Systems California State University, Los Angeles

My Primary Concern Lack of training in the justification of enterprise information systems for both Users and IS Professionals

Users say it’s important! I conducted an informal survey by asking the importance of the following questions at a recent Business Forum luncheon meeting Why does it cost so much? Replies:Important 100% Interesting 0% Not Relevant 0% Why does it take so long? Same results

Students say its Important! From a survey of business students in the Managing Information Systems class during finals week.

Teach Project Estimating It is possible to estimate Software Projects accurately. Such estimation is useful. Why? Once all stakeholders agree on estimation procedures, negotiations can involve inputs (features and resources) NOT outputs (time and dollars). Function Point measures are the most popular for Information Systems estimation. Illustration Follows

Function Points Methodology

Analyzing the Information Domain

My Other Major Concern Lack of adequate training in Physical System Design The key objective in producing a useful physical design is ensuring that all stakeholders (developers and end users) understand the true scope of the system, which must include a realistic evaluation of its complexities. – Essential is the use of this data by the development and implementation team for program, data, and interface design.

Physical Program Design A physical design is created from a DFD- based logical design, by separating processes, data stores, and interfaces by –time (daily vs. monthly, day vs. night...), –place (client or server, centralized vs. distributed...), –online vs. batch, –manual vs. automated, etc.

A Physical Level System Design

We need to raise the content level of our courses so that our graduates will be able to specify, estimate, design, and implement high quality and successful systems, and continue to reduce our industry's high project failure rate. Note: “Successful systems” are defined as those measured and confirmed useful by their end users in their operational environment SUMMARY STATEMENT