Tai Cleveland Doctorate Student at Colorado Technical University

Week11 CS832 Doctor Steven Reynold Lesson to LEARN

2009-10-23T19:30:00.003-05:00

SYNOPSIS OF CONCEPTS LEARNED

IN BUSINESS STRATEGIC AND

INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY ACTION

By

Tai Cleveland

Class CS 832

Doctor Steven Reynolds

Week 10th assignment

Table of Contents
Title Page 1
Table of Contents 2
Basic Perspectives of IT Benchmarking 3
Alignment of IT and Business Goals 4
Strategizing 7
Business Performance 8
Reference List 9

1. Basic Perspectives of IT Benchmarking
In information technology, benchmarking compares certain technological factors of a product or service as opposed to traditional specifications. IT benchmarking presents an outcome that determine an individual or a set of performance indicators (Ambuhl, et. al., 2004). The model IT benchmarking method is based on IT metrics. This method ensures that companies achieve pertinent IT benchmarks at a reasonable cost.
The measurement of value gained from investments in information technology is a guide to decision making regarding a company’s IT portfolio. Measurement involves the quality, productivity and business value of information technology. Consultants Ambhul and Bitterman emphasized the relation of benchmarking to competitive advantage. They wrote:
Building an IT-based competitive advantage has become a necessity. Ongoing benchmarking can ensure that your IT investment is delivering the best value to the organization (2004-2007, 8).

One perspective involving IT benchmarking is measurement of outcome, which addresses the gains accomplished from the implementation of an IT application. Rapidly rising information technology costs, questions about effective IT implementation, and the need for efficient delivery of IT projects have compelled organizations to focus on outcomes research, measurement, and management. Considering that there is no end in sight to escalating IT investment costs, corporations are motivated to zero-in on cost containment methodologies focusing on quality, cost-effective outcomes. As organizations move forward in this quest for more cost-effective IT solutions, it is imperative to adopt outcome information to measure and demonstrate the effectiveness of such solutions.
The measurement of output is another perspective in IT benchmarking. Corporations can no longer justify IT investments in terms of input, that is, in terms of the amount of new money they have provided, or the number of new IT professionals they have employed, or the range of powerful computers they have installed. It has been observed that businesses need to show how they have transformed current and new dollars into realistic results.
Both of the foregoing perspectives have their own application. The application depends on the objectives of the corporation and the kind of corporate culture that is nurturing when it comes to innovation. A casual perusal of literature on benchmarking would show that it has a different meaning depending on the discipline it is applied. For example, benchmarking has a different meaning in healthcare, manufacturing and in distance education, to name a few. It is the duty of the IT professional to exercise his creativity in analyzing which perspective is applicable in his line of business.
2. Alignment of IT and Business Goals
The concept of alignment was borne out of the desire of IT managers to close the gap “between the assumptions at the conception of a project and the reality that becomes visible only during execution” (Strassman, 1998). Corporations seem to jump to IT as the preferred choice in the solution of marketing and operational problems. The behavior is prompted by the desire to address the problems immediately and to formulate the solution early on. In the process, IT managers tend to design specifications that may not work as expected. IT managers appear to be promising the moon; however, this is hardly the case. Strassman pointed out that initial project plans lack specific details since such details will surface only when implementation starts. IT managers must be able to come up with measurable targets that are related to the proposed computer projects. In turn, the measurable targets must result to verifiable performance.
The critical aspects involved in alignment are process disconnects, legacy and entitlement mentality and management roles (Benson, Bugnitz & Walton, 2004). In the planning phase, the critical aspects must be addressed to achieve alignment. According to Benson and his co-authors (2004), affordability and impact are the key elements in making the right decisions for IT alignment. Company resources are limited amidst competing options and in the presence of these conditions, the right decisions are those that advance IT’s bottom-line impact and control IT spending (Benson, et al., 2004).
Benson and his colleagues has pointed out correctly that IT departments are primarily concerned with the deployment of technology. Businesses are giving more attention to the acquisition of computer equipment with the latest features in terms of memory capacity and processor speed. The value chain has changed all this. The Strategy-To-Bottom-Line Value Chain will prove to be the definitive tool in empowering IT departments to support the accomplishment of business objectives.
The use of the Strategy-To-Bottom-Line Value Chain implies that end users must undergo the relevant training to enable them to use the tool effectively. It is envisioned that the training should include workshops for each of the outcomes of the value chain. An expert in the method should guide the training participants to ensure learning of important concepts.
The value chain can only be as effective as the person who is using it. By itself, the workshop can focus on the actual situation as it obtains in the business. After the outcomes are identified, the business must be innovative and aggressive when implementation time arrives. Performance evaluation must be conducted to assess the impact of IT applications. Stepwise improvement may also be adopted to complement the value chain by providing the opportunity to implement improvements as it comes along during performance evaluation.
Alignment balances the IT portfolio across the short-term as well as the long-term vision of the business organization and delivers IT efforts fairly among competing business units. Alignment results to prioritization of IT efforts to encourage common understanding on what the company should do with IT. The absence of alignment would probably cause companies to loose money in prospective costs and wasted investments. Strategic opportunities result from aligning IT initiatives with business goals.
Alignment should also result to reduced cost characterized by innovative ways to maximize the use of resources to accomplish more with less. Harwell Thrasher (2003) identified reduced expense as a result of using IT to increase business benefit to remain competitive. He wrote:
This (reduced expense) is the benefit of IT that first comes to mind for most people. The original IT projects were put in place to “automate” processes in order to reduce cost, often by replacing large numbers of people with a few computers. Reducing expense is still a valid way for an IT project to pay its way, but this is becoming one of the least strategic IT investments. Most companies have already automated the obvious areas for savings long ago.

Still, if your business is not competitive in your industry because of a higher than normal expense level, then this may be the most important way that IT can contribute to your business success.

Most American businesses look at IT as means to reduce cost on business operations. Business operations were streamlined and restructured to meet the objective of reducing cost. In the midst of trying to reduce cost, businesses did not notice that the cost of technology was going haywire while the promised achievements of IT applications were not fully realized. Moreover, the deadline for project implementation had been moved several times already. This situation was given attention in a Computer World article entitled “CFO’s Cite Poor Alignment Between IT and Business”. The expenses for IT Business/IT alignment is an issue that has to be addressed to make IT enabled-business to achieve its goals. In a nutshell, there is business/IT alignment when the IT strategy supports the business strategy; the business strategy supports the IT strategy and the two strategies do not contradict each other (Thrasher, 2008).
3. Strategizing
Intuitively, our idea of strategy derives from military operations or business planning. One might be tempted to reach for the dictionary to get the meaning of strategy but this meaning is tentative at best. Nickols (2008) observed that “strategy means so many things to so many people that it is difficult to have a meaningful conversation about strategy unless you define your terms”.
Corporations also get a notion of strategy through certain formulas, such as, Citicorp Interaction Analysis, Boston Consulting Group matrix, Blue Ocean Strategy, General Electric/McKinsey Matrix. An examination of these strategy development methods might reveal that they are not attuned to the demands of information technology. The foregoing discussion highlighted that benchmarking and alignment are the important concepts in the management of IT resources. It should follow that IT strategy must address the concerns of benchmarking and alignment. Said differently, IT managers should base their strategy on the situation. The intense competition brought about by globalization and the current economic slowdown will continue to provide a challenging environment to American enterprise. Since risk cannot be avoided, strategic thinkers must adopt a strategy consistent with the principles of IT benchmarking and alignment of business and IT goals.
As corporations employ strategy to obtain value from IT investments, the limitations on strategizing must not be forgotten. Pukszta stressed that strategy may be limited by “unforeseen changes that are stimulated by the actions of competitors, customers, and suppliers” (Pukszta, 1998).
4. Business Perfomance
Wallgum reported that in “a survey of 158 organizations in February and March 2009, (…) Nearly 65 percent of respondents reported declines in employee productivity up from 58 percent in the 2008 survey” (Wallgum, 2009). Wallgum proceeded to report adverse effects on customer satisfaction and the company’s brand as a result of poor application performance from among the organizations in the survey.
The survey results should serve to emphasize the importance of business performance as an indicator of effective IT application performance.
Business performance can be evaluated in terms of IT benchmarking, alignment of IT and business goals and strategy. Planners must take into consideration those concepts as an integrated approach to understanding and aiming for excellent performance. The IT concepts could not be considered independently from each other. Following the foregoing precepts will result to better than expected performance. Taken together, the principles of IT action will justify the investment in IT to accomplish business goals.
The foregoing discussion gave more ground to benchmarking and alignment as these two concepts are considered the foundation of a robust IT philosophy. The formulation of strategy is the starting point that sets IT projects in motion. Strategy need not be fixed but must allow some flexibility to consider risk and unpredictable business environment. The role of business performance is to provide feedback on whether the IT project is on track or not.

References

Ambuhl, Charles and Bitterman, Michael. (2003-2007). IT Benchmarking: A Baseline For Improving Performance. Retrieved on August 31, 2009, from: http://www.rfgonline.com/events/highperformance.pdf

Benson, R. J., Bugnitz, T. L., & Walton, W. (2004). From Business Strategy to IT Action. John Wiley an Sons. Retrieved on August 31, 2009, from: http:books.google.com/books?id=2wYZbaKzuwAC&printsec=frontcover&dq=From+Business+Strategy+to+IT+Action

Nickols, Fred. (2008). Strategy is Execution. Retrieved on August 31, 2009, from: http://home.att.net/~nickols/strategy_is.htm

Pukszta, Helen. (1998). Limitations of Strategizing.
Retrieved on September 1, 2009 from: http://www.informationweek.com/712/12uwhp.htm;jsessionid=SXAYYPFUORYZ5QE1GHOSKH4ATMY32JVN

Wallgum, Thomas. (2009). Business to IT: Poor App Performance is Killing Us. Retrieved on August 31, 2009, from: http://advice.cio.com/thomas_wailgum/business_to_it_poor_app_performance_is_killing_us

CS832 Doctor Steven Reynolds Final Project

2009-10-23T19:30:00.002-05:00

IT STRATEGIC PLAN

By

Tai Cleveland

Class CS 832

Doctor Steven Reynolds

Week 11th assignment

Small businesses to large corporations prepare strategic plans to provide a workable

approach to the accomplishment of their vision and mission statements. Strategic plans

usually cover a time horizon as small as five years or as long as twenty years. Whatever

time horizon is covered, the aim is to identify the goals that a business will accomplish in

the next few years or the next several years. IT planners should ever be mindful that the

‘strategic’ part of the planning process is the continual attention to present changes in the

organization and its external environment, and how these could influence the future of the

organization (McNamara, 1997-2008, Introduction).

It appears that the trend in strategic planning is to identify a few outcome-oriented goals in order to provide focus and flexibility and to achieve better results. Outcome-oriented goals provide focus on achieving measurable results particularly on critical functions. It will be beneficial to the business to include related concerns in their strategic plans. Related concerns refer to strengthening partnerships and improved customer relations, improving accountability, improving performance and efficiency measures, resource assessment, to name a few examples.
Betz (2001) relates strategic plan to strategic vision as an approach applicable to information technology. He explained his idea in the following manner:
Strategy is used to mean change in direction, strategic vision to mean direction, and strategic plan to mean steps-in-a-direction. We need next to look carefully both at the concept of vision and the concept of plan. A strategic plan implements a strategy based upon a strategic vision (p. 222).

In the foregoing statement, strategic planning cannot exist by itself. It has to be coupled with strategic vision to have any meaning at all. Strategic vision will give life to the strategic plans since it provides direction. This is relevant during the implementation phase.
In information technology, strategic planning occupies a central thrust and would spell the difference between success and failure considering the typical huge investment accompanying technological innovation. The importance of strategic planning is underscored by the following vision of the Government of Jamaica (2002) in its five-year strategic information technology plan for the country:
Technology has transformed the traditional concept of value from that which is tangible, to that which is intangible. Information and knowledge are the currency of today’s economy. Rapid advances in telecommunications technology, giving rise to the “virtual office” mean that firms can outsource services anywhere in the world, as distances and time differences are now meaningless (Executive Summary, p. 8).

The foregoing quotation demonstrates the transformation of technology as a driver of economic progress. If nations show their reliance on information technology to chart their progress, no business, no matter how small, can leave their progress to mere chance. Management must exert their best effort to identify doable and measurable objectives.
Right from the start, the company should ensure broad representation in selecting members to the IT strategic planning team. The duty of the team is to develop vision, principles and goals for technology to help the company achieve its goals and a near perfect assessment of its technological capabilities. The strategic plan must provide a mechanism for identifying progress in the accomplishment of goals and for reflecting changes in the internal and external environment.
The National States Geographic Information (NSGI) Council (2006) pointed out that goal identification and formulation should also build partnerships to achieve common goals. This observation is relevant to information technology. The Council wrote:
A good strategic plan should provide a clear explanation of how one or more strategic goals are to be achieved by an organization or program. It typically outlines long-term goals and details the specific strategies and programmatic goals that are to be pursued.… Strategic planning is a critical element for articulating a shared vision, and for building the partnerships that are necessary for disparate organizations to work together on common goals. (p. 3)

The NSGI Council (2006) identified the key elements of the strategic plan. These are strategic goals, long term goals, details of strategies and building partnerships. The efforts of the Strategic Planning Team must be directed to the formulation of goals that are reflective of their information technology initiatives.
Having identified preliminary ideas on the need to formulate a strategic plan, the next step concerns just how strategic planning is conducted. There are several models available for the use of the planning team. One popular model used in planning is called SWOT Analysis. SWOT stands for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats. The analysis involves the identification and recording of the company’s strengths, weaknesses, available and potential opportunities and threats from such sources as competitors, equipment obsolescence, environmental conditions and the like. Strengths and weaknesses are related to the internal resources of the company while opportunities and threats consider factors external to the company. (Philipo, n.d.)
The classification of strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats should be related to particular objectives and the vision-mission statement of the business. The first order of the day is for the team to formulate the objectives for the business. If objectives are already identified beforehand, the team should revisit and review the objectives to see if it can be adopted as such or revised. The team should also revisit the company’s mission-vision statement.
The team leader assigns specific tasks to the members and the latter are advised to focus on IT related concerns. The team should also allocate time to gather research information, such as, the current inventory of computer equipment and IT personnel. It is advised that the conduct of SWOT analysis is better done under a workshop atmosphere than the usual office meeting. It would help if the team will be assisted by a facilitator. The facilitator will not be assigned any task like the other team members. His tasks are to assist the team members to be creative in their generation of ideas and to promote systematic documentation of the planning procedure.
It will be idealistic to presume that the planning will go smoothly. To be realistic, seldom does planning go along without any hitches. Planning consultants Strategic Plantool (2001-2009) suggests business planners to be on the lookout for causes of planning problems. It explained:
The underlying causes of strategic planning problems are seldom technical deficiencies in the planning process or the analytical approaches used. Instead, they are human and administrative in nature. (…) Managers tend to focus on short-term issues with near-term financial consequences rather than on the longer-term issues that should be addressed by strategic planning (para. 1).

The team leaders should always be on the lookout for complacency among team members. They should strive to address the first signs of planning problems as described above. In the end, the planning process will be efficient when planning problems are brought under control and minimized accordingly.
The writing of the IT strategic plan comes next and should occupy the same importance as the other planning activities. It would be a mistake if the writing activity would be relegated to some secondary function. It must be remembered that it is the written plan that gets to be read by the stakeholders and other concerned parties. The written plan serves to provide guidance as the business implements various IT projects. McNamara (1997-2008) suggests that the team leader designate a small number of people to write the draft. He discourages the use of an external facilitator or consultant to do the plan writing in behalf of the team members. The draft should be presented to the board of directors or senior management for review and approval. (McNamara, 2007-2008)
Heathfield (2009) wrote that strategic planning implementation is at the heart of how to make change of any kind happen in your organization (para 2). Heathfield also identified keys to successful implementation. These keys are:
► Full and active executive support
► Effective communication
► Employee involvement
► Thorough organizational planning and competitive analysis
► Widespread perceived need for the strategic planning

IT planners should consider these keys as early as the planning stage. These keys will give planners what they should prepare for when implementation time comes. The keys tell that strategic planning should involve everyone in the organization. Strategic planning cannot be the sole responsibility of one department or of management alone. There should be a culture of shared responsibility. The culture of shared responsibility is important during the implementation stage considering that it is everyone in the enterprise who is tasked to execute the strategic plans.
The statement of Betz (2001) on the connection of strategy to implementation is convincing. He wrote:
Strategy is about change in direction; and implementing strategy is about how to create change in that direction (…) Strategic changes require different kinds of strategic vision and the initiative to implement a vision. For implementation of strategy, a strategic vision can be expressed as a strategic initiative identifying the direction of change (p. 48).

Betz (2001) counsels that implementation should be done with a measure of strategy. In other words, the activities of strategic planning should be approached by explicit identification of the direction of change.
IT strategic planners should generate an implementation timeline to follow through on the planned change. The timeline need not be some complicated instrument. It could be as simple as enumerating the activities to be undertaken under a several time periods. Persons and specific teams who will implement the plan should be identified and their responsibilities fixed. There should also be back-up personnel just in case the assigned person will not be able to do his assigned task.
To be effective, management should create teams that will provide the needed expertise during implementation phase. A coordination team will ensure that strategic objectives are carried out by the several assigned persons and/or teams. A monitoring team can also be created that will have the task of assessing performance against the strategic plans. An effective reporting system must also be in place in order that deviations from plans can be detected early before it balloons to a difficult problem. There is also a need for a documentation officer who will be tasked to keep pertinent records of the implementation phase. The audit team can be utilized to check conformance of transactions to standards of performance. We can create such teams or assign such persons to meet the needs of the implementation phase; however, prudence should be exercised in the creation of teams as more teams might tax the span of control of management and hamper the implementation phase.
The foregoing discussion demonstrates that IT strategic planning could be completed successfully through the use of simple to understand principles that do not require any substantial financial exposure.

References

Betz, Frederick. (2001). Executive Strategy: Strategic Management and Information Technology. New York, U.S.A.: John Wiley and Sons, Inc.

Government of Jamaica. (March 2002). A 5-year strategic information technology plan for Jamaica. Retrieved on September 2, 2009, from: http://www.mct.gov.jm/GOJ%20IT%20Plan%20-%20Revised%20Version%20March%2020021.pdf

Heathfield, Susan, M. (2009). Make Strategic Planning Implementation Work. About.com. Retrieved on September 2, 2009, from: http://humanresources.about.com/od/strategicplanning1/a/implement_plan.htm

McNamara, Carter. (1997-2008). Developing your Strategic Plan. Authenticity Consulting, LLC. Retrieved on September 2, 2009, from: http://managementhelp.org/fp_progs/sp_mod/str_plan.htm

National States Geographic Information Council. (2006). Strategic Plan Template. Federal Geographic Data Committee. Retrieved on September 2, 2009, from: http://www.nsgic.org/hottopics/strategic_plan_template.pdf

Philipo. (n.d) How to Analyze Business Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats. Hub Pages, Inc. Retrieved on September 2, 2009, from: http://hubpages.com/hub/How-to-Analyze-Business-Strengths--Weaknesses--Opportunities-and-Threats

Strategic Plantool. (2001-2009). Strategic Plan: Major Steps, Traditional Planning Problems. Strategic Plan Builder, LLC. Retrieved on September 2, 2009, from: http://www.strategicplantool.com/Planning_Problems.htm

Week3 CS832 Doctor Steven Reynolds

2009-10-23T19:25:00.000-05:00

ALIGN YOURSELF TODAY
By
Tai Cleveland
Class CS832
Doctor Steven Reynolds
Due August 08th, 2009

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Title Page 1
Table of Contents 2
Align Yourself Today 3-5
Reference List 6

The continuing development of Information Technology (IT) within the concept of business and IT alignment is indeed a constant theme among business organizations. IT needs a special alignment with business as it serves as concealment for advertising products, consultancies, services, and analysis that afford a small value to the organization.
While it might be fitting to jump on the business competition, the truth is that IT does indeed need alignment with the business for other reasons. Making the right decisions and strategic planning are all part of the alignment bandwagon (R.J. Benson, et.al, 2004). No other function of the business in sales, finance, marketing, human resources, and manufacturing can so straightforwardly get out of a bind than IT. However, the business cannot verbalize the tongue of technology, and thus, alignment can be a problem. With the right decisions, a business is capable of meeting its technology-driven requirements with little or no delay and with as much accuracy as possible. Business managers apply strategic intentions in prioritization to provide benefit and boost competitiveness fast with as little latency as possible. The more an organization aligns itself, the more it will act in a harmonized fashion. In other words, application development services and more specifically, the functioning of application development and upkeep is very important for the success of any business unit.
Alignment will make it much simpler for the management team to thrust the organization in the path that is intended. In many cases, several organizations, even in this time of technology and management tools, are still trying to plot the course of change of change without a proper guidance system. Developing a plan, through the merged efforts of all apprehensive stakeholders, will present management with a crucial alignment tool it needs to have a successful alignment between organization goals and technological resources within the organization. The chief role of management will be to put across this plan in such a way that those drawn in not only fully realize the task at hand, but also to fully accept it (J. Stephenson).
It is generally considered that the general strategy has to be aligned with functions such as human resources management and information technology (J. Stephenson). This can entail a technology policy, depending on the organization’s needs. It is evident that even though IT has developed from its customary direction of managerial support, toward a more strategic role within an organization, there is still a deep-seated lack of established structures within which to recognize the potential of IT for future organizations. As a result, a vital factor for achieving the dynamic potential necessary in today's challenging business environment is not a particular set of complicated technological functionality but the organizational and management capabilities to control technology to build client confidence in the organization as well as distinguish it from competitors.
Indeed, alignment approaches may vary to solve the daily business challenges. Several of these approaches pivot on searching the most favorable way to appropriately characterize the needs of the business and promptly execute those needs such that results can easily be measured. Looking at this perspective, the role of IT alignment facilitates the problem solving concerns with technology-driven capabilities. To the degree that businesses are continuously shifting business needs, the endeavor is to assist alignment by removing the slow activities of development that basically gets in the way. This is also where making the right decisions come in. A proficient IT alignment set-up along with the right decisions will not only control on constructing and amplifying competency as the main focus, but will also help in giving more detailed solutions to detailed concerns.
Alignment should be an ongoing management issue. The ideal IT alignment should be about bringing into play the same rules for any management area. That means applying the basic principles for both business management and IT management with prioritization (R.J. Benson, et.al, 2004).
Also, business IT issues usually has a long term impact. Even if a business organization is entirely aligned at the moment, the business could have a problem later on. Systems and people follow the same sort of rules, but act differently. When businesses are dealing with an alignment issue, they should communicate the differences of different type of resources. Making the right decisions is all about communication and mutual acceptance. Decisions about managing the proper resources determine strongly how much should be used up in projects and lights-on (R.J. Benson, et.al, 2004).
When tackling the right decisions and prioritization plans, realizing the alignment of IT and business comes into play. Every computer project scheme should exhibit the economical cash flow of its planned business upgrading. A display of the ranges in risks will improve the integrity of the proposed endeavor. Executives must grasp that computer-related change in business processes are risky (P. Strassman, 1998).
IT alignment brings together the major forces of information technology and the visionary potential of top management. Business organizations can now “build strategic plans that will aid performance in the short run and build success for the long term” (J. Stephenson).

REFERENCES
Benson, R.J., Bugnitz, T. L. & Walton, W. (2004). From Business Strategy To IT Action.
John Wiley and Sons. Retrieved August 01, 2009, from
http://books.google.com/books?id=2wYZbaKzuwAC&printsec=frontcover&dq=From+Business+Strategy+to+IT+Action.

Brown, C. V. & Topi, H. (2003). IS Management Handbook. CRC Press.
Retrieved August 02, 2009, from
http://books.google.com/books?id=SS-K7RB3ZlcC&pg=PA2&dq=IT+alignment.

Lovelace, Herbert W. (1998 November 02). Align Yourself Today. Information Week.
Retrieved August 02, 2009, from
http://www.informationweek.com/707/07uwhl.htm;jsessionid=KXVZCJQ0GRXI3QE1GHPSKHWATMY32JVN.

Stephenson, J. Strategic Alignment - An Evolving Process. Ezine Articles.
Retrieved August 01, 2009, from
http://ezinearticles.com/?id=1443822.
Strassman, P. A. (1998 August). Alignment is The Delivery of the Required Results. The
Squandered Computer. Cutter IT Journal. Retrieved August 01, 2009, from
http://www.strassmann.com/pubs/alignment/.

WEEK4 Doctor Steven Reynolds

2009-10-23T19:23:00.001-05:00

FIVE STEPS TO AN EFFECTIVE STRATEGIC PLAN
By
Tai Cleveland
Class CS832
Doctor Steven Reynolds
Resubmit Week 4 assignment

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Title Page 1
Table of Contents 2
Five Steps to an Effective Strategic Plan 3-6
Reference List 7

Strategic planning processes are made to establish which forms of support an organization requires to meet its future needs. Indeed, most technologists convey doubt about anyone's capacity to exactly estimate which types of technology will be required ahead of the next two or three years. The impetus for strategic technology planning include aligning technology with other institutional priorities, disseminating knowledge about technology needs and constraints, building alliances with key decision-makers, lobbying for (and obtaining) financial and other resources, addressing existing technology needs, and keeping an eye on the leading edge (M. Ringle, et al., 1998).
Aligning technology with other institutional priorities
When strategic plans fail, organizations point fingers on the failure to tie technology to institutional mission and priorities, failure to get the right people on board, excessive focus on technical detail, or lack of suitable leadership (Ringle, et al., 1998).
In fact there are five steps in having an effective strategic plan. First of all, start with the organization’s planning vision. However, reading an organization’s strategic plans is not sufficient enough for strategizing. Having business authorities partaking in the planning process guarantees that security is headed towards the right course. Also, it helps a business get some knowledgeable and financial backing for their program. In reality, businesses have tight budgets and constraints on what they can and cannot do. An organization needs to goad these business folks that a security improvement is really in the best interest of the business, and that they are accepting to pay for it.
By viewing at the enhancements an organization wants to make over the next couple of years, they may be able to get business leaders to make a long-term investment to a particular project. If a certain department does not have budget to fund the project during the next year, a business organization possibly might be able to drag the group for the following year (S. Scalet, 2005).
Secondly, an organization should often do a risk assessment. As soon as an organization realizes what its priorities are, then they can determine which security risks might hinder the business in meeting important targets. Business authorities have to be coordinated in the planning process. Though sometimes it takes a security expert to truly secure and evaluate a risk assessment.
This security know-how can come in handy especially in the external affairs associated with a security department's strategic planning. In fact, those companies that long to be successful in the global marketplace have to be more cunning about handling all types of risks ranging from computer crashes, military coups to epidemics
The third step to an effective strategic plan is setting measurable goals for a team in the organization, to keep all the important plans sorted out and grounded. Once the management has done its research, it is time to begin combining the business risks and goals. Plus, an organization needs its strategy by merging the risks and company goals.
The company’s objectives should be priority and they can be simple as any as an organization would like it to. Some simple objectives are to improve security, decrease costs, and apply security to ascertain competitive advantage.
The strategy is merely the approach that an organization shall accomplish pertaining to those missions over the coming years. The further the plan goes, the less detailed it becomes. In addition, an organization may opt to divide a less-detailed strategy with the board of directors and have a more specific plan that they move within the security department. The ploy is looking beyond one’s business tactics for the next year and detailing out the important goals for the coming years.
However, there are things to make a business strategy work. One is that an organization has to ensure that every penny they are spending links with one of their objectives. In fact, it all boils down to a budget and a set of priorities and detailing the program that an organization is going to carry out in a given year (Scalet, 2005).
The other thing is that an organization has to find their IT metrics that can measure how well they meet their objectives over time. Yet, business leaders do not usually intimidate as easily as they used to.
The fourth step is recognizing that there is no correct time frame. There is always an argument about how far should a strategic plan look and executed. Actually, it depends that at least two years may be the outer limits of clear vision, especially during the preliminary phase of getting out of response mode.
There are certain factors why a business should not delve too much on time frames. An organization really cannot plan for everything since regulations can change legal requirements quickly, potential threats can emerge, and key vendors could be obtained.
To cope with these situations, an organization should set as much of a plan as possible for the next two years which contain specific goals and ways to achieve them. A business should also keep in mind the two-to-four-year time frame. Beyond that, though, it is wise to have the most high-level goals in mind.
Lastly, an organization should stay flexible at all costs. Actually, what's more important than how far out a company’s plan reaches is how flexible it can be in running it.
It can be difficult to make those preliminary steps to get a plan really off the ground, when an organization is attempting to keep on top of everything. But over time, the strategic planning process will get easier. Once the management gets it going, the plan only has to be rationalized, not formulated. It is all a part of the job.
And the more an organization shifts into a strategic mode, the more it buys itself time to concentrate on what is really necessary like building business value. In fact, there is often going to be some response, but by doing more planning up front, the management is going to set aside time to assist the business and do some of the things that they want to do.
Without strategic planning, an organization is on the hazy side of lurching from one challenge to another without a specific goal. Getting burdened by lengthy, complicated, and confused technology planning is one of the more costly and likely self-defeating practice an organization can undertake. It is tremendously easy to lose sight of the most significant objectives and become entangled in useless arguments about certain vendors, micro-standards, and platforms. However, there is an alternative. It is simply to make optimal use of time, energy, and resources for better understanding of the important differences between long-term strategic technology planning and short-term operational technology planning. It is essential to focus on process rather than document, and to devise mechanisms that enable funding, staffing, and other assets to be readily allocated and re-allocated, as circumstances require (Scalet, 2005).
REFERENCES
Allison, M. J. & Kaye, J. (2005). Strategic Planning for Nonprofit Organizations: A
Practical Guide and Workbook. John Wiley and Sons.
Retrieved August 22, 2009, from
http://books.google.com/books?id=0qSKfnIVLYC&pg=PA1&dq=startegic+planning#v=onepage&q=&f=false.

Bryson, J. M. & Alston, F. K. (2005). Creating and Implementing Your Strategic Plan.
John Wiley and Sons. Retrieved August 22, 2009, from
http://books.google.com/books?id=wJA1jzIAwb0C&dq=what+is+strategic+planning%3F&printsec=frontcover&source=in&hl=en&ei=qEKRSs3sH4yTkQW66dm7Cg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=13#v=onepage&q=&f=false.

Goodstein, L. D., Nolan, T. M. & Pfeiffer, J. W. (1993). Applied Strategic Planning: A
Comprehensive Guide. McGraw-Hill Professional.
Retrieved August 22, 2009, from
http://books.google.com/books?id=pYaqjHZHYNUC&pg=PA1&dq=startegic+planning#v=onepage&q=&f=false.
Ringle, M. & Updegrove, D. (1998). Is Strategic Planning for Technology an Oxymoron? Cause and Effect Journal. Retrieved August 22, 2009, from http://net.educause.edu/ir/library/html/cem/cem98/cem9814.html.
Scalet, S. D. (2005, July 01). Five Steps to an Effective Strategic Plan. CSO
Retrieved August 22, 2009, from
http://www.csoonline.com/article/220459/Five_Steps_to_an_Effective_Strategic_Plan?page=1.

Update CS832 Doctor Steven Reynolds

2009-10-23T19:15:00.002-05:00

IT BENCHMARKING AND IT BENCHMARKING

PERSPECTIVES

By
Tai Cleveland
Class CS832
Doctor Steven Reynolds
Resubmit Week2 assignment

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Title Page 1

Table of Contents 2

IT Benchmarking and IT Benchmarking Perspectives 3-6

Reference List 7

A benchmark is referred to a standard that can be measured or judged (W. M. Lankford). When it comes to IT (Information Technology) benchmarking, however, it compares certain technological factors of a product or service as opposed to traditional specifications. IT benchmarking presents a contained, repeatable outcome that determine an individual or a set of performance indicators (C. Ambuhl, et al., 2004).
The model IT benchmarking method is to systematize a group of companies in an industry to divide its data based on IT metrics. This method makes certain that companies achieve exact and extremely pertinent IT benchmarks at a reasonable cost. However, IT benchmarking is not an easy feat, particularly to organizations that are at a loss about how incorporate IT to benchmarking.
One perspective of IT benchmarking is the measurement of outcome, which addresses the gains accomplished from the implementation of a technology or an IT application. The capability to enhance an IT organization through determining and sustaining a performance baseline can offer momentous business results. These results include the cost savings, cost spending efficiency, recognizing the IT weaknesses and means to boost productivity, making the organization remain competitive, prioritizing IT opportunities for organizational growth, and developing practical IT goals and keeping track to fulfill these goals.
Indeed, an organization evolves in its own together with the annual plans, strategies, metrics, and everything else, as changes relate to different types of business. Having the aggressive benchmarking edge these days will compel an organization to its target without plummeting.
Basically, having an execution measurement through an organization’s scorecard would create its business plans to occur, and not stay as one measly dream (Ambuhl, et al., 2004).
Execution measurement of the outcome makes the companies pursue their chance factors in business. It applies both internal and external viable benchmarking and exploits a fitting flowing technique for goal execution and setting. This scorecard can now distinguish the accomplishments in the real setting, not in just the yearly business review. In measuring the outcome, the data measured must be accurate and current or timely Mard, M. J., 2004). The validity of the measurement is based on its ease and the issues ought to be tractable to their original causes. The whole database of the garnered outcomes or data is fundamentally basic to simply preserve their integrity. So, if a organization’s management team is in an objective scorecard advance and they partake in a considerable goal setting activity, the execution measurement can now prompt them to take on a higher achievement objective thus, outpacing the profit and evolution expectations.
The measurement of outcome in benchmarking is now an integral part of the established execution management advance. Still, an unclear management notion, measurement of outcome simply are the accomplishments of an IT implemented process that measures services, solutions, and other business practices as opposed to the most intricate competition. One of the perspectives of competitive benchmarking incorporates the building of other people's ideas to boost future execution with an IT application.
An organization can anticipate significant improvements when they compare their developments into having fine benchmarking practices. Prior to proceeding to the external competitive benchmarking, an organization should have considered the internal operations methodically with a proficient internal measurement system that is fully conclusively proved.
IT benchmarking perspectives are essential if an organization is facing increased competition in its industry sector. With higher demands on IT to align with the business, this type of perspective addresses the necessity to display economic value and the need to realize how competitive IT services are to optimize the delivery of IT services. Constructing an IT-based competitive advantage has become a major requirement. Ongoing IT benchmarking can guarantee that an organization’s IT investment is bringing the best value to the organization.
The IT benchmark has definitely progressed from just some comprehensive technology to a whole view of IT performance. The organization can be focused in one or a number of areas. These areas include peer and industry comparisons, customer satisfaction, business–IT process, IT effectiveness and value, and IT efficiency and cost (Ambuhl, et al., 2004).
Furthermore, when the measurement of outcome proves to be successful especially when incorporated with IT functions, cost and performance in benchmarking are easily managed IT. It enables an IT organization to evaluate their performance and costs to similar tasks or identifies opportunities for management improvement.
An organization’s level of effort will certainly rely on its measurement of outcome. They will notice how well organized the data is due to its IT implementation. Organizations that are well-ordered should not spend over two days per technology application for data collection and automated data entry (Ambuhl, et al., 2004).
The gains accomplished from having an IT application in business enable the company to have a more thorough understanding of their IT costs structure. There will be knowledge of which specific areas of performance to focus on in order to achieve the greatest gain. It also includes an establishment of critical key performance indicators that can be tracked in the future.
In fact, benchmarking does not only pertain to databases and number crunching. IT benchmarkers should be conscious of IT executive and staff time constraints (Ambuhl, et al., 2004). Compliance in data collection approaches is essential to total an exact benchmarking breakdown with low distraction to the organization. Indeed, IT benchmark perspectives go further than the relative tables that demonstrate many benchmarks. A successful IT benchmark is distinguished by litigable references to produce instant and long-term improvements.
The measurement of outcome calls for having a room for organizational improvement. If the demand for IT services continues to grow, the costs should also be taken into account. This IT benchmark perspective signifies the value of having an IT application within the organization which sparks a continuous effort undertaking. Indeed, aligning business with IT-based solutions has a potential impact to a thriving business.
IT benchmarking proves beneficial to a company. Even if benchmarking can be quite complex or simple, it supplies informative management solutions and promotes a spirit of collaboration and participation among employees and from indirect competitors. When an organization looks at IT benchmarking and its measurement of outcome, they go beyond their standard processes. IT benchmarking is crucial for organizations to center on anything that will impact its performance quality and value.
REFERENCES
Ambuhl, C. & Bitterman, M. (2004). IT Benchmarking A Baseline For
Improving Performance. Robert Frances Group and Experture.
Retrieved August 22, 2009, from
http://74.125.153.132/search?q=cache:UFQOQNN7cNIJ:www.rfgonline.com/events/highperformance.pdf+IT+Benchmarking&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk.

Lankford, W. M. Benchmarking: Understanding the Basics. The Coastal Business
Journal. Retrieved August 21, 2009, from
http://docs.google.com/gview?a=v&q=cache:s7cwuE4MvzkJ:www.coastal.edu/business/cbj/pdfs/benchmark.pdf+strategic+benchmarking&hl=en.

Mard, M. J., Dunne, R. R. & Osborne, E. (2004). Driving Your Company's Value:
Strategic Benchmarking For Value. John Wiley and Sons.
Retrieved August 21, 2009, from
http://books.google.com/books?id=frqSKIgoJwC&printsec=frontcover&dq=strategic+benchmarking#v=onepage&q=&f=false.

McManus, L. & Eloff, J.H.P. Using IT Benchmarking Principles To Design
Information Security Benchmark Model. ICSA Research Group.
Retrieved August 22, 2009, from
http://docs.google.com/gview?a=v&q=cache:6PTvtFZiwDYJ:icsa.cs.up.ac.za/issa/2006/Proceedings/Full/100_Paper.pdf+IT+Benchmarking&hl=en

Obloj, K., Cushman, D. P. & Kozm, A. K. (1995). Winning: Continuous Improvement
Theory in High-performance Organizations. SUNY Press.
Retrieved August 22, 2009, from
http://books.google.com/books?id=3HNS0eDmF38C&pg=PA115&dq=strategic+benchmarking&lr=#v=onepage&q=strategic%20benchmarking&f=false.

Class CS822 Doctor Lance

2009-05-09T23:51:00.002-05:00

Systems Analysis and Design

Tai Cleveland

In planning a system project for an entire enterprise or for a small departmental system, both cases include basic considerations. Planning an enterprise-wide system project, however, is different from planning a small departmental system in terms of additional factors as discussed in the following. The basic considerations include: (a) the specific data that need to be migrated into the new system; (b) the duration as well as the specific dates when data needs to be migrated into the new system; (c) the process by which data templates are to be developed; (d) how to “freeze” the current tools during migration of data; (e) technologies and other structures necessary to support the migration into the new system; and (f) the process of archiving data as it is transferred into the new system. Other considerations include the resources available for the system projects, as well as the personnel availability and proficiency in using the new system (Monk & Wagner, 2009).
In the case of an enterprise-wide system project, it is important to note that entire organization would involve a variety of units, with each unit having its own needs, capacities and limits. For instance, the HR department would need functionality that would address its needs in managing human resources or employees, as well as in recruitment processes. The HR department would have the capacity to have high proficiency and flexibility in adopting the new system, but would be limited in terms of actual know-how in using the new system and related technologies. In contrast, the IT department would need functionality that is highly suitable to technology proficient members. In relation, the IT department would have the capacity to readily accommodate the new system because of the knowledge and high proficiency of the department in using technologies. However, the IT department would be limited in terms of management of human resources as the department shifts or migrates towards using the new system. In this regard, the differences between departments would determine how the enterprise-wide system is to be planned and implemented. More importantly, in planning for an enterprise-wide system project, another major consideration is the way the various organizational units are connected with each other. This pertains to the structure of the organization. For instance, each department would be connected to other departments in a unique way. This means that the channels through which communications or data transfers are made between departments vary, depending on the departments involved. As a result, planning for an enterprise-wide system would require examination of the relationships among entities within the organization.
On the other hand, in planning for a smaller departmental system, the major considerations are limited to the basic consideration enumerated earlier. Aside from this, planning for a smaller departmental system does not require consideration of the differences among organizational units. It also does not require much consideration of how organizational units are interconnected, since the system would be limited within the bounds of the department. In addition, an aspect that makes the smaller departmental system significantly different from the enterprise-wide system is the availability of resources. It should be noted that, while the enterprise-wide system can be supported by resources of the entire organization, the smaller departmental system can be supported only by the limited resources of the department. In some cases, the department may be provided additional resources, but only after much deliberation by other organizational units, such as the Finance Department.
Overall, the depth and complexity of planning an enterprise-wide system project is considerably different from a simpler and more focused smaller departmental system. Planning for an enterprise-wide system requires examination of the needs, capacities and limits of the entire organization, while planning for a smaller departmental system requires focused consideration of the department only.

References
Monk, E., & Wagner, B. (2009). Concepts in Enterprise Resource Planning, 3rd ed. Boston, MA: Course Technology Cengage Learning.

Week3

Review and Summary 1

REVIEW AND SUMMARY

Review and Summary

In APA Style

Tai Cleveland

Review and Summary 2

Tai Cleveland 25 January 2009

Authors: Tom L. Roberts Jr., Michael L. Gibson, Kent T. Fields, and R. Kelly Rainer Jr.

Title: Factors that Impact Implementing a System Development Methodology

Source: 640 IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON SOFTWARE ENGINEERING, VOL. 24, NO. 8,
AUGUST 1998

Keywords: information systems (IS), systems development manager (SDM), Computer Aided Software Engineering (CASE), business modeling

Key Points:
• Importance of SDM in Organizations

• The Survey Questionnaire and Analysis of Information Gathered

• Five Factors in Implementing SDM

Detailed Overview: This article presents the outcomes of a study of more than sixty existing companies in the U.S. in order to distinguish the aspects that would affect application of a system development methodology (SDM). Moreover, this research utilizes a survey tool that can identify the implementation factors of SDM. The concentration of this survey is on the how functional managers, information system managers, system personnel, and external consultants view this subject matter. A thorough analysis of five essential factors in SDM application that were results of the survey/study was implemented. The outcomes are significant for all researches and practitioners of SDM.
SDM are the answer to the problem that IS managers are facing. It is difficult to offer a concise and sure definition for SDM since there are too many as there are kinds of them. Support tools have cropped up to aid in the application and implementation of SDM and articles written about them are more aimed at informing rather than being intensely methodical. Researchers and
Review and Summary 3

practitioners alike have been using SDM extensively and majority of reports say that it has improved entities greatly by addressing internal problems and conflicts.
Furthermore, this article talks about how a study was conducted among experts in the field and whose outcomes and information gathered were used to design the survey tools. Over-all, the article describes how the five essential factors in implementing SDM came about. Using the survey results, the authors were able to produce a concise description of the methodologies and the instruments that paved the way in making viable conclusions.
Entities who are implementing SDMs find the transition from the old to the new burdensome yet those who persevere always reap a good harvest, so to speak. This study is very useful for organizations that are still planning to implement and SDM or just starting up with one. This is a very effective guideline as many questions that would be raised are being addressed here. More importantly, this study proves to contain all the basic information that are needed to start and nurture existing SDMs.

What didn't the paper say or include? Although the paper was very thorough and concise in its presentation of the procedures in coming to a conclusive report, it would have been more interesting to know the historical background or the propagators of SDM. Readers might want to know of its origins and its evolution (if there is any).
How would you rate the paper?
Readability 7
Quantity and Quality of references 9
Contribution to the field 8
Personal Interest 7

If you could ask the author(s) one question, what would you ask?

If SDM proves to be advantageous to any organization, why are some not implementing any?
Reference

Roberts Jr, T. L., Gibson, M. L., Rainer Jr, R. K., & Fields, K. T. (1998). Factors that Impact Implementing a System Development Methodology. IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering. 24 (8), 640.

Week5

Article Summary and Review

Tai Cleveland

,

Professor: _ _ _ _ _

January 27, 2009

Tai Cleveland
January 27, 2009
Author(s): Ranganathan, C., & Brown, C. V.
Title: ERP Investments and the Market Value of Firms: Toward an Understanding of Influential ERP Project Variables.
Source: Information Systems Research, 17, (2), pp. 145-161.
Date of Publication: June, 2006
Keywords: enterprise resource planning; ERP; business value; planning system; IT system; information systems; business information system; business impact; business IT project; system project; project scope; IT investment; IT business value; business value.
Key Points:
• Through an organization integration lens that examines not just ERP projects made by the companies, but also other related investments complementary to the ERP projects, and through options thinking logic, ERP investments have varying potential advantage to business at the firm level.
• Variation in potential advantage is mainly because of differences in decisions on the ERP projects within the organizational context at the time the investment was made.
• ERP investments with higher functional scope lead to positive and higher returns.
• ERP investments with high physical scope lead to positive and higher returns.
• Negative returns were actually observable in ERP investments that have lower functional scope or lower physical scope.
• Other investments can positively contribute to the positive impact of ERP projects.
Detailed Overview:
The article discusses the effects of enterprise resource planning (ERP) projects on business organizations. The study examines the cases of actual companies that have implemented ERP projects. The authors, Ranganathan and Brown, indicate that the study is important because it contributes to existing literature on the importance of ERP projects in business. It is important to note that the study’s main focus is the firm level, where the effects of ERP investments are examined. The authors used an organization integration lens that examines not just ERP projects made by the companies, but also other related investments complementary to the ERP projects. The authors also used options thinking logic in examining the value of ERP. Through this logic, the authors argue that the ERP investments have varying potential advantage to business at the firm level. Such variation is mainly because of differences in decisions on the ERP projects within the organizational context at the time the investment was made.
The authors examined 116 cases of ERP investments, as announced by US-based 116 companies in the period 1997 through 2001. Upon analysis, it is shown that (a) ERP investments with higher functional scope lead to positive and higher returns; and (b) ERP investments with high physical scope lead to positive and higher returns. The authors indicate that functional scope includes such aspects as supply chains, while physical scopes include the number of sites at which the investment is made within the organization. Aside from this, it is also shown that negative returns were actually observable in ERP investments that have lower functional scope or lower physical scope. Also, other investments can positively contribute to the positive impact of ERP projects.
The authors conclude that the benefits of ERP systems in organizations can vary, depending on decisions made regarding such aspects as functional scope and physical scope. Also, complementary investments can increase the returns of ERP investments. Overall, at the firm level, the impact of ERP investments varies depending on such factors.
The paper did not include discussions on the limits and possible errors made in the study. These could have provided for a more realistic view the study. I would rate the paper as follows.
• Readability: 8
• Quantity and Quality of references: 8
• Contribution to the field: 9
• Personal Interest: 8
If given the chance, I would ask the author this: How extensive is the negative impact of contemporary investments on ERP investments?

Reference
Ranganathan, C., & Brown, C. V. (2006, June). ERP Investments and the Market Value of Firms: Toward an Understanding of Influential ERP Project Variables. Information Systems Research, 17, (2), pp. 145-161.

Week6

Running Head: Interactions between IS Professionals

Interaction quality between IS professionals and users:
Impacting Conflict and Project Performance

Your Name: _____________________________________ Date: _____________
Authors: Eric T. G. Wang, Henry H.G. Chen, James J. Jiang, Gary Klein
Title: Interaction quality between IS professionals and users: impacting conflict and project performance
Source: Wang, E., Chen, H. Jiang, J. et. al., (2005). Interaction quality between IS professionals and users: impacting conflict and project performance. Journal of Information Science, 31 (nd), 273-282. doi: 10.1177/0165551505054169.
Keywords: interaction, information system, project management, stakeholders’ working relationships
Keypoints:
• The link between the IS professional and the user of the system does not imply the success of the project
• Conflicts on the external and internal relationship in the system matter, and this is found to be affecting the interaction quality is such a negative way.
• In order to address the effects of this conflict, the organization should look up to these conflicts, so as to attain project goals.
Detailed Overview:
The paper discusses the effects of conflict on the IS professionals and its end users. a good number of studies were done in order to deduce facts that lead them to the conclusion. at the end of the study, the authors of the study found out that the interaction between he IS system and the user of the plan does not dictate the success of the project. Conflicts are regarded as independent entities which have nothing to do with the results. Likewise, the conflicts experienced by the project team leaders are independent to that of the users' and the project team members. Having the idea that these conflicts are mutually exclusive; the organization should find it vital to monitor interactions and stakeholders' relationship within different projects, since this will contribute to the success rate of the development project.
What didn’t the paper say or include?
The authors of the article have included a lot of concept discussing management of the people in the workplace, as well as the roots of the possible conflicts that may arise.
May I suggest that the author include psychological explanations of the mentioned conflicts? The concept of psychoanalysis will facilitate the more effective management of the team members, the leaders and the users as well. It is in the study of the dynamics of the brain that the managers can very well motivate the workers to work and result to effective development plans. Given that psychology is the study of how the brain works, how the human thinks, it is always included in the introduction to management course back in the undergraduate curriculum.
Rating: 7 (It has very well expounded the ideas regarding the topic)
Readability: 8 (it is quite of high bracket, which is just appropriate since it targets the graduate studies)
Quantity and Quality of references 7
Contribution to the field 8
Personal Interest 7 (I really am into this field of study. This is kind of a fresh topic that had attracted my attention)
Questions for the author:
1. What brought you to the idea of the topic? Any experience? Field of interest? Or line of job you are into?
2. What have you found interesting upon accomplishing this article?
3. Are you on a further research to improve the currently available information about this topic?

References:
Wang, E., Chen, H. Jiang, J. et. al., (2005). Interaction quality between IS professionals and users: impacting conflict and project performance. Journal of Information Science, 31 (nd), 273-282. doi: 10.1177/0165551505054169.

Week 8

Week8_Testing and Documentation

Testing Tips for Controls 2X – Version 2

These suggestions are for completing BSA Testing for Controls 2.X and do not include all possible scenarios.

Control 2.1

General notes: For mainframe access, supply your high level application code (aka tech guide prefix, e.g. FL*, OI*, etc.) and the production frame to Information Security (Tim Mathis) and request a RACF listing of entities with WRITE or ALTER access to your program code, files, databases and other objects your application owns on the frame.

Test Step A Part 1: Review the listing(s) you receive, and note all generic or group sign-on ids with access to your objects, such as CRIS, OPER, NGL2, or any APA IDs. Document all of the people and/or processes which can log on to these userids. This will be part of your testing evidence.

Your evidence sheets also should include part or all of this listing and a written explanation. If it is too many pages (more than 25), you can include the first couple of pages and an excerpt showing some of your objects.

Make it easy on yourself -- make sure you circle, underline and label the appropriate call-outs. Remember that your evidence sheets will ultimately be reviewed by non-IT, non-JCPenney people, and they must be able to clearly understand exactly what they are reading.

Test Step A Part 2: If you use Endevor to store your source code, link to http://jweb.jcpenney.com/infosys/infosc/compliance/soxaudit.htm and scroll to the bottom of the page. You will see two links for Endevor Information. The first link contains a master listing of Endevor libraries, and the second link contains tips on reading the Endevor listing and locating the access listing for your application. Your testing show follow the same pattern as you used in Part 1, and your evidence sheets should be similar as well.

Test Step B: From a listing of members in your own security group (you can find this through SANS), randomly select five (5) individuals, and verify that they are current associates or contractors. You can verify their status either through Associate Lookup or through SANS. A screen print of each associate’s information will serve as sufficient evidence.

Control 2.2

General notes: Most applications authenticate using MPAS and/or NSP, which enforce the password security policies located at http://jweb/infosys/infosc/polpronew/gen/pass-s.html. These policies require a password to be a minimum length, contain both alpha and numeric characters, and be changed every 45 days.

Test Step A: This test step is mostly related to server access and database access by IT developers “outside” of the application; it does not include a test of the access a user has. If your application is on a server for which your group does not have administrative access, state so on your testing template, and indicate who does have administrative access. If your servers are maintained by Tech Services, for example, include a reference to the Tech Services Control Roadmap for further information regarding server administration. “Administrative access” means that you have access to the server or database under an administrative id other than your own userid.

Do you have administrative access to a server or database through an administrative id that is not your own userid? Do you have a database (SQL or other) which has its own security? Do you have access to a UNIX server? AS400? Tandem? These are authentication situations which are not handled through MPAS or NSP. Do you maintain your own table of developers who can access and modify your application code or objects? How do you authenticate? If you operate on a platform that is not provisioned through MPAS, how do you enforce the password change policies? Do you have unique userids that can be traced to an individual?

If your application uses only userids and passwords administered through MPAS or NSP, indicate that on your response.

Test Step B: This test step relates to application access. As with Test Step A, this test is for “IT developer only” access to the application on production or staging platforms/servers/frames. This test has no concern whatsoever for the user’s access. Can you change production or staging data, application code, objects from outside the application? Ask the same questions from Test Step A, and document your answers.

Control 2.3

Test Step A is directed toward the issue of developers being in very large security groups which support a broad array of resources, resulting in developers having base (or default) access to resources not required for their job function.

Test Step B attempts to verify that access permission was granted by the resource owner when access to that resource was not granted as a default.

These instructions assume that access to your resource is managed through the SANS system. Due to the variation in systems design within the Company, these steps may not be suitable for your application.

**NEW** For this control your sample group should be limited to associates who transferred into your security group during fiscal 2006. If your resource is managed by SANS, you will be able to retrieve the SANS request; however, SANS is not the only method of requesting/granting access.

Test Step A: To complete this step, access SANS and select the help screen that lists BASE access for your security group. Locate the resource item(s) for your application. Then access the help screen that lists Security Group members, and get the list for your security group (do not limit it to a specific AOR or unit). Randomly select five (5) users and verify that they should, in fact, have access to your resource.

Test Step B: Contact Information Security (Tim Mathis) to request a listing of all users with “on-request” access to your resource items(s); this/these will be the same item(s) you used in Test Step A. Choose 5 users randomly from the list and locate documentation that permission was granted by the resource owner for those users to have access to that resource. Permissions documentation may be in the form of an email you sent, or which may have been sent to you through the SANS system. Recent SANS requests have an audit trail; contact Information Security to request a copy of the approval documentation for each of the 5 individuals.

Control 2.4

This control is specifically testing system administrator privileges (related to operating system access). Does anyone in your group have this type of privilege on the mainframe? Unix? AS400? Tandem? Servers? Others? Document all individuals who do and what level of access they have. Verify that this type of access is necessary and appropriate for each individual listed. If your servers are administered by Tech Services, your response should note that fact and should reference their Control Roadmap.

This control is different than Control 2.2A and 2.2B, which reviewed the password security policies for access. This control reviews the validity of the users’ access.

Control 2.5

This control is similar to Control 2.4, except that it refers to developers with powerful administrative access to databases and applications. Mainframe access to DB2-type resources will be limited to Stan Mann’s group, and your documentation can reflect the fact that you do not have access to any high-level SYSADM-type ids. Other platforms, such as Oracle, are frequently maintained by the developers, and individuals with this type of access should be documented in a list and reviewed to determine whether or not access is still appropriate. Any limitations or controls that are in place to restrict access or use of these ids should also be documented.

Week 7

Week 7
Tai Cleveland Date: February 22nd, 2009
Authors: Mark I. Hwanga, Ron G. Thorn
Title: The effect of user engagement on system success: A meta-analytical
integration of research findings
Source: Elsevier Science B.V

Keywords: User involvement; User participation; System success; Meta-analysis; Organizational impact; Information System; Controversial areas in information system; User engagement;

Key Points:
• There are quite a number of studies that focused on the involvement of user engagement to system success, but empirical results have been found controversial and inconsistent.
• Inconsistencies lie on the theoretical foundation of system success and user involvement and participation, and on the methodologies that were used in the research studies.
• Meta-analysis is commonly used to integrate the results of two or more studies. This method also reduces sampling errors that were made in the studies in order to give a more accurate summary of the literature. Meta-analysis is used in this research to show the effect of user engagement on system success.
• User engagement is positively correlated with system success.

Detailed Review:
This study aims to find out the effect of user engagement on system success. There are numerous studies already that focus on this subject, but the authors find the results of independent researches inconsistent with one another. With this problem at hand, the researchers try to give more accurate results by using meta-analysis, a method that is used to integrate the results of several studies. Reviews have been made to point out the differences between the empirical results of the researches that deal with user engagement and system success. The biggest contribution that this study could offer is that it intends to make sense of the inconsistencies that are revealed in the previous literature.
The process of meta-analysis brings the outcome of a number of researches together, and gives a more concrete picture how user participation and user involvement can affect system success. Results show that the user engagement is definitely positively correlated with system success, despite the apparent differences of individual studies involved. However, there are still many untapped areas in this subject, and it is recommended that further researches look into the moderation of different variables used in the study.

What didn't the paper say or include?
The paper did not give a clear picture of the theoretical foundations of user engagement in the context of system success, which may confuse the first-time reader of what the study is all about. The methodological parts used in the paper were not given in detail as well. The authors could have given the scope of their study. Although meta-analysis sounds attractive as a tool of integrating the results of several studies, the authors were not able to justify why they picked the studies that they used, and how is it possible to correlate the results of different studies given that they have different theoretical background.

How would you rate the paper?
Readability 8
Quantity and Quality of references 7
Contribution to the field 6
Personal Interest 6
Overall, I find the paper easy to read. It can be easily understood by someone who would read it the first time. However, I don’t feel that the paper gave justification to their conclusions, hence the relatively low scores in contributions to the field.

If you could ask the author(s) one question, what would you ask?
What are the criteria that you used in choosing the studies that you involve in your research?

Week8 Article Review

Week8 Article Review
Tai Cleveland Date: March 01st, 2009
Authors: Jane Coughlan, Mark Lycett, Robert D. Macredie
Title: Communication issues in requirements elicitation: a content analysis
of stakeholder experiences
Source: Elsevier Science B.V. 2003

Keywords: Communication; Requirements elicitation; Content analysis; Stakeholder experiences; System development; Stakeholder participation;

Key Points:
• This is a pioneer study grounded upon the theoretical foundation of communication concerns in the gathering of stakeholder requirements
• Requirements elicitation among stakeholders exists in a highly complex social/technical environment which leads it to become a very communicative process. Communication issues are built upon this type of environment.
• This study is an offshoot of previous research studies that were made to analyze the communication process within a social context. It adapts the four-dimensional framework that used previously to present and analyze their data
• The study is limited to a small number of sample size, and the framework used is still in its infancy
• Each dimension (i.e. stakeholder selection and participation, stakeholder interaction, communication activities, techniques) of communication has an equal importance in the process of communication in requirements eliciting
Detailed Review:

Requirements elicitation (RE) among stakeholders is both continuous and crucial in system development. It involves a very complex communication process, the nature of which is highly vulnerable to errors. This is due to the fact that stakeholders are subject to both the behavioral and technical aspects of requirement elicitation, and therefore must maintain the balance between the two. Having the need to undergo a complex process, the users involved in requirement elicitation must then be subject to a communicative and continuous process, which could then become a strong foundation of the repetitive RE process. The purpose of this paper is to point out highly problematic areas involved in the communications process.
The researchers used interview to acquire data from business consultants and project managers of several companies. The questions cover a broad area of the communication process in RE. Then they categorized the information that they gathered, and presented it in a four-dimensional framework: Dimension 1: Stakeholder1 participation and selection; Dimension 2: Stakeholder interaction; Dimension 3: Communication activities; and Dimension 4: Techniques. These comprise the dedicated structure of activities performed during the requirements process as part of engaging stakeholders in the design process.
The researchers used a highly qualitative approach to their study, which they claimed made up for the lack of a large number of participants. They claimed that this approach gave a more in-depth insight to the issue. The results of this study show that communication process is highly thematic, and themes can be further grouped into different categories. Each of these categories, however, is of equal importance to the entire process itself.

What didn't the paper say or include?
The paper is highly theoretical and qualitative. It lacks empirical data to support the conclusions and interpretations of the data. Also, the paper is limited to the small sample size, which I think is not representative of the entire population.

How would you rate the paper?
Readability 6
Quantity and Quality of references 7
Contribution to the field 7
Personal Interest 6
The paper is a bit draggy and confusing, especially in the first part. It does not immediately point out the problem.

If you could ask the author(s) one question, what would you ask?
I understand that this study breaks down the communication issues in different categories so that it can easily point out problematic areas. Given that, how can you translate your results to one concrete problem that may be looked upon in future research studies?

Week 9 Article

Week 9
Tai Cleveland Date: March 08th, 2009
Author(s): Steven J. Simon, Varun Grover, James T. C. Teng, Kathleen Whitcomb
Title: The Relationship of Information System Training Methods and Cognitive Ability to
End-user Satisfaction, Comprehension, and Skill Transfer: A Longitudinal Field Study
Source: Simon, S. J., Grover, V., Teng, J.T.C., & Whitcomb, K. (1996). The Relationship of Information System Training Methods and Cognitive Ability to End-user Satisfaction, Comprehension, and Skill Transfer: A Longitudinal Field Study. Information Systems Research. Vol. 7, No. 4, Series 471
Keywords: Lewin Experimental Leaming Model, Kolb's Learning Model, traditional and nontraditional training techniques
Key Points:
 Comparison of traditional and nontraditional training techniques in computer related training
 Analysis of trainees’ performance outcomes, end-user satisfaction, cognitive ability and system use on both traditional and nontraditional training techniques
Detailed Overview:
As an essential factor for the success of decision support systems, the effectiveness of training techniques can greatly augment the maximum outcome performance of the trainees. Using the Lewin Experimental Learning Model and Kolb's Learning Model as framework, a field experiment was conducted to two hundred members of active duty U.S. Naval Construction Battalion to compare the effectivity of traditional and nontraditional training techniques
with regard to computer related training. The experiment also aimed to determine which of the two training methods provided maximum trainee's retention of material and transfer
of learning.
The trainees underwent lectures/instructions, independent study or exploration and behavior modeling as nontraditional technique being an enhanced combination of the other two methods. To test the effectivity of the two training methods, the trainees were evaluated prior to training, immediately after the training and four weeks after the training in terms of performance outcomes, end user satisfaction. The study utilized cognitive ability and system use as covariates.
Results of the experiment revealed that trainees who underwent hands-on training methods particularly behavior modeling have superior knowledge retentions, transfer of learning and end-user satisfaction. Meanwhile, the cognitive ability was not able to properly predict the success of the trainee. However, it can be noted that system use, training methodology and end-user satisfaction has a direct link on the trainees’ performance outcome.
What didn't the paper say or include?
The paper did not include the trainees change in behavior pertaining to computers or computer related anxiety. As novice computer users, there could have been a number of stumbling blocks on the trainees attitudes that they were able to hurdle as they undergo the training process.
How would you rate the paper?
Readability 7
Quantity and Quality of references 8
Contribution to the field 8
Personal Interest 9
If you could ask the author(s) one question, what would you ask?
What extent does traditional and nontraditional training technique affect the trainees’ performance results and computer usage over time?

Week 10 Article

Week10
Tai Cleveland Date: March 15th, 2009
Author(s): Demosthenes Akoumianakis and Constantine Stephanidis
Title: Building Consensus in Human–Computer Interaction Design: Integrated Activity-Oriented
Design Environments
Source: Akoumianakis, D & Stephanidis, C (2005). Building Consensus in Human–Computer Interaction Design: Integrated Activity-Oriented Design Environments. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc. International Journal of Human–Computer Interaction, 18(1), 85–103
Keywords: activity-oriented design environments (AODE), human–computer interaction (HCI), alternative design perspectives
Key Points:
 Prominent designs of human–computer interaction (HCI)
 Activity-oriented design environments (AODE) as proposed design support tools to facilitate increasing complexity of HCI
 Need for integrated design platforms that ensure interoperation between
design perspectives, tools used, and corresponding outcomes.
 Sharing of experience on the Activity-oriented design environments (AODE) proposal
Detailed Overview:
Activity-oriented design environments (AODE) design was proposed to augment the increasingly complex nature of human–computer interaction (HCI) design. The principle of AODE is that there is no specific tool category that will best suit the wide range of design tasks and that there are various tools that can be consolidated in operable manner to augment different tasks. As an integrated design platform of, AODE ensures interoperation between tools used, design perspectives and respective results.
Based on the author’s experience, AODE aimed to facilitate accessible HCI design revealed that such environment should be consolidated systems of interoperable components that served as conduit across different problem-solving schemes, the people that use them and the tools that serve them. Hence, the different data can receive and transmit data from one another to support the gamut of activities via progressive and persistent computational protocol.
Hence, the proposal of AODE and similar proposals should be designed within a wider organization change in perspective to replace the current passive documentation and reproduction design into more active mechanisms.
What didn't the paper say or include?
The paper did not include any setbacks that the authors encountered during their experience with the activity-oriented design environments (AODE) proposal.
How would you rate the paper?
Readability 8
Quantity and Quality of references 7
Contribution to the field 8
Personal Interest 7
If you could ask the author(s) one question, what would you ask?
What quantitative parameters did the author explored in designing the AODE proposal?

Week5 Article

Week5 Article Summary and Review
Tai Cleveland February 08th, 2009
Author(s): Ranganathan, C., & Brown, C. V.
Title: ERP Investments and the Market Value of Firms: Toward an Understanding of Influential ERP Project Variables.
Source: Information Systems Research, 17, (2), pp. 145-161.
Date of Publication: June, 2006
Keywords: enterprise resource planning; ERP; business value; planning system; IT system; information systems; business information system; business impact; business IT project; system project; project scope; IT investment; IT business value; business value.
Key Points:
• Through an organization integration lens that examines not just ERP projects made by the companies, but also other related investments complementary to the ERP projects, and through options thinking logic, ERP investments have varying potential advantage to business at the firm level.
• Variation in potential advantage is mainly because of differences in decisions on the ERP projects within the organizational context at the time the investment was made.
• ERP investments with higher functional scope lead to positive and higher returns.
• ERP investments with high physical scope lead to positive and higher returns.
• Negative returns were actually observable in ERP investments that have lower functional scope or lower physical scope.
• Other investments can positively contribute to the positive impact of ERP projects.
Detailed Overview:
The article discusses the effects of enterprise resource planning (ERP) projects on business organizations. The study examines the cases of actual companies that have implemented ERP projects. The authors, Ranganathan and Brown, indicate that the study is important because it contributes to existing literature on the importance of ERP projects in business. It is important to note that the study’s main focus is the firm level, where the effects of ERP investments are examined. The authors used an organization integration lens that examines not just ERP projects made by the companies, but also other related investments complementary to the ERP projects. The authors also used options thinking logic in examining the value of ERP. Through this logic, the authors argue that the ERP investments have varying potential advantage to business at the firm level. Such variation is mainly because of differences in decisions on the ERP projects within the organizational context at the time the investment was made.
The authors examined 116 cases of ERP investments, as announced by US-based 116 companies in the period 1997 through 2001. Upon analysis, it is shown that (a) ERP investments with higher functional scope lead to positive and higher returns; and (b) ERP investments with high physical scope lead to positive and higher returns. The authors indicate that functional scope includes such aspects as supply chains, while physical scopes include the number of sites at which the investment is made within the organization. Aside from this, it is also shown that negative returns were actually observable in ERP investments that have lower functional scope or lower physical scope. Also, other investments can positively contribute to the positive impact of ERP projects.
The authors conclude that the benefits of ERP systems in organizations can vary, depending on decisions made regarding such aspects as functional scope and physical scope. Also, complementary investments can increase the returns of ERP investments. Overall, at the firm level, the impact of ERP investments varies depending on such factors.
The paper did not include discussions on the limits and possible errors made in the study. These could have provided for a more realistic view the study. I would rate the paper as follows.
• Readability: 8
• Quantity and Quality of references: 8
• Contribution to the field: 9
• Personal Interest: 8
How extensive is the negative impact of contemporary investments on ERP investments?

Reference
Ranganathan, C., & Brown, C. V. (2006, June). ERP Investments and the Market Value of Firms: Toward an Understanding of Influential ERP Project Variables. Information Systems Research, 17, (2), pp. 145-161.

CS820

2008-12-24T11:42:00.001-06:00

Final Project

Usability and Interaction Project

By

Tai Cleveland

CS820

Doctor Cynthia Calongne

Link to Web site UAV Project

http://www.geocities.com/taicleveland/CS820.htm

1 INTRODUCTION
1.1 Scope
This paper will include the important phase of the overall product design by usability testing wherein subjects or specifically the users were asked to take survey questions in a set time. The focus will be on how well the users perform and interact between human and a UAV Technology. In this case, the participants will have to be determined and set in order to establish a conclusive result. In the course of the testing, the users were observed to be interacting with an application. The test set-up, which was in survey form, was designed to be as faithful as possible to all conditions and user types targeted by the product. The tests were either done automatically or manually wherein the sessions were timed and results were subsequently studied in order to get the trends and extract the performance data of UAV MQ-1.
1.2 Purpose
The purpose of this activity is to determine how effectively a given user interface performs when a typical user having no prior expectations and preconceptions interacts with it. Another facet of this undertaking is to establish whether direct one-on-one usability testing is more capable in reaching the goal than focus groups or other available market research and product evaluation that are commonly used. The elements that consistently fail were identified, analyzed and redesigned to improve user interface effectiveness.
2 USER PROFILES
The subject pool was obtained from acquisition and scheduling of representative sample of users that were directed to have an interaction with the system. The user profiles were evaluated based on the results of the survey tests. The participants of the survey were asked to fill up the checklist shown in Appendix B. In this way, usability and interaction will best be tested and at the same time it is ensured to exhibit the demographic characteristics typical of the customer base. Potential subjects would then have to be those who have been exposed to the use of computers or maybe those who are actually using the computers in their day-to-day lives. In addition, the subjects or the users will have to be acquired from school groups, community organizations or from the mailing lists as a proof that they can actually carry on with the usability testing requirements. As for the number of users, or the sample size, it depended on the result that gave a statistical validity that is not misleading so as not to jeopardize the most important attribute of subject selection. They should really represent the users of the targeted application.
3 USER INTERFACE
In this project, the main characteristic of user interface is the usability wherein the subject pools were observed on how to interact with the system. But still, the functionality of the product or the system has to be properly considered. The idea is for the system to work, the ultimate usability testing, is that the users have to gain control of the system and then eventually be able to assess the state of the system.
3.1 User Interface Metaphor
Task descriptions and the survey questions that were either printed in paper or accessed in the computer possibly in the network or downloaded from the Internet were the forms that were used for the users to have interaction and have detection and evaluation of usability.
3.2 User Interface Prototypes
Low fidelity prototype that was suitable for testing was developed using Second Life and was arranged with the instructor. The use of the test questionnaire as design and developing that contains assessment of Past Experience, Overall User Reactions, Learning, Screen, Terminology and System Information, and System Capabilities for further studies. In addition, was used to estimate the user profile of the system. The target users bearing in mind efficiency, effectiveness and satisfaction can use provision of how well a product for its expected purpose. Although the functionalities and features were not included in the user interface but are also important elements in the usability of the product.
4 USE CASE SCENARIOS
Use case scenarios aid in the fulfillment of the requirements in the design of user interface in the field of usability testing. In essence, the scenario is the actual interaction of the subject with the system. In this case, the scenario that was used helped in directing the focus of the design towards the distinct requirements of the users. Scenarios may be related to use cases, which describe interactions at a technical level. Unlike use cases, however, scenarios can be understood by people who do not have any technical background. For the actual tests conducted, the user were subjected to survey questions and were timed and the interactions were observed.

5 USABILITY SPECIFICATION
Usability takes into account the human factors of the users such as their psychology and physiology and then adapts it to the design of the particular user interface. This in turn would affect a process that is composed of a working system that is effective, efficient and satisfying. The design of a user interface involves the amount of effort the user must use up to offer input for the system and to deduce the output of the system, and how much effort it takes to learn how to do this. In this regard, product quality problems can be identified such as if in the computer, detection of programming bugs and design flaws while if in the manual mode errors can be encountered such as human related errors. The costs of this usability will then become a problem especially in the manner of how the data will be taken.
6 TEST CASES AND TEST PROCEDURES
Usability testing of a prototype relies on the same effective subject acquisition methods for other usability tests. Recognizing that the goal of usability tests is to study the behavior of the user interface and not to debug the prototype, test cases are carefully designed to exercise those parts of the application that are thoroughly tested and known to be bug-free. The prototype is also loaded with professionally recorded prompts for accurate assessment of scripting. Subjects are then acquired, brought to the lab, and asked to call the prototype. When the time arrives for running the usability tests, subjects arrive at a scheduled time. They are given specific instructions and asked to sign a waiver. The subjects were asked to proceed to the testing rooms were in they have to follow the established procedures. Subject pools were set to take the survey questions first from the computer and then after that they were asked to take the same tests only in manual format. The interactions on the user interfaces were then forwarded for evaluation. They are then exposed to the tasks that they must accomplish and placed in a private room where in no one interferes with the subject’s normal and spontaneous behavior. The test room is normally arranged as an office. Subjects are usually paid. Tests are performed one subject at a time. Subsequent group discussions or debriefings may occur in some testing cases.
7 TEST RESULTS
A student gathers appropriate data, work with clients to iterate test cases, and ensure that the psychology and context of usability tests are valid. The result is superior test results with minimum subject pools. Typical testing sequences use some subjects in defined sessions, followed by extensive written questionnaires and live interviews. More complex applications or extensive research efforts use twice or occasionally three times as many subjects, longer test sessions, and more sophisticated group-testing techniques. The subjects coming from school groups, community organizations and participants from the mailing list were subjected in the usability testing. From them, the people belonging from the mailing list were the one’s more responsive to the survey questions in the computer while the users from the school groups responded very well in manual mode. This only means that those with the mailing list have the better skills and experience with the user interface design. As for the community groups the result was diverse as in almost half were leaning toward the automatic testing and the rest towards the manual mode of survey questions.
8 CONCLUSION
Usability and interaction was observed in the usability testing that used the user interface design that was available in the form of task description and survey question. The representative samples of users were taken by using user profile checklist and showed that they were fit and conclusive for the test.
9 AREAS OF FUTURE RESEARCH
The usability and interaction project used to perform usability testing on a new product that has not been previously evaluated. These tests exhibit a considerable degree of risk, and undertake them with caution. The reason is that usability tests tend to identify usability problems. Unless the organization is prepared to address problems identified by such testing, the effort is wasteful of resource—why run tests if the results will not lead to action? The subject used for the users was fit for the project as seen in the results. It is well known that the costs associated with both problems increases exponentially when the problems are exposed late in the product lifecycle. This means that accurate knowledge of the usability of a given user interface reduces risk in later stages of development. Conversely, discovery of usability problems in late stages of product development led to costly rewrites or, worse, premature release of faulty products. Either result negatively impacts the cost-reduction or customer-satisfaction goals.

Testing Procedure and Results – UAV Project
Test Determent.

The purpose of this test is capturing a real time of the UAV systems flying at low level start at 1000ft. to above 50,000Ft. at different speed and altitude and focal length ,rate of data /signal transmission.

This testing conduct at low level fly altitude 1000ft. at 100kt air speed.

Between 1000ft. to 3000ft using 180mm Focal length.

Beyond 3000ft and above 50,000ft. using various length up to 36in focal length.

UAV Usability Specification – Scenario One
Mission Complete.

3 Test Procedure 1:
4 Task 1 – Fly at 3000ft at 150kt air speed
Sensor Operator Select a right Focal length and engaging system.

Task 2 – Activate Electro-Optical Sensor signal/ Infrared System/ Video Camera
The Sensor Operator selects instrument system interface / screen interface.

Task 3 – Activate Video/Cameras transmission
The Sensor Operator video in/out put Zoom Picture and Frame select to discriminate the object.

Task 4 – Activate current Data review
Sensor Operator reviews current Status/ Fly altitude/ systems/Engine and accepts the Target scan location.

Task 5 – Continuing process
The Sensor Operator repeat the same procedure at different altitude speed and location
And engaging different instruments system interface as air speed, win velocities and weather condition.

5
6 Test Results Scenario 1:

Capturing Real-Time Images at Low Altitude

Task

Task Description or Survey Question
Focal Length/
Rate of Trans
Mission/
Air Speed

Value to Measure
Current Level
Minimum
Acceptable
Target
Image Transmission Rate bit/sec.
Test Results at 5sp. mile
Test Results at 10sp. mile
1
Altitude at 3000Ft.
150kt.
Time to Perform
20sec
30sec
10sec
15sec
10sec
2
Activate Focal Length/Electro-Optical/Infrared system/Video system
180mm/
5Mbit/per/
sec
Time to Perform
65in
180sec
60sec
45sec
50sec
3
Activate Video/Cameras Multi-Channel Link Transmission
20GHz per/sec
Time to Perform
40min
90sec
30sec
40sec
55sec
4
Select Trojant Spirit II data link screen replicate and review
20Mbit/
Per/sec
Mission complete
Time to Perform
40sec
45sec
20sec
30sec
30sec
5
Continuing/Repeat Process
Mission
Complete
Time to Perform
80sec
120sec
60sec
40sec
45sec
Quis

Quis
Overall reactions to system platform
Frustrating-
Satisfying
9
10
8
9
10
9
Quis
Ease of Sensor Operator
Difficult – Easy
10
8
7
9
8
10
Quis
Instrumental system display
Unlikely – Very Likely
8
9
10
8
9
10
Quis
System Synchronizing simultaneously
Hard to read – easy to read
7
9
10
8
8
9

7 Test Analysis 1:
8
Task
#
Task Description or
Survey Question
Value
Measured
Average Results
1
3000Ft. At 150kt air speed
Time to perform
120sec
2
Activate Focal Length/Electro-Optical/Infrared system/Video system
Time to perform
60sec
3
Video/Cameras Multi-Channel Link Transmission
Time to perform
60sec
4
Select Trojant Spirit II data link replicate and review
Mission complete
30sec
5
Continuing/Repeat Process
Mission complete
60sec

Eval

Overall reactions to the system
Frustrating – Satisfying
10

Ease of Use
Difficult – Easy
9

Likelihood of using again
Unlikely – Very Likely
10

Characters in the display
Hard to read – easy to read
9

Amount of information displayed
Hard – Easy
10
9 UAV Usability Specification – Scenario Two – Sensor Operator changing Target location at different altitude and speed.

Test Procedure 2:

Task 1. Fly at 3000ft at 150kt air speed.
Sensor Operator Select a right Focal length/ frame and engaging system.

Task 2. Activate Electro-Optical Sensor signal/ Infrared System/ Video Camera
Sensor Operator selects instrument system interface / screen interface.

Task 3. Activate Video/Cameras transmission.
Sensor Operator video in/out put Zoom Picture and Frame select to discriminate the object.

Task4. Changing at High Altitude and Speed Different Location at max air speed 350kt.
Sensor Operator increasing air speed/changing altitude at 50,000ft , then select 914mm or 36in
Focal length and update current data location

Task 5. Activate current Data review.
Sensor Operator reviews current data Status/ Fly altitude/ systems/Engine and accepts the Target scan location.

Task 6 – Continuing process
The Sensor Operator repeat the same procedure at different altitude speed and location
And engaging different instruments system interface as air speed, win velocities and weather condition.

10
11
12 Test Results Scenario 2:

Capturing Real-Time Images at different altitude/location

Task

Task Description or Survey Question
Focal Length/
Rate of Trans
Mission/AirSpeed
Value to Measure
Current Level
Minimum
Acceptable
Target
Image Transmission Rate bit/sec.
Test Results at 5sp. mile
Test Results at 10sp. mile
1
Altitude at 3000Ft.
150kt.
Time to Perform
20sec
30sec
15sec
20sec
15sec
2
Activate Electro-Optical/Infrared system/Video system
180mm/
5Mbit/per
/sec
Time to Perform
65in
180sec
60sec
45sec
50sec
3
Engaging Video/Cameras Multi-Channel Link Transmission
20GHz per/sec
Time to Perform
40min
90sec
10sec
30sec
45sec
4
Changing Fly Altitude and Air Speed Location
Increasing 350kt./914mm/10Mbit/30GHz
Time to Perform
40sec
45sec
15sec
20sec
35
5
Select Trojant Spirit II data link replicate and review
35Mbit/
Per/sec
Mission complete
Time to Perform
80sec
120sec
20sec
30sec
30sec
6
Continuing/Repeat Process
Mission
Complete
Time to Perform
20sec
30sec
30sec
30sec
30sec
Quis

Quis
Overall reactions to system platform
Frustrating-
Satisfying
10
10
10
10
10
10
Quis
Ease of Sensor Operator
Difficult – Easy
10
10
10
10
10

Quis
Instrumental system display
Unlikely – Very Likely
10
10
10
10
10
10
Quis
System Synchronizing simultaneously
Hard to read – easy to read
10
10
10
10
10
10
13
14
15
16 Test Analysis 2:
17
Task
#
Task Description or
Survey Question
Value
Measured
Average Results
1
3000Ft. At 150kt air speed
Time to perform
15sec
2
Activate Focal Length/Electro-Optical/Infrared system/Video system
Time to perform
40sec
3
Video/Cameras Multi-Channel Link Transmission
Time to perform
30sec
4
Changing Fly Altitude 50,000ft /air speed at 350kt.
Time to perform
40sec
5
Activate Trojant Spirit II data link replicate and review
Successful task completion
20sec
6
Continuing/Repeat Process
Successful task completion
65sec
Eval

Overall reactions to the system
Frustrating – Satisfying
10

Ease of Use
Difficult – Easy
9

Likelihood of using again
Unlikely – Very Likely
10

Characters in the display
Hard to read – easy to read
10

Amount of information displayed
Difficult – Easy
10

Change Process
Difficult – Easy
9
18
19
20 UAV Usability Specification – Scenario 3 – Abort the Mission due to Extremely Bad Weather.

Test Procedure:

Task 1. Fly at 3000ft at 150kt air speed.
Sensor Operator Select a right Focal length/ frame and engaging system.

Task 2. Activate Electro-Optical Sensor signal/ Infrared System/ Video Camera
Sensor Operator selects instrument system interface / screen interface.

Task 3. Activate Video/Cameras transmission.
Sensor Operator video in/out put Zoom Picture and Frame select to discriminate the object.

Task4. Changing at High Altitude and Speed Different Location at max air speed 350kt.
Sensor Operator increasing air speed/changing altitude at 50,000ft , then select 914mm or 36in
Focal length and update current data location

Task6. Abort the Mission.
Sensor Operator reviews current Weather in BAD condition and Request to Abort the Mission

21

22
23
24
25
26
27
28

29 Test Results Scenario 3:

Abort the Mission due Bad Weather condition.

Task

Task Description or Survey Question
Focal Length/
Rate of Trans
Mission/AirSpeed
Value to Measure
Current Level
Minimum
Acceptable
Target
Image Transmission Rate bit/sec.
Test Results at 5sp. mile
Test Results at 10sp. mile
1
3000Ft.
150kt.
Time to Perform
20sec
30sec
20sec
15sec
13sec
2
Activate Electro-Optical/Infrared system/Video system
180mm/
5Mbit/per
/sec
Time to Perform
65in
180sec
60sec
30sec
35sec
3
Engaging Video/Cameras Multi-Channel Link Transmission
20GHz per/sec
Time to Perform
40min
90sec
20ec
15sec
20sec
4
Changing at High Altitude and Air Speed Location
Increasing 350kt./914mm/10Mbit/30GHz
Time to Perform
35sec
120sec
60sec
15sec
10sec
5
Select_Activate Trojant Spirit II data link replicate and review
35Mbit/
Per/sec
Mission complete
Time to Perform
80sec
120sec
30sec
20sec
25sec
6
Abort the MISSION
Permission Granted
Time to Perform
120sec
300sec
60sec
60sec
60sec
Quis

Quis
Overall reactions to system platform
Frustrating-
Satisfying
10
9
9
8
10
9
Quis
Ease of Sensor Operator
Difficult – Easy
9
8
10
9
10
8
Quis
Instrumental system display
Unlikely – Very Likely
9
9
8
10
9
10
Quis
System Synchronizing simultaneously
Hard to read – easy to read
9
10
9
8
10
9

30

31 Test Analysis 3:

Task
#
Task Description or
Survey Question
Value
Measured
Average Results
1
3000Ft. At 150kt air speed
Time to perform
10sec
2
Activate Focal Length/Electro-Optical/Infrared system/Video system
Time to perform
35sec
3
Video/Cameras Multi-Channel Link Transmission
Time to perform
25sec
4
Changing Fly Altitude 50,000ft /air speed at 350kt.
Time to perform
45sec
5
Activate Trojant Spirit II data link replicate and review
Successful task completion
15sec
6
Continuing/Repeat Process
Successful task completion
40sec
Eval

Overall reactions to the system
Frustrating – Satisfying
10

Ease of Use
Difficult – Easy
9

Likelihood of using again
Unlikely – Very Likely
10

Characters in the display
Hard to read – easy to read
10

Amount of information displayed
Difficult – Easy
10

Change Process
Difficult – Easy
9

Table Values

Task Description or Survey Question = test tasks, quality summary, or survey question
Value Measured = Time to perform a task, number of keyclicks, successful task completion, help requests, survey responses
Current Level = what it takes to perform the task today in a manual or automated fashion.
Minimum Acceptable = the lowest amount of quality and where a project ends when out of time or money
Planned Target = the initial project quality goal
Best Possible = an ideal project quality goal, given the best in technology, team skills, clear requirements, time and money
Observed Results = total of the test results divided by the population equals the average for any single wave of testing
Eval = Evaluation of survey results is on a scale of 1 to 9 with 1 being the lowest, worst, least desirable and 9 being the best result.

Testing Procedure and Results – UAV Project
Test Determent.

The purpose of this test is capturing a real time of the UAV systems flying at low level start at 1000ft. to above 50,000Ft. at different speed and altitude and focal length ,rate of data /signal transmission.

This testing conduct at low level fly altitude 1000ft. at 100kt air speed.

Between 1000ft. to 3000ft using 180mm Focal length.

Beyond 3000ft and above 50,000ft. using various length up to 36in focal length.

UAV Usability Specification – Scenario One
Mission Complete.

Test Procedure 1:
Task 1 – Fly at 3000ft at 150kt air speed
Sensor Operator Select a right Focal length and engaging system.

Task 2 – Activate Electro-Optical Sensor signal/ Infrared System/ Video Camera
The Sensor Operator selects instrument system interface / screen interface.

Task 3 – Activate Video/Cameras transmission
The Sensor Operator video in/out put Zoom Picture and Frame select to discriminate the object.

Task 4 – Activate current Data review
Sensor Operator reviews current Status/ Fly altitude/ systems/Engine and accepts the Target scan location.

Task 5 – Continuing process
The Sensor Operator repeat the same procedure at different altitude speed and location
And engaging different instruments system interface as air speed, win velocities and weather condition.

Test Results Scenario 1:

Capturing Real-Time Images at Low Altitude

Task

Task Description or Survey Question
Focal Length/
Rate of Trans
Mission/
Air Speed

Value to Measure
Current Level
Minimum
Acceptable
Target
Image Transmission Rate bit/sec.
Test Results at 5sp. mile
Test Results at 10sp. mile
1
Altitude at 3000Ft.
150kt.
Time to Perform
20sec
30sec
10sec
15sec
10sec
2
Activate Focal Length/Electro-Optical/Infrared system/Video system
180mm/
5Mbit/per/
sec
Time to Perform
65in
180sec
60sec
45sec
50sec
3
Activate Video/Cameras Multi-Channel Link Transmission
20GHz per/sec
Time to Perform
40min
90sec
30sec
40sec
55sec
4
Select Trojant Spirit II data link screen replicate and review
20Mbit/
Per/sec
Mission complete
Time to Perform
40sec
45sec
20sec
30sec
30sec
5
Continuing/Repeat Process
Mission
Complete
Time to Perform
80sec
120sec
60sec
40sec
45sec
Quis

Quis
Overall reactions to system platform
Frustrating-
Satisfying
9
10
8
9
10
9
Quis
Ease of Sensor Operator
Difficult – Easy
10
8
7
9
8
10
Quis
Instrumental system display
Unlikely – Very Likely
8
9
10
8
9
10
Quis
System Synchronizing simultaneously
Hard to read – easy to read
7
9
10
8
8
9

Test Analysis 1:

Task
#
Task Description or
Survey Question
Value
Measured
Average Results
1
3000Ft. At 150kt air speed
Time to perform
120sec
2
Activate Focal Length/Electro-Optical/Infrared system/Video system
Time to perform
60sec
3
Video/Cameras Multi-Channel Link Transmission
Time to perform
60sec
4
Select Trojant Spirit II data link replicate and review
Mission complete
30sec
5
Continuing/Repeat Process
Mission complete
60sec

Eval

Overall reactions to the system
Frustrating – Satisfying
10

Ease of Use
Difficult – Easy
9

Likelihood of using again
Unlikely – Very Likely
10

Characters in the display
Hard to read – easy to read
9

Amount of information displayed
Hard – Easy
10
UAV Usability Specification – Scenario Two – Sensor Operator changing Target location at different altitude and speed.

Test Procedure 2:

Task 1. Fly at 3000ft at 150kt air speed.
Sensor Operator Select a right Focal length/ frame and engaging system.

Task 2. Activate Electro-Optical Sensor signal/ Infrared System/ Video Camera
Sensor Operator selects instrument system interface / screen interface.

Task 3. Activate Video/Cameras transmission.
Sensor Operator video in/out put Zoom Picture and Frame select to discriminate the object.

Task4. Changing at High Altitude and Speed Different Location at max air speed 350kt.
Sensor Operator increasing air speed/changing altitude at 50,000ft , then select 914mm or 36in
Focal length and update current data location

Task 5. Activate current Data review.
Sensor Operator reviews current data Status/ Fly altitude/ systems/Engine and accepts the Target scan location.

Task 6 – Continuing process
The Sensor Operator repeat the same procedure at different altitude speed and location
And engaging different instruments system interface as air speed, win velocities and weather condition.

Test Results Scenario 2:

Capturing Real-Time Images at different altitude/location

Task

Task Description or Survey Question
Focal Length/
Rate of Trans
Mission/AirSpeed
Value to Measure
Current Level
Minimum
Acceptable
Target
Image Transmission Rate bit/sec.
Test Results at 5sp. mile
Test Results at 10sp. mile
1
Altitude at 3000Ft.
150kt.
Time to Perform
20sec
30sec
15sec
20sec
15sec
2
Activate Electro-Optical/Infrared system/Video system
180mm/
5Mbit/per
/sec
Time to Perform
65in
180sec
60sec
45sec
50sec
3
Engaging Video/Cameras Multi-Channel Link Transmission
20GHz per/sec
Time to Perform
40min
90sec
10sec
30sec
45sec
4
Changing Fly Altitude and Air Speed Location
Increasing 350kt./914mm/10Mbit/30GHz
Time to Perform
40sec
45sec
15sec
20sec
35
5
Select Trojant Spirit II data link replicate and review
35Mbit/
Per/sec
Mission complete
Time to Perform
80sec
120sec
20sec
30sec
30sec
6
Continuing/Repeat Process
Mission
Complete
Time to Perform
20sec
30sec
30sec
30sec
30sec
Quis

Quis
Overall reactions to system platform
Frustrating-
Satisfying
10
10
10
10
10
10
Quis
Ease of Sensor Operator
Difficult – Easy
10
10
10
10
10

Quis
Instrumental system display
Unlikely – Very Likely
10
10
10
10
10
10
Quis
System Synchronizing simultaneously
Hard to read – easy to read
10
10
10
10
10
10

Test Analysis 2:

Task
#
Task Description or
Survey Question
Value
Measured
Average Results
1
3000Ft. At 150kt air speed
Time to perform
15sec
2
Activate Focal Length/Electro-Optical/Infrared system/Video system
Time to perform
40sec
3
Video/Cameras Multi-Channel Link Transmission
Time to perform
30sec
4
Changing Fly Altitude 50,000ft /air speed at 350kt.
Time to perform
40sec
5
Activate Trojant Spirit II data link replicate and review
Successful task completion
20sec
6
Continuing/Repeat Process
Successful task completion
65sec
Eval

Overall reactions to the system
Frustrating – Satisfying
10

Ease of Use
Difficult – Easy
9

Likelihood of using again
Unlikely – Very Likely
10

Characters in the display
Hard to read – easy to read
10

Amount of information displayed
Difficult – Easy
10

Change Process
Difficult – Easy
9

UAV Usability Specification – Scenario 3 – Abort the Mission due to Extremely Bad Weather.

Test Procedure:

Task 1. Fly at 3000ft at 150kt air speed.
Sensor Operator Select a right Focal length/ frame and engaging system.

Task 2. Activate Electro-Optical Sensor signal/ Infrared System/ Video Camera
Sensor Operator selects instrument system interface / screen interface.

Task 3. Activate Video/Cameras transmission.
Sensor Operator video in/out put Zoom Picture and Frame select to discriminate the object.

Task4. Changing at High Altitude and Speed Different Location at max air speed 350kt.
Sensor Operator increasing air speed/changing altitude at 50,000ft , then select 914mm or 36in
Focal length and update current data location

Task6. Abort the Mission.
Sensor Operator reviews current Weather in BAD condition and Request to Abort the Mission

Test Results Scenario 3:

Abort the Mission due Bad Weather condition.

Task

Task Description or Survey Question
Focal Length/
Rate of Trans
Mission/AirSpeed
Value to Measure
Current Level
Minimum
Acceptable
Target
Image Transmission Rate bit/sec.
Test Results at 5sp. mile
Test Results at 10sp. mile
1
3000Ft.
150kt.
Time to Perform
20sec
30sec
20sec
15sec
13sec
2
Activate Electro-Optical/Infrared system/Video system
180mm/
5Mbit/per
/sec
Time to Perform
65in
180sec
60sec
30sec
35sec
3
Engaging Video/Cameras Multi-Channel Link Transmission
20GHz per/sec
Time to Perform
40min
90sec
20ec
15sec
20sec
4
Changing at High Altitude and Air Speed Location
Increasing 350kt./914mm/10Mbit/30GHz
Time to Perform
35sec
120sec
60sec
15sec
10sec
5
Select_Activate Trojant Spirit II data link replicate and review
35Mbit/
Per/sec
Mission complete
Time to Perform
80sec
120sec
30sec
20sec
25sec
6
Abort the MISSION
Permission Granted
Time to Perform
120sec
300sec
60sec
60sec
60sec
Quis

Quis
Overall reactions to system platform
Frustrating-
Satisfying
10
9
9
8
10
9
Quis
Ease of Sensor Operator
Difficult – Easy
9
8
10
9
10
8
Quis
Instrumental system display
Unlikely – Very Likely
9
9
8
10
9
10
Quis
System Synchronizing simultaneously
Hard to read – easy to read
9
10
9
8
10
9

Test Analysis 3:

Task
#
Task Description or
Survey Question
Value
Measured
Average Results
1
3000Ft. At 150kt air speed
Time to perform
10sec
2
Activate Focal Length/Electro-Optical/Infrared system/Video system
Time to perform
35sec
3
Video/Cameras Multi-Channel Link Transmission
Time to perform
25sec
4
Changing Fly Altitude 50,000ft /air speed at 350kt.
Time to perform
45sec
5
Activate Trojant Spirit II data link replicate and review
Successful task completion
15sec
6
Continuing/Repeat Process
Successful task completion
40sec
Eval

Overall reactions to the system
Frustrating – Satisfying
10

Ease of Use
Difficult – Easy
9

Likelihood of using again
Unlikely – Very Likely
10

Characters in the display
Hard to read – easy to read
10

Amount of information displayed
Difficult – Easy
10

Change Process
Difficult – Easy
9

Table Values

Task Description or Survey Question = test tasks, quality summary, or survey question
Value Measured = Time to perform a task, number of keyclicks, successful task completion, help requests, survey responses
Current Level = what it takes to perform the task today in a manual or automated fashion.
Minimum Acceptable = the lowest amount of quality and where a project ends when out of time or money
Planned Target = the initial project quality goal
Best Possible = an ideal project quality goal, given the best in technology, team skills, clear requirements, time and money
Observed Results = total of the test results divided by the population equals the average for any single wave of testing
Eval = Evaluation of survey results is on a scale of 1 to 9 with 1 being the lowest, worst, least desirable and 9 being the best result.

CS820 Learning

Today, I want to reflect on what I have learned in your class. The nature of this class is to examine the human reacting emerge to system and technology as well as research and documentation gathering data analysis to analyzing each categories and details usability and interaction systematic of current and future technology.
Hopefully, our systematic is influenced by the different usability and interaction of human and technology. This was an interesting class in the format of conducting usability and experiments, in that at the beginning of the class or so, the professor guidelines was details in Moodle , it was students giving the material and select a topics prototype. I liked the fact that you know how to motivate the other.
In the process, I learned some things about UAV project and way of presenting things learning and designing on my own web page to post using html language.
My project was on UAV predator and I gained a new appreciation for this topic reading and searching through it multiple times (and doing much research). It is a highly and mostly classify document that is often not much details. In many ways, this has become my favorite topics and interesting and probably will continue. I also had to do a paper on psychological and physiology concern with UAV. It was good to reflect on the message of the what I have found and search but also to connect some different and future technology. In some ways, through the reading and web material I truly discovered the truth that the UAV is “Silence Hunter , Killer and an appreciation of men and women in uniform to Witnesses” of what we could not see in through ours naked eyes.

My thought

2008-02-17T07:24:00.002-06:00

As of today, I'm still struggling with class CS802 from Doctor Debra Beazley. I'm not for sure what is it does she want.

Class CS805 Doctor Howard Carol Project 3 Sampling Distributions

2008-02-17T07:22:00.002-06:00

Sampling Distributions
Professor Doctor Carol Howard
Class CS 805
By Tai Cleveland
Project # 3
Due on Monday November 12th, 2007

As defined by David W. Stockburger, “the sampling distribution is the distribution of a sample statistic” (Stockburger, 1998). While it is also a distribution model, the values are statistics and not raw data. For example, if we have 10 samples, and we computed for the mean of those 10 samples several times, the results or the means we derived will be the values in our sampling distribution. The sampling distribution is represented by µ. There is always a subscript to the µ, which tells us what kind of statistics the sampling distribution refers to.
As mentioned, there are also sampling distributions for each statistic. If we will compute for the sampling distribution of medians, then we shall use medians, not means. However, it was found that the mean has a smaller standard of error than the median, even the mode, since the mean takes into consideration all the value or scores included in the sample. The median simply is the middle number, while the mode is the value that most often comes up in a sample. The standard of error (σ), on the other hand, is “the degree by which the computed statistics will differ from one another when calculated from sample of similar size and selected from similar population models” (Stockburger, 1998).
The sampling distribution of means is simply made of means as computed from a sample of scores or values. It was also found that the sampling distribution of means is closely related to the population distribution (Stockburger, 1998), which is called the Central Limit Theorem. This means that the mean of the sampling distribution of means and the mean of the population are equal. There are 2 rules under this theorem. To illustrate the first rule, below is an example of five 5 values, from which scores were derived.
Population of values
Samples from the Population
Means from the samples
1
1, 2, 4, 5
3
2
1, 2, 3, 4
2.5
3
2, 3, 4, 5
3.5
4
1, 3, 4, 5
3.25
5
1 ,2, 3, 5
2.75
Population distribution = 3
(All possible samples) n = 4
Total = 15 / 5 = 3

In computing for the Central Limit Theorem, follow the steps outlined below:
1. Start with the population values. In this case, we had 5 values in our population.
2. Obtain all possible samples. In each population, we were able to derive a maximum of 4 samples.
3. Add up all samples in each population, then divide it by the n or the sample size. This will give us the mean for that particular population.
4. Add all the means, then divide by the N or the sample population. This will yield the same value as that of the population distribution.
The second rule under the Central Limit Theorem states that the sampling distribution of means will have a normal curve regardless of the shape of the population distribution (Sampling Distribution Demo). The reason behind this rule is that even though the samples are taken from different samples, the means of the samples will always be near to the center of the population distribution.
The Central Limit Theorem works well in small sample sizes as shown above, though it works even greater with a larger sample size, as it is closer to the true population. As such, the Central Limit Theorem is often the basis of most hypothesis testing and sampling theory (Stockburger, 1998). Additionally, the Central Limit also serves as a powerful tool for most researchers, as this always has a normal curve, providing scientists and researchers the basis or justification for several studies, even naturally occurring phenomena (Stockburger, 1998).
References
Sampling Distributions. Sampling Distributions Demo. Accessed October 31, 2007, from
http://faculty.uncfsu.edu/dwallace/ssample.html
Stockburger, David W. (1998). The Sampling Distribution. Introductory Statistics:
Concepts, Models, and Applications, 1.0. Accessed October 29, 2007, from http://www.psychstat.missouristate.edu/introbook/SBK19.htm

CS805 Doctor Howard Project #2 Normal model

2008-02-17T07:17:00.003-06:00

Normal Model
Tai Cleveland
Class CS805
Doctor Carol Howard
Project #2 Normal Model
Due on Monday November 5th, 2007

The following lists the number of errors per 10000 lines of code for a large service-oriented architecture (SOA) software project on the inventory management system of Kuiper Leda, a global electronics components provider ().
516
548
566
534
551
548
523
538
523
529
486
558
574
586
552

We assume a normal model in analyzing the data above (Weiers, 2005). First we determine measures of central tendency: the mean, mode, and median to describe the statistics of the number of errors per 10000 lines of code for this IT project. The following shows the descriptive statistics.
Mean

Median
The data is first sorted in the order from lowest to highest as shown below:
486 516 523 523 529 534 538 546 548 551 552 558 566 574 586

The 8th ordered measurement is the median of 15 observations.

Mode: There are two measurements for 523, thus serving as the mode.

Standard deviationTo measure the dispersion of the data, we also calculate the standard deviation of the above data, as shown in the following:

Another way of describing the variation or spread in the data set is to determine the location of values that divide a set of observations into four equal parts. This technique is known as quartiles (Weiers, 2005). To do this we first multiply 0.25 to the sample size n added by 1: 0.25 (15 + 1) = 0.25 (16) = 4. Therefore, the first and third quartile values are located at positions 4 and 12. The 4th value in the ordered array used to determine the median is 523; the 12th value is 558. These are the first and third quartiles, respectively. Below is the 5-Number-Summary, which includes the minimum, median and maximum values:
Minimum: 486
First Quartile: 523
Median: 546
Third Quartile: 558
Maximum: 586
The summary above allows us to make the box plot, which is shown below:
The box plot shows that the middle 50 percent of the codes have between 523 and 558 errors per 10000 lines of code. The distance between the ends of the box above, 35 errors per 10000 lines of code, is known as the interquartile range, which shows the dispersion of the majority of errors per 10000 lines of code on Kuiper Leda’s SOA project.
Lastly, we plot the histogram of values using a class interval of 20 errors per 10000 lines of code. The histogram is illustrated below:

A histogram groups data into classes (Weiers, 2005). When we organized the data into nine classes, we lost the exact value of the measurements. Since we only have a small number of samples, the histogram shown above is not as smooth as we expect from a normal distribution. Nevertheless, the histogram does exhibit central tendency, with well-defined mean, median, mode, and standard deviation thereby self-consistently validating the normal model that we had assumed before analyzing the data.
Reference
Weiers, R.M. (2005). Introduction to business statistics. 5th ed. Duxbury: Brooks/Cole.

CS805 Doctor Howard Carol Project #1

2008-02-17T07:12:00.003-06:00

Tai Cleveland
Class CS 805
Project # 1 Hacker Attacks
Dr. Carol Howard
Due Monday Oct 29th, 2007

Hacker Attacks
Aside from DUI incidents, the war on terrorism and the continuous propagation of viruses on the internet, web server attacks has been one of the most serious crimes as to date. It has not been given considerable attention unlike the aforementioned crimes and incidents. According to a recent survey conducted by Zone-H (2005), web server attacks and web defacements grew about 36% in 2004 – this is about 400,000 reported incidents in that year alone. Christmas holidays are the most popular time for malicious hackers to attack sites.
Meanwhile, Web Application Security Consortium reported the following statistics from 1999 to 2007 (2007):
Year
Total
Security Breaches
Vulnerability Disclosures
1999
1

1
2000
5
2
3
2001
6
1
5
2002
4
3
1
2003
9
3
6
2004
17
6
11
2005
62
31
31
2006
44
18
26
2007
45
42
3

On the other hand, the following table summarizes the number of incidents recorded based on attack classification (2007). It must be noted that such data falls under the rule of small numbers.

Class
Total
Security Breaches
Vulnerability Disclosures
Cross-site Scripting
54
16
38
Unknown
41
38
3
SQL Injection
25
16
9
Insufficient Authorization
22
9
13
Credential/Session Prediction
16
3
13
Insufficient Authentication
14
6
8
OS Commanding
10
9
1
Predictable Resource Location
7
3
4
Other
7
6
1
Weak Password Recovery Validation
4
1
3
Information Leakage
4

4
Content Spoofing
4
4

Abuse of Functionality
4
3
1
Misconfiguration
3
3

Worm
2
2

Insufficient Anti-automation
2
2

Known Vulnerabity
2
1
1
Denial of Service
1
1

Brute Force
1
1

Defacement
1
1

Directory Indexing
1

1
HTTP Response Splitting
1

1
Insufficient Session Expiration
1
1

Path Traversal
1

1
Phishing
1
1

Redirection
1

1
Insufficient Process Validation
1
1

References

BBC News. (2005). “Web server attacks 'growing fast': More than 2,500 web servers every day are being hacked, reveals a report.” Retrieved November 2007 from website: .
Web Application Consortium. (2007). “Web Hacking Statistics.” Retrieved November 2007 from website: .

Week 10_ Link Exploring to http://del.icio.us

2007-09-09T19:50:00.000-05:00

http://del.icio.us/taicleveland

Week9_ Link Exploring to technoratio

2007-09-09T19:42:00.000-05:00

Link to http://technoratio.com/

http://technorati.com/account/blogs/

http://technorati.com/blogs/tai-cleveland07.blogspot.com

Link to Exploring FLICK.com

2007-09-05T09:04:00.000-05:00

http://www.flickr.com/photos/12723504@N06/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/12723504@N06/?donelayout=1

Link to reply posted by discussion from Dereck Peterson

2007-09-05T09:02:00.001-05:00

Link to reply on Web2.0 tools posted by Dereck Peterson

http://petersonrace.com/cgi/wp/?p=7

Re-Link to Gabcast channels

2007-09-03T20:27:00.000-05:00

http://www.gabcast.com/index.php

http://www.gabcast.com/index.php?=episodes&query=&b=play&id=48&cast=29135&castPage=&autoplay=true

http://www.gabcast.com/index.php?a=episodes&query=&b=play&id=48&cast=23814&castPage=&autoplay=true

Research and Discussion of Web2.0 Tools

2007-08-25T13:43:00.000-05:00

The technologies of Web 2.0 have changed the manner in which the web is used and viewed. Instead of just a mechanism to provide information, the web is now interactive and harnessing the wisdom of many through wikis, blogs, and communities. New terms have been coined or resurrected to explain the new phenomenon; crowd-sourcing, social networking, collective intelligence and many more.

(Howe, J.) Organizations no longer only use the Web as a tool for information dissemination and marketing but as a way to include the customer base in design, development and support. Web 2.0 is about inclusion, harnessing the wisdom of many to reach new conclusions and optimizing research and learning.

One of the typical characterizations of Web 2.0 is the Dynamic Updates. “Ajax” technologies enable pages to be updated in increments. Web applications may also allow automatic updates such as providing updated stock quotes, sports scores, temperatures or other information.

Utilizing Web Services, a Web page can be made up of information from numerous different sources. Different portions of the page can be identified with a role of region indicating that it is a perceivable unit which is given a title.

Regions have properties which identify the type of region and how it is updated. Live regions have added semantics to identify the type of update and how the user should be notified. Users will not be notified of updates marked as polite until any current activity is completed. On the other side of the field are updates marked as “rude” which are high priority and should interrupt any current activity.

With the use of standard scripting, input focus, and semantic metadata, the Accessible Rich Internet Application specification allows Web 2.0 applications and interfaces to be available to all users, including those in need of assistive technologies. It is of vital importance that the browser be able to communicate all of the required information on Web components to the assistive technology.

“Web 2.0” exemplifies the next generation of the Web supporting collective intelligence, community-based collaboration, social networking, content publishing, and content integration over the Internet.

It enables a standardized manner of representing fresh content to enable on-demand information sharing and aggregation for the Web community. Blogs let users generate online journals. Wikis allows users to add and edit content collectively.

With the introduction of Asynchronous Java-Script and XML (Ajax) technology, applications, such as mobile communications, knowledge sharing, desktop applications, podcasts, and the 3-dimentional virtual world, have utilized Web 2.0 technologies.

One of the main challenges with Web 2.0 is the use of “Asynchronous JavaScript and XML” (or Ajax) to dynamically build pages. On the other hand, there exist two main problems, particularly: 1) notifying the user that the page has been updated, and 2) if JavaScript has been turned off, calls to the server will not be possible.

Many anticipate that both browser and screen reader manufacturers will come up with solutions to these problems; although this might take some time. (Kanjilal, J.) An answer for building accessible Web 2.0 sites is to follow “Hijax” guidelines, which will allow Ajax type dynamic Web pages, while enabling furthermore accessible development. (Keith, J.)

Another issue with Web 2.0 applications is that they permit Web content authoring, and as a result entail accessibility in Web authoring. Consequently, they are subject not just to the “Web Content Accessibility Guidelines”, but as well as the “Authoring Tool Accessibility Guidelines” also.

Therefore, the accessibility of Web 2.0 relies largely on Web developers’ motivation to develop accessible sites in line with the guidelines of the “Web Access Initiative”. (WAI Homepage) Additionally, there are numerous companies providing services that will make sites accessible.

REFERENCES
Kanjilal, Joydip. Introducing Asynchronous Java Script and XML (Ajax) in ASP.NET. Ajax Matters. Accessed online, August 2007 at: http://www.ajaxmatters.com/articles/asp/intro_aspajax_p1.aspx
Keith, Jeremy. Hijax: Progressive Enhancement with Ajax. Accessed online, August 2007 at: http://xtech06.usefulinc.com/schedule/paper/29
Web Accessibility Initiative. WCAG 2 Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ). Available online at: http://www.w3.org/WAI/WCAG20/wcag2faq#update1
W3C (2000). Authoring Tool Accessibility Guidelines 1.0. Accessed online, August 2007 at: http://www.w3.org/TR/WAI-AUTOOLS/atag10.pdf

REFERENCES
Anderson, Paul. What is Web 2.0? JISC Technology and Standards Watch, February 2007. Accessed online, August 2007 at: http://dissident.typepad.com/my_weblog/files/what_is_web_2.0%20(Jisc).pdf
Howe, Jeff. The Rise of Crowd Sourcing. Wired Magazine, Issue No. 14; June 6, 2006.
Tech Soup. Everything You Need to Know About Web 2.0. Accessed online, July 2007 at: http://www.techsoup.org/toolkits/web2/

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2007-08-25T13:31:00.000-05:00

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Week9_DueMon_09-03_Expand Facfs-Trends of IT outsourcing

2007-08-14T14:46:00.000-05:00

Facts and Trends from Research of IT Outsourcing

IT outsourcing can be a one stop IT solution for companies providing IT Enabled services. These companies provide high quality, time-bound and cost-effective services. Typical services can include:
*Data Entry
*Forms Processing
*Back Office Operations
*Insurance Claims Processing
*Medical Transcription
*Data Conversion
*Scanning, Image Editing, OCR, ICR, OMR services
*Web-Designing, Web Promotion
*Call Center

These services are usually determined by a need in a business when it decides that it would be more cost effective to use an outsourced company, reducing capital infrastructure costs.

Outsourcing allows the company to focus on core business only, thus improving employee satisfaction with higher value addition jobs and making the best use of competitive resources available worldwide.

Using an outsourced company would give you the same standard hardware and software platforms available worldwide and would be high speed and would have a low cost of Telecommunications, making the Internet the global communication medium and allowing on line data processing possible from any location. (Casale 2001)

Today, companies have to dip into the knowledge bases of their suppliers to innovate customers. Buyers must have input at the formative stages of a supplier's new strategy. Buyers only have the power to change things while the ideas are still nascent. (Godwin 2000)

Outsourcing can be very beneficial to a company especially if the business manager takes a hard look at the core competencies. If the manager can revisit the areas of the company that aren't directly involved in those competencies, consider whether outsourcing can enable the manager to spin off those tasks and let another company take over the management responsibilities for that work or use modern communication technology to work closely with the people - now partners instead of employees are doing the work.

References

Casale, Frank J.; (2001); Important factors for successful outsourcing Founder and CEO The Outsourcing Institute. October 2001
Godwin, (2000) Article: Vendors' ERP Outsourcing Picks Up and Takes Off by Information Week, CIO magazine, Financial Times of London, InfoWorld, The Economist, and Fortune

Week8_DueMon_08-27_Research and discuss a think TANK of IT Outsourcing

2007-08-14T14:41:00.000-05:00

Research and Discuss of
Information Technology Outsourcing

Although the mix of factors raising the possibility of outsourcing varies widely from one company to another, there are a series of themes that explain most of the pressures to outsource. First of all, general managers concerns about cost and quality drive outsourcing.

The same issues such as getting existing services for a reduced price at acceptable quality standard came up repeatedly (Jones, 1997). Second, failure to meet service standards can force management to find other ways of achieving reliability.

It is not atypical to find a company in which cumulative IT management neglect eventually culminated in an out-of-control situation the current IT department could not recover from. Management can see outsourcing as a way to fix a broken department. Third, a firm under intense cost or competitive pressures, which does not see IT as its core competence, may find outsourcing a way to delegate time-consuming, messy problems so it can focus scarce management time and energy on other differentiators.

Next, several financial issues can make outsourcing appealing. One is the opportunity to liquidate the firm s intangible IT asset, thus strengthening the balance sheet and avoiding a stream of sporadic capital investments in the future. Also, outsourcing can turn a largely fixed-cost business into one with variable costs. This is particularly important for firms whose activities vary widely in volume from one year to another or which face significant downsizing (Manufacturing and Technology News, 2003).

Companies are increasingly outsourcing the management of information technology (IT) for reasons that include concern for cost and quality, lagging IT performance, supplier pressure, access to special technical and application skills, and other financial factors. The outsourcing solution is acceptable to large and small firms alike because strategic alliances are now more common and the IT environment is changing rapidly.

Finally an important factor is cultural conflicts. What is accepted in one culture may be different in another, causing worker and management related problems. For instance the role of leadership in an organization or the number of hours a worker is expected to work a week. These variables have to be scrutinized by the outsourcing company.

Outsourcing has identified numerous potential benefits. Financial benefits from outsourcing included rapid funding of new systems development and economies of scale and scope. As consolidate infrastructure through IT outsourcing, a firm can experience cost reductions in hardware and software licensing, facilities, and support headcount. Outsourcing, also, can capitalize on an outside vendor s extensive IT problem solving knowledge. An outside vendor had the ability to get more of the technology that came out.

They could spend money on investments that a company couldn’t afford internally. That opens up a lot more avenues to future technologies. An outside vendor would manage the IT function more efficiently. A vendor s main competency is managing computer systems. Through their skills, leverage, and economies of scale, they could provide a level of efficiency that could not be achieved at the outsourcer.

Finally, Perhaps most important, outsourcing allow internal IT managers to focus on the development of a new IT infrastructure. Underlying the outsourcing effort is a fundamental strategy to offload legacy applications and operations so a firm could focus on developing new strategic application to support the global business processes, which were being reengineered.

References

Jones. W 1997. Outsourcing basics. Information Systems Management
Moran, Nuala. 1998. Core of the matter: outsourcing information technology functions. The Financial Post.

Week7_ Due_Mon_08-20_Research and discuss artificial intelligence or robotics innovations

2007-08-08T18:49:00.000-05:00

A.I. and Robotics Innovation

In May 1997, Garry Kasparov, the world’s chess champion was defeated by IBM’s super-computer “Deep Blue”. Kasparov admitted that what he faced was a different kind of intelligence. It was an extra-ordinary form of artificial intelligence (AI) capable of calculating 200 million moves per second, but is unable to adjust with new situations. It could not learn from its errors and had no way of recognizing the weak points of its opponent; it could only follow what its program dictates. In contrast to IBM’s supercomputer, we humans are able to handle unexpected situations based on our experience and intuition.

Logical Artificial Intelligence: This type of reasoning is about what a program knows regarding the world in general, the facts of a particular situation in which it must act, and the objectives it must accomplish. (Grosz & Davis) Such concepts are held within the program in the form of mathematical logical language. Though, the practicality of current expert systems depends on the system’s user demonstrating a certain level of common-sense.

Perception: The speed with which we humans extract information from images makes vision the preferred perceptual modality for most people in the majority of tasks, thus implying that computers should be capable of both understanding and synthesizing images. One of the goals of computer-vision research is image understanding and classification. (Doyle & Dean) These include facial recognition, object recognition and reconstruction, hand tracking and gesture recognition, and document analysis and recognition. Though, while today’s computer-vision techniques are capable of impressive achievement under controlled conditions, such techniques usually prove to be unstable under real-world conditions. (Grosz & Davis)

Human-Computer Interaction: This field of artificial intelligence came from the idea that people use a number of different media to communicate, including: languages, gestures, sounds, and drawings. (Grosz & Davis) Particularly important is knowledge representation due to its strong effect on the prospects for a computer or person to arrive at conclusions and make inferences from available information. (Stottler Henke) As a result, work in this area hopes to discover expressive, efficient, and appropriate methods for representing information regarding all aspects of the real world.

The area of robotics is closely associated to that of artificial intelligence, though definitional issues are many. Despite developments in the field, current AI systems are fundamentally incapable of demonstrating intelligence as we know it. Existing AI is only as smart as the one who wrote the program for it. Thus, researchers nowadays strongly believe that the goal of imitating the human ability to solve problems and achieve goals in the real world is neither likely nor desirable since a lengthy series of breakthroughs is required to accomplish it.

REFERENCES

Doyle, Jon and Thomas Dean. Strategic Directions in Artificial Intelligence. Association for Computing Machinery, Inc., 1996. Accessed online, August 2007 at: http://groups.csail.mit.edu/medg/ftp/doyle/sdai96.html

Grosz, Barbara and Randall Davis. Report to ARPA on 21st Century Intelligent Systems. American Association for Artificial Intelligence, 1994. Available online at: http://www.aaai.org/Library/Magazine/Vol15/aimag15-03-001.php

Stottler Henke. Glossary of AI Terms. Stottler Henke Associates, Inc., 2002. Accessed online, August 2007 at: http://www.stottlerhenke.com/ai_general/glossary.htm

Trend Micro. The Hidden Intelligence: Innovation through Intuition. Accessed online, August 2007 at: http://www.go-red.com/pdf/trend_report_intuition.pdf

Week 6_DueMon_08-13_ Select a discipline and forecast a prediction of IT outsourcing

2007-08-08T18:43:00.000-05:00

IT Discipline and Forecast a prediction

Global Offshore outsοurcing services are forecast to grοw at more than 20% annually over the next several years pushing the volume of buѕiness to $15 billion by 2007. А study recently developed by IDC shows that in 2004 IT Outsοurcing revenues for Argentina were U$S 143 million. This figure grew by 26.48% in 2005 and is forecast to grοw а further 17.5% this year.

Furthermore this growth rate is also forecast to continue on past 2010. (Grossman & Helpman 2002) . Multisourcing discipline is vital for successful outsοurcing strategies. Multisourcing is not simply outsοurcing improved — it is an innovative discipline that takes organizations beyond "quick fix" coѕt cutting to enable capability building, global expansion, increased agility and profitability, and competitive advantage.

This growth trend in outsοurcing is mostly fuelled by the promise of significant coѕt reductions; however, back in 2003, McAulay et al interviewed IT managers who reported that enhancing competitiveness, creating strategic advantage, improving service quality to customers, and increasing access to expertise were most important benefits. Today there is а greater consensus that besides lower costs, offshore outsοurcing can provide great benefits in expertise, availability, and responsiveness to buѕiness needs.

With all gains there are also significant dangers and with outsοurcing information systems those range from not meeting the expected coѕt savings in the short term even though longer term process improvements may further increase savings, to data security through the possible lack of process discipline, loss of buѕiness knowledge, culture adjustments, and vendor inexperience resulting in inability to deliver. (Kirkegaard 2004)

It has been predicted that outsοurcing’s basic IT functions, such as systems design and building projects will increase in the future. Most highly recognized research firms such as IDC, Forrester, Gartner, and McKinsey, agree with their predictions that IT offshore outsοurcing will grοw steadily over the next five to 10 years. The primary drivers of this growth being the search by companies for lower costs, higher technical expertise, focus on core buѕiness and faster completion times.

References

Gene Grossman and Elhanen Helpman, "Outsourcing in a Global Economy," NBER Working Paper No. w8728, January 2002
Jacob F. Kirkegaard, “Outsourcing – Stains on the White Collar?” Institute for International Economics working paper, January 2004

Week3 Identify your favorit Web 2.0 tools

2007-08-08T18:33:00.000-05:00

My favorite thing about this is In Learning Center that first caught into my
attention was Databases as moving along, and I found this article talking about
Open Source Database Technologies very helpful.

When I read about this article, I wondered why a software developer or
programmer haven’t been talking more seriously and deeply about the
experiential aspects of various ways that we could develop specific CODE
with SQL to prevent Hacker to use the SQL injection script to access to other
network.

Week 4 Identify a FAILED prediction of IT outsourcing to forecast, discuss and analyze

2007-08-02T10:59:00.000-05:00

The prediction in the initial waves of outsourcing of jobs from the US to other places in the world where productivity and quality is comparable or better, and where costs are just a fraction of US costs, is that such outsourcing will mean the loss of US jobs and an overall detrimental effect on the jobs situation in the country.

In the early goings, the prediction did not seem to hold water, as just simple back office and other menial, low paid work was outsourced. By 2003, however, the consensus was that there was a growing trend towards the outsourcing of higher-value work that threatened college graduates in the US. As the outsourcing momentum grows, the prediction is that the kinds of jobs that will be outsourced will increasingly be those that are higher up the value chain, leading to the general erosion of the chances of US citizens with high qualifications to compete with their foreign counterparts due to cost. This is true for IT outsourcing and IT jobs in the US as well (IDG News Service, 2003).

The reality, however, is that the prediction does not hold up to the facts. Even in 2003, the observation is that the outsourcing of IT work and processes has not generally resulted in the loss of IT jobs at home. In fact the prediction from 2004 onwards is that the number of US IT jobs will grow rather than shrink, and that overall the share of IT outsourced work to total work that is outsourced is very low. Moreover, with the older generation retiring, the prognosis is that there will actually be a shortage of IT labor supply in the US, rather than a shortage of work (IDG News Service, 2003).

The general prediction that the outsourcing of IT work is going to be a bane on the economy likewise does not seem to be true. While it is true that the outsourcing of all kinds of work and processes, including IT, should remain substantial moving forward, the cost savings to the US economy and the shift of work towards higher value-added work should mean that the US economy should in general be better off as a result of it (Drezner, 2004).
References

Drezner, D. (2004). The Outsourcing Bogeyman. Foreign Affairs. Retrieved 7 August 2007 from http://www.foreignaffairs.org/20040501faessay83301/daniel-w-drezner/the-outsourcing-bogeyman.html
IDG News Service (2003). Offshore outsourcing: Little effect on US jobs? Retrieved 7 August 2007 from http://www.itworld.com/Man/2701/031211outsourcing/

Week 5 Identify a Successful prediction of IT to forecast,discuss and analyze

2007-08-02T10:57:00.000-05:00

Identifying a "SUCCESSFUL" prediction of IT outsourcing

Outsourcing is the contracting out of a company’s in-house function to a preferred vendor with a high quality level in the particular task area. Outsourcing is one of the fastest growing trends in business. Large- scale organizations (especially for their Internet and Pay-TV divisions) have latched onto outsourcing due to the almost immediate opportunity of savings and quality improvement.

Outsourcing can impact many elements of an organization in a positive or negative manner. Areas such as structure, corporate culture, cost centers and labor have the most tendencies to react to outsourcing developments. Advantages of clearing a structure can give senior management the prospect of re-using and expanding into locations that have been previously outsourced. (Robert A, 2007)

Employees of organizations don’t benefit from outsourcing as they are at a risk with becoming redundant. This occurs as another group outside the organization who have similar skills and competencies that can perform the same tasks replace existing workers. (Straub, 2004)
This treatment of employees can trigger a collapse in confidence and morale from all other employees throughout an organization as they view fellow employees leaving due to job replacements. Therefore in the future lasting employees will feel uncomfortable in an organization that is constantly outsourcing with fears of loosing their job. In order to prevent this morale downgrade management may choose to cross - train redundant employees so they can fit in another suitable position, where it may for expansion or increase labor productivity.
Another aspect that may be impacted by outsourcing is the hierarchical structure. If a certain department is run from outside such as Information Technology, i.e. Hardware and Software is controlled by an outside body, this makes the ‘IT’ division to be removed from the organization and hence its formal structure, hence it will be a doubtful decision to predict about the forecast because things will go beyond your control and your needs may not be identified by an outside body which could affect your business in the long run.

References

Guy Jr., Robert A.; Hill, J. Reginald, 2007, (Information Ages and Technology Management), Vol. 61 Issue 6, p67-72
Ang, Soon; Straub, Detmar W. MIS Quarterly, 2004, Vol. 22 Issue 4, p535-552

Week11_DueMon_09-17_What will the “FUTURE” of Information Technology outsourcing to bring to?

2007-07-26T02:06:00.000-05:00

My research dissertation

2007-07-11T23:44:00.000-05:00

My research interest in Network Security including Web Security Application and SQL Database Security, Encryption Technology and Cryptography

Web and SQL Database Security

Research and Writing

Annotated Bibliography

By Tai Cleveland

Ph. D student of Computer Information Systems 2007 Colorado Technical University

Kelly, Van E.; Thomas, Catharine P.; Wang, Huiyu. 2000, Managing Data-Based Systems

With numerous systems applying dynamic construction of Web pages from a database, commercial information security is still more critical. Formerly, firm database authority or dedicated client software was obligatory to view the data. Nowadays anyone with access to a Web browser can inspect data in a database that is not appropriately guarded. In no way before has information security had so scores of weak points (Kelly et al, 2000). As the information technology industry shifts from the mainframe era to the client/server era to the Internet era, a largely growing number of points of infiltration have found ways in.

Zwicky, E., Chapman, B., and Cooper, S. 2000, Building Internet Firewalls, O'Reilly & Associates.

For a great deal of Internet security, database experts have had to depend on network administrators executing safety measures like firewalls to safeguard local data. As of the character of Intranet/ Internet information authority, still, a lot of security purposes fall into a dull area of accountability. (Zwicky et al, 2000)

Vaas, Lisa; McCright, John S. 2002, Database battle heats up. eWeek, Vol. 19 Issue 45, p9
Latest security measures and technology are initiated every day, and this article clarifies the Web and SQL Database security systems concerned with resolving the present troubles (Vaas et al, 2002).

Songini, Marc L. 2003, SQL Server Users Focus On Database's Security. Computerworld, Vol. 37 Issue 46, p6

Use of Microsoft's SQL Server database has grown dramatically over the past few years. Improvements in the application have made it a viable option for many organizations, providing much of the same functionality as Oracle on mid-range applications and costing quite a bit less. Microsoft has also developed MSDE, a desktop edition of SQL server that is free to use. Many products use this as their database. MSDE is just a stripped-down version of SQL Server; it limits the number of allowed connections and the size of the database (2GB).Microsoft's SQL Server uses the SA account for administration, which has super user access to the server and no password by default. If you do not delete this account or give it a strong password, your data is available to anyone with a little SQL Server knowledge. SQL Server also supports its own authentication scheme or Windows login account. Many applications require the server to run in mixed mode-that is, allowing either authentication scheme to be used. For security purposes, you should ideally use only Windows authentication, enabling you to centrally manage all of your accounts. SQL Server contains a number of stored procedures. These are macros and programs that are installed by default. Some stored procedures allow users to execute code on the system. If your database is compromised, an attacker could use these stored procedures to gain full control of the system and as a launching point against other systems on your network. Be sure to remove or disable any stored procedures you do not require. (Songini, 2003)

Nichols, R. and Lekkas, P., 2001, Wireless Security: Models, Threats, and Solutions, McGraw-Hill Professional.

Securing data for transmission over the Internet or Intranet is no simple job. The unsurpassed way to assess your security requirements is to consider the drawbacks of unofficial users viewing the data. The more confidentiality your data needs, the more security should be in place. Security is time and again far simpler to put into practice than to keep up. Make certain that the required procedures in your association keep your system up to date. Security is often ignored or avoided by everyday users for ease. By the time damaging of data or security breaks have been revealed, much spoil may have already been done. SQL Database and Web server merchants are regularly improving their systems, so keeping on up to date on the specific architectures is a necessity (Nichols and Lekkas, 2001).

Across Releases Using Historical Data Dictionaries. Bell Labs Technical Journal, Vol. 5 Issue 2, p121-133

MS SQL Server. Database Security in SQL Server 6.5. Apress Publishing, 2004. Available online at: http://www.aspfree.com/c/a/MS-SQL-Server/Database-Security-in-SQL-Server-6-5/

SQL Server: A database application is a program that enables clients to access to data. There are various types of this application, ranging from the expensive enterprise-level Microsoft SQL Server to the free and open source mySQL. Most database server applications have several things in common. First, database applications use the same general programming language known as SQL, or “Structured Query Language”. This language, also known as a fourth-level language due to its simplistic syntax, is at the core component on how a client communicates its requests to a server. Using SQL in its simplest form, a programmer can select, add, update, and delete information in a database. SQL can be used also to create and design entire databases, perform various functions on the returned information, and execute other programs.
The second function of database server applications is that they require some form of authenticated connection between client and host. Though SQL language in its basic form is quite easy to use, any client that wants to perform queries must first provide some form of credentials that will authorize the client. The client also has to define the format of the request and response. The client must define what type of database server it is connecting to, before any connection can be made. This is handled by a software component that provides the client with the instructions needed to create the request in the correct format. In addition to the type of database, the request type can be used to further define how the client's request will be handled by the server. Next are the database name and the authentication information. All the connection information is important, but by far the weakest link is the authentication information or lack of it. In a correctly managed server, each database has its own users with specially designated permissions that control what type of activity they can perform.