Organizational Informatics

Full Syllabus

Grading Guidelines

I have office hours after class every day after class.

20%		class participation	in class and on oncourse
15%		weekly essays	due every Friday
10%%		presentation	due as scheduled
60%		Final project:
	10%	group formation	due Sept. 19
< /td>	10%	work plan and project definition	due Oct. 12
	5%	revised work plan	due Oct. 24
	5%	bibliography	due Oct. 5
	30%	written project	due exam period

Overview

This class is divided into five major themes, with sessions organized under those themes.

The course has two intellectual pillars. The first pillar of the course is the material provided in the readings, subject to quizzes in the classroom, and discussed in the sections. The second pillar is the project. The material int eh classroom is selected by the professor and assistants. You bring the material for the project to the table.

Course Themes

The first major theme is the nature of organizations. An organizations can be perceived as single monolithic rational entity; as a collection of competing groups of stakeholders; as a collection of individuals each acting upon their own aims; as a machine irrationally following process; or a anthropological cultural entity. Each of these views of organizations has implications for the use of data. Dr. Shankar will guest lecture on that topic.

The second major theme is the organization of the ICT market. This section will include an overview of the major market sectors, and question to what degree the market sectors are technologically determined.

The third major theme is economics. The economics section includes a cursory introduction to some major concepts in economics: discounted cash flow, rationality, productivity, and uncertainty.

The fourth theme expands upon economics to define how digital networked good violate fundamental assumptions of economics. Under this section we will consider security, privacy, DRM and copyright as economic rather than policy or technical questions.

The final theme is an introduction to knowledge management.

During the fourth theme there are two guest speakers. One, Prof. Dennis Groth, will describe how the project in this course prepares you for the capstone project. The second, Prof. Groth is the supervising professor for the undergraduate capstones. Shaun McDermott, will describe the economic conditions and questions in the game industry. Mr. McDermott is the CFO of Mad Doc Software.

The Project

The project is intended to teach basic practical skills in preparation for the workplace. Memos are expected to be printed and professional. The work plan is expected to be detailed and complete. If, for example, there is plagiarism in the project I should be able to place responsibility for this misconduct via the work plan. If there is an section of an average project that is excellent, I should be able to give credit based on the work plan.

In the near term this project is a short practice for the capstone. The tasks in the class mirror the capstone because the capstone and the project are intended to prepare you for the workplace. Thus there is as much emphasis on the preparation for the project (30 pts) as there is on the project itself (30 pts).