Topics in MIS

February 14, 2006

Guest Speaker:  Former Student - Robert DiGiovanni - Assessment of Online Programming Tutorials and Learning by Robert DiGiovanni

Online learning which is commonly referred to today as E Learning has grown to play a major role in today’s business society.

 This website will focus mainly on the assessment of different online learning tutorials and program athat are available to learn Computer Programming and how the developers so an assessment of the efficiency of these learning tools.  These tutorials are designed to make computer programming easy to understand.

Types of Online Learning

1.                  User interactive programming tutorials – User interactive and user can do hands on training and interact with the program in order to build simple programs and run them.  The most effective for learning

 2.                          Non-Interactive Difficult to understand and usually very frustrat9ng for the user.  Generally pages of instructions and different types of   algorithms that users can use to practice in order to build programs.

3.                  Online Degree Program – Many universities offer online programs today in which a student can actually earn a complete degree in whatever field they cchoose.  One being CIS or MIS.  This online classroom training is basically an at home self learning program where students can log on to a class at certain times of the day and participate in a sort of online classroom chat where the teacher gives the lesson and students have the ability to ask questions.  This process seems to work well and is effective for most users except for the ones who lack self motivation.  It involves a great deal of at home work and studying on the students part.  Exams are given online

Students that study and receive online degrees finish one quarter of the time faster during a semester.  Students can achieve a degree in half the time.

      There are many sites online that assist with programming such as vbtutor.net.

Vbtutor.net  is a site dedicated to tutoring in Visual Basic.  It is broken down into several lessons in which the user can progress step by step and learn as you go.  Starting from the most basic program increasing to more advance programs in the later lessons.  This is a very useful site for learning the basics of Visual Basic.  The creator of the site is Dr. Liew Voon Kiong who can be contact at liewvk@vbtutor.net.

Please note this is not the latest version of Visual Basic.  This is version 6 – not the .net version.

There are numerous sites available for the free programming languages.

The online tutorials are assessed to determine efficacy of material.  Assessments are any systematic method of obtaining evidence by posing questions to draw inferences about the knowledge, skills, attitudes and other characteristics of people for a specific purpose.  The assessment depends largely upon the use and consequences of the results.  The participant’s motivation to complete the assessment is also important.  This often relates to the nature of the assessment:

Formative:     Designed to help students turn information into knowledge by asking questions that tend to increase remembering and reduce forgetting.

Summative:    Designed to measure knowledge, skills and attitudes by asking questions and measuring the responses.

Diagnostic:     Designed to provide a diagnosis and prescription to help people reach their objectives.

Assessments are often referred to as exams, tests, quizzes, or surveys depending on whether the assessment is intended to measure or promote learning.

One way to get an idea of what the online learning environment is like, try www.onlinelearning.net.

SUNY online courses are offered at:  www.sln.suny.edu and Empire State College offers classes at: www.esc.edu

TODAY'S MENU

1.    Go over phases for your project and submit TOPICS you want to do with course project.

        Evaluate three (3) sites - one of them should be a tutorial.  The purpose is to increase your programming experience.

        Project consists of 6 phases @ 20 points each.  (See Syllabus for detailed explanation.) 

        THE FINAL PROJECT CONSIST OF 6 PHASES: 

Phase I-Introduction

 Detailed Breakdown of Phase I  (10 minutes presentation)

 Introduction of each system (20 pts total + extras):

• History and Background (9 pts)
  • Sector of business
  • What is uniqueness and special features, and weakness?
  • What, Who, Why, Where, Which, When, Whom, How (BUSINESS SECTORS)
  • competitiveness: quality, cost, differentiation
     
• Clarity and Tools for Presentation (2 pts)
  • Voice Clarity
    •  Managers should be heard
  • Tools
    • Documentation
    • Domain name, Your own domain (2 pts)   
    • Web host (paste everything there or upload it) (2 pts)
      • Geocities
      • Angelfire
      • Tripod
      • Cjb.net
    • Print handouts
    • Rely on your website and research for presentation
      • backup (on disk and/or paper)
         
• Collaboration with other projects(1 pt)
   
• Analysis of the phase and replication (Copy, Paste, and Edit) (pick the best of 3 mission and vision of Business sectors and eliminate the worst) (4 pts)
• Extra (5+ pts)
  • Contacting System executives
    • Talk with them
    • Inside Stories
    • Invitation to class

 Phase II- Web Site Analysis( APPEARANCE)  

 (7C's Analysis such as Content, Correctness, Current, Compelling, Consistency, Completeness, Community)

 Detail breakdown for phase II:

 Web site analysis, comparison of the 3 Systems(20 points).

 Appearance, 7 C's Analysis (color, font, clarity, why I like it, why I don't like it, overwhelming, too simple)(10 points).

Intelligence(2 points).

Multimedia(2 points).

If the domain name sounds like it's name(2 points).

loading Speed(2 point).

Personal opinion(2 points).

(you should have LIVE Demo as well as back up with PowerPoint /Webpage )

 Phase III- HTML Analysis

Code analysis (view source). 

Know the 10 commandments of HTML (p.246)(10 points).

Identify 3 tags that you have learned(3 points).

Identify 3 tags that you are unaware(3 points).

Replicate the Html Codes (4 points).

Phase IV- (Java and VB) Script Analysis (page 696)

Identify a program that has the following parts (declaration, assignments, if, loop, class, array, identify the function call)(10 points).

Identify 3 JavaScript codes that you have learned(3 points).

Identify 3 JavaScript codes that you are unaware(3 points).

Replication of JavaScript (4 points).

Phase V- Interface Analysis (programming part)

Simple interface design replication. Demo how your systems are interacting with the interface such as login or search (5 points)

Explain how does it work to the best of your knowledge. Demo it possibly (3). Show how data  from is transmitted versus URL.

 Understanding of search program (any language C++, Java, Perl, C#, and Visual Basic). (5 points)

You are replicating your interface in simplest form.

 CGI programming replication (7 points)

Server site. Post the program on the server.

Protocol analysis.

Security and Validation test(3 points).

Phase VI- Database Analysis and Summary

Database Analysis. demo how the system uses database and what kind of databases they have. You may need to research this extensively (10 points)

database replication (10 points)

Server Analysis and web host analysis.

Analysis of the ‘Host’ (Oracle, SQL).

        EXPLORE, INVESTIGATE and EVALUATE three existing information systems from the same sector (your choice of sector) in the business world.  Indicate pros and cons of each system including the interface that is being used (friendly, overwhelming, simple, security, problems, errors, etc.), followed by your own and others opinions and findings. In addition you may use search engines, and journals for your research. Document each system and voice your own opinion. Create snapshots of the research pasted into Microsoft Word or create web page to show your findings. As the topic of the semester, research how these systems incorporate multimedia (voice recognition, image, etc.) and intelligence.

         Example:  Student may choose to review an Eastern academic of management, tutorial or some other type.  Tutorial can either be presented for extra credit or counted as one of the three sites chosen.

        You will demonstrate your findings in your presentation and presentations will be conducted through the end of the semester.  Presentations will be presented upon completion and may not necessarily require all students complete Phase one before someone can present their Phase Two.  The rule is that as soon as no one is ahead of you, you are in the priority queue. 

(STUDENTS ARE NOT REQUIRED TO DEVELOP A NEW WEBSITE - PROJECTS ARE FOR ANALYSIS ONLY AND EXISTING SITES MAY BE COPIED AND PRESENTED AS APPROPRIATE.)

2.    Present each phase of your project upon completion.  

3.    Quiz is postponed until next Thursday 2/23/06.

Start your project early - don't delay.  The last day for Phase 6 of your presentation is May 4, 2006.