Providing context for IT/IS teaching using Interactive Cases

1. Providing context for IT/IS teaching using Interactive Cases Robin Johnson MMU Business School r.johnson@mmu.ac.uk

2. Overview • Rationale • Case Studies & Interactive Case Studies • Demonstrations of 2 versions of TRICS • Future

3. Goals What’s the problem? • Teaching “real world” Information Systems • Problem-Based Investigation – learning by doing • Realistic problems – not artificial • Complex & messy problems • Problems on several levels

4. Limitations of Case Studies • Linear – organisations aren’t linear • Filter material –irrelevance removed • organise material – no search required • Viewed in retrospect – not evolving • No sense of “building a picture” of the problem

5. Interactive Case Studies allow students to: • search for relevant information in an investigative way • distinguish relevant and irrelevant information • piece together isolated pieces of information to create a coherent picture of a situation • create meaning from a complex set of data

6. Interactive Case Studies allow students to: • understand and resolve differing points of view and internal conflicts • deal with a range of differing human interactions • navigate successfully within a complex hierarchy where responsibilities, authorities and decision making are distributed between the stakeholders in unobvious ways.

7. Features of our Case Tool • Canned questions for formal staff interviews • Limit on Questions • Students may be asked to explain the rationale for asking a question (version 1) • Questions may be dependent upon another question (version 1) • Eavesdropping on informal staff conversations (version 2) • Time Slices to show cause and effect • Internal Documents (minutes, standards, procedures etc. available for inspection)

8. Demonstrations • Two Interactive Case Studies at Present 1. ATM, a company providing support for IT Managers, focuses on their need for a Customer Relationship Management system. Used with Level 3 and Masters students to undertake Soft Systems Analysis 2. Ganer, a national law firm with several regional departments. Used with level 2 students to study Organisational structure, change management, power, ethics and HR issues Use login guest with password guest

9. Demo - TRICS 1 with ATM case Case based upon an fictitious advisory organisation who support IT managers, similar to National Computing Centre

19. TRICS 2 - student

20. TRICS 2 - Author

21. TRICS 2 - Author

22. TRICS 2 Access • http://83.138.128.30/private/mmu/index.aspx • Username test • Password test

23. Other Application Areas • Investigation of any organisational process, e.g. production line, logistics, supply chain etc … • Medical – ward rounds - question patients rather than staff, look at medical notes, etc. • Legal – investigation of criminal activities on a campus – interview people who were involved, study other evidence. • Social workers doing case investigations • Professional practice with architects, engineers, hospital doctors, solicitors, etc.

24. Other Case-Based Software

25. Feedback • Is there a need? • Would your students enjoy using it? • Would you reuse somebody else’s case? • Would you share your own case material? • What features would you want?