Assessment Two - October 2021 | Strategic Information Systems Management

The Requirements for the Assessment

You are required to write a 3500-word journal article in an academic style on one of the specific titles listed later in this document.

This will involve undertaking independent research of theory (e.g. books, journal articles, internet) and practice (e.g. examples and case studies). Any Information Systems or Software
Engineering type Journal (https://www.springer.com/journal/10664) which is available online can be used for examples of the style of writing to be adopted.

You may consult any of the module materials, resources or any other relevant materials but you will find that they will need to be expanded on by your own research.. You must undertake your own research to find journal articles and cases. Wholesale repetition of examples given in the lectures or on Moodle or discussed in the tutorials will not attract any marks.

Caution: Note that it is not necessary to describe in detail and repeat whole elements of the lecture notes or materials already provided. You must assume that your reader already has
knowledge of the lecture notes and previously provided material. Submissions which simply repeat this material will not be viewed kindly and will be marked down. Similarly, simple
descriptive accounts of approaches, tools & techniques etc. are not enough: you need to demonstrate an understanding of their application to the area under consideration.

Do please note that all sources that you refer to must be formally acknowledged in the list of references as well as being cited appropriately within the body of the essay. See below as well as the details to assist you contained within the Student Study & Referencing Guides that have previously been provided to you by the School and by any guidance previously issued by the Module Leader

You should consult peer-reviewed academic journals and papers. These should form the bulk of your references. Submissions that rely heavily on trade journals, web-sites and consultancy white-papers, and Wikipedia etc. will be penalised. This is a Masters level assessment and your submission should be presented as an academic journal article which requires the citation of articles within peer-reviewed academic journals.

• Pay close attention to the marking schema and make sure you address all sections and use this to plan your submission. The marking schema shows the relative weighting of
  each section e.g., the “Discussion & Analysis of the main topic under consideration” section is weighted as 25 out of 100, so it might be reasonably expected to take about a quarter of your total effort and to contain about 25% of the total words within the main text.
• You should avoid simply listing lots of items either as bullet points or in short paragraphs. You should also avoid jumping from one item to another without any explanation of why you are moving on or what the relevance of the next item is. It is essential to focus on two or three aspects and address them in depth rather than to string together a large number of discrete items. Failure to follow this guidance may result in a substantial deduction of marks overall.
• You should also be presenting a balanced appraisal which involves including an analysis of the different sides of an argument.
• In many instances such as when analysing Risk or KM or Metrics etc., you need to include an assessment of the implications of your consideration of these elements with regards to the delivery of software.
• Finally, as you are aware there are some “essay mills” such as UK Essays and others that purport to provide “assignment help”. Any evidence of the use of these websites (even an
  item in the reference list) will be penalised and reported to the Academic Conduct Officer.

Please find below specific titles drawn from different module Units. You should choose only one specific title to undertake your journal article. Page numbers refer to the core text by Peppard & Ward (2016). A good starting point are the references in the end notes of Chapters 8,9,10 &11 within the core text. IN Specific Titles – Choose from one of these topics below:

1. Evaluate the value of the IS/IT application portfolio approach (pp. 273-303) to the defining, selecting and implementing of IS/IT systems that would be required by organisations. In particular consider whether the portfolio approach, as discussed in the core text applied to IS/IT is the same as managing other business assets such as products and services.

2. Evaluate whether the application of Benefits Realisation Management technique (pp. 320-322) to the justification, prioritisation and evaluation of IS/IT systems is one of the most promising approaches to effectively matching IS/IT demand and supply.

3. IS/IT investments are inherently risky (pp. 332-335). Discuss this often repeated statement in the context of increasingly complex IS/IT systems and the inability of many IS/IT systems to deliver the expected benefit. You should address this problem by discussing the approaches outlined in the core text (from Unit 9 onwards). INF11115 Strategic Information Systems Management Pritam Chita 6 Assessment Two - October 2021 N Specific Titles – Choose from one of these topics below

4. There are a wide variety of governance frameworks around ranging from thoserelat ed to the Sarbanes Oxley Act (2002), to CoBIT, ITIL, PRINCE2 and Programme Management. Discuss the different aspects of strategic IS/IT that at least two of these approaches address and their commonalities, interactions and issues.

You should not spend any time simply describing these frameworks but rather their relevance and interactions and links back to the strategy management of IS/IT systems process as discussed in Chapters 10 & 11.

Note that any work you submit must not have previously been produced for any other module.

5. Many organisations have decided to outsource some or most of their IT systems to external suppliers. Discuss the tools & techniques used and the criteria on which these decisions are made (pp. 326-332) and how they are made with the inevitable tradeoffs.

Note that these tools & techniques are outlined in the core text (Chapters 9-11) and submissions which ignore these and simply list the advantages and disadvantaged of outsourcing will be penalised.