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Enterprise Systems: Curriculum design and assessment

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Abstract

We present a curriculum that prepares students for supporting large Enterprise Information Systems (EIS). EIS is best explained through the evolution of Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP). These systems evolved over the last years driven by (1) changing business requirements and (2) new development capabilities provided by technologies evolution and software vendors’ innovation. These developments led to a new discipline—Enterprise Information Systems, which deals with issues whose focus is on creating and sustaining business benefits through the utilization of corporate IT infrastructure assets. Currently, EIS knowledge is essentially acquired on the job after substantial time of experience building and longer career ladder scale. This paper presents an experience of a curriculum implementation that prepares students for the pervasive EIS landscape in meeting today’s corporate needs. Our IT-based educational approach is evaluated as an alternative to prevailing Business-based approaches to EIS instruction. In this IT-rooted approach, the curriculum is divided into four sections: a Core IT block of courses followed by two progressive-levels of advanced EIS-related specialized subjects, and an industry-oriented field-training experience. Initially, a Core IT background provides a foundation for IT innovation in developing EIS components at sophomore-level. A junior-level of specialized instruction introduces integrated modules which form EIS platforms. Finally, supporting technologies of EIS-related processes and workflows are presented at senior-level of specialized EIS instruction. An assessment case study of the proposed Enterprise System programs is carried out through which we discuss the results of the curriculum performance.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. College of Information Technology, UAE University, Al Ain, UAE

    Yacine Atif, Jameela Al-Jaroodi, Shayma Alkobaisi, Ahmed Jaffar, George Ditsa & Piers Campbell

Authors
  1. Yacine Atif
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  2. Jameela Al-Jaroodi
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  3. Shayma Alkobaisi
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  4. Ahmed Jaffar
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  5. George Ditsa
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  6. Piers Campbell
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Yacine Atif.

Appendix: Catalog description of major ES courses

Appendix: Catalog description of major ES courses

 

Courses

Brief catalogue description

ITBP312

Functions of a database system (tables, relations, relational operations, queries, views) and the OS support needed to implement them; functions of information retrieval system; accessing organizational data and external data; security and access control; secure intranets; user interface; macro programming; running web and other information services from a database; E-commerce basics; webclients, servers, and search engines; examples of major commercial systems

ISBP301

Transforming typical manual business operations into an evolving electronic enterprise. Fundamental concepts on various core business functional operations. Potential IT architecture and capabilities to support such functional objectives. Elementary strategies to align IT to business needs via standard IS applications to support basic to complex and evolving enterprise. Enterprise management e-services incorporating elementary concepts on information portals including e-commerce, e-business, e-procurement, e-finance and e-audit. Advancement in mobile technology and its application to e-enterprise

ISBP350

Technology and architecture, implementing integrated package solutions. The ERP framework, tools and functionality of leading enterprise systems, ERP procurement, ERP Vendors (Microsoft Dynamic Great Plain), implementation cases, supply-chain management

ISBP420

Information systems design and implementation within a database management systems environment; student project is to construct a system; data models; modeling tools and techniques; structured and object design approaches; relational, hierarchical, networked, and object oriented database models; CASE tools; data dictionaries, repositories, warehouses; client-server planning, testing, and installation; system conversion, end-user training and post implementation review

IBSP450

Main topics include establishing DM structures, organizational issues, association rules, decision trees, neural networks, clustering, sequence similarity, data preparation, data warehousing

ISBP440

Successful management of system development or enhancement projects for enterprise-level systems; managing the system life cycle; requirements determination, logical design, physical design, testing, and implementation; system and database integration; network and client-server management; metrics for project management and system performance evaluation; managing expectations of superiors, users, team members,and others related to the project; determining skill requirements and staffing the project; analysis of cost-effectiveness; reporting and presentation; managing both the behavioral and technical aspects of the project; change management

ISBP450

Main topics include establishing DM structures, organizational issues, association rules, decision trees, neural networks, clustering, sequencesimilarity, data preparation, data warehousing

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Atif, Y., Al-Jaroodi, J., Alkobaisi, S. et al. Enterprise Systems: Curriculum design and assessment. Educ Inf Technol 16, 441–461 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10639-010-9138-4

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