Assignment B
Description Marks out of Wtg(%) Due date
Assignment B (written report) 100 50% Refer to study schedule
CIS8000 Global Information Systems Strategy 3000 words
This written assignment is to be electronically submitted through the EASE system in the CIS8000 Study Desk. Hardcopy or email submission will NOT be accepted.
Learning objectives
This assignment specifically addresses the following learning objectives of the course:
LO2 Identify and explore contemporary challenges and opportunities in information systems and to formulate an opinion or judgement and offer possible solutions.
LO3 Demonstrate ability to identify potential opportunities for creative and sustainable use of information technologies to achieve corporate objectives.
LO4 Demonstrate ability to collaborate with peers to analyse and solve business problems with information technologies, and present the solution in a team report.
LO5 Demonstrate effective communication by composing writing that communicates ideas, meaning and/or argument in a format that broadly follows conventions in the information systems field.
LO6 Apply technology and online skills to locate relevant information for the assignments, analyse the presented problems and data, and engage in the use of the resources provided on the USQ web-site.
Option for team submission
Students may choose to either work in a group of 2 students maximum or alone to complete the assignment. Please don’t ask to work in a larger team; if you wish to find a partner you can post a note on Study Desk.
You need to register your team with the names and student numbers of both members on the Team Registration site under Assignment 4 on Study Desk – clearly indicate who the team leader is who will submit the assignment through EASE. The other member must not submit.
For joint submission, the team should:
• Submit only one set of reports through the EASE system – ie only your Team Leader should submit the report; if the other team member submits then any mark given for that will be disregarded even if it is higher.

Further details of submission and marking will be posted on Study Desk.
Plagiarism check
You must subject your written assignment to a plagiarism check by the TURNITIN software prior to its submission in the EASE system. The TURNITIN software can be indirectly accessed through the Study Desk without the need to provide any login-id or password. Further details on how you should interpret the TURNITIN results will be posted in the Study Desk.
No assignment will be marked if it is not accompanied by the TURNITIN summary report.
Activity A: Journal (maximum 500 words)
Prepare a journal which records your activities and progress related to completing this assignment. In date order, clearly list the following:
? Date of research activity/discussion/meeting/participants
? Topic researched, discussed or other activity
? Time duration
? Brief description of research activity/discussion – and what tasks each team member did

Submit this journal as an appendix to Activity B.
Activity B: Report to CEO (maximum 2500 words)
Background: This assignment follows on from the previous assignment.
Analysis of business challenges using the management, organisation and technology model
Based on your research for assignment A, identify a set of business challenges that the organisation might experience in implementing the new wearable technology. Using the management, organisation and technology model, describe and analyse with justifications how information systems could provide the answer to these challenges. You should organise your solution as follows:
• Describe the business challenges with respect to introducing the new technology to manage payroll information
• Analyse these business challenges in terms of: management, organisation and technology
• Summarise the information systems requirements
• Describe the IT infrastructure investment requirements in terms of Figure 5-9: The IT infrastructure ecosystem in p.206 of the textbook (note that not all of the seven components will be relevant to your discussion), and
• Provide a graphical summary of your solution in terms of the management, organisation and technology model.
Marking criteria
You are strongly advised to read the marking criteria carefully before starting on your assignment. In particular, note the marks allocation for each part and sub-part in Activities. Ensure that the length of your solution should be commensurate with the allocated marks.
General guidelines for Activity B
• Your submission must be submitted to the CEO as a report in a single document, not an essay. Please note that reports do have subheadings and an appropriate letter of transmittal is required.
• The word count does not include the following: executive summary, letter of transmittal, table of contents, figures, tables, references or appendices.
• The body of the report should be about 2500 words in length and you may lose marks if it varies by more than 10%.
• You must demonstrate additional research from outside the text. Suggestions for other references include other general texts on information systems management, industry journals, periodicals, electronic databases etc. (many of which are available online from the USQ Library at:
http://www.usq.edu.au/library/ .
• Use the Harvard referencing format for in-text references and the reference list. Your references should include at least one web/electronic link but all the references should not be from the web (ie URLs). Refer to chapter 2 (referencing) of the Communication Skills Handbook 3ed. for further details.
• Inappropriate referencing or excessive grammar/spelling errors will incur a penalty. You should refrain from cutting and pasting chunks of materials from the Internet as this will be treated as plagiarism. To avoid any allegation of academic misconduct from unintentional plagiarism from Internet sources it is compulsory that you use the TURNITIN software to check your work before submitting it. Remember TURNITIN may take more than 24 hours to produce the report. There are few other free applications available on the net to check plagiarism and you are allowed to use them as well.
Report formatting instructions
• Major headings should be in upper case, 14 point Times New Roman Bold.
• Minor headings should be in lower-case, 12 point Times New Roman Bold.
• Body text should be formatted to 12 point, Times New Roman.
• Page size should be A4. Allow for a 25 mm margin on both sides of each page, a 25 mm margin at the top of each page and a 25 mm margin at the bottom of each page.
• Use single line spacing.
• Your assignment should be submitted in one of the following formats:
- Portable Document Format (.pdf).