IS2010 Information Systems Curriculum Guidelines as Word Clouds

The IS2010 Curriculum Guidelines for Undergraduate Degree Programs in Information Systems as a word/tag cloud.
Note: I only used the Core course specifications in section 13 as input.

From Wordle:

Should you email your cubicle neighbor?

From ISACA CEO, Susan M. Caldwell:

I recently read some interesting rules about e-mailed communication. They were suggested by D. Mark Schumann, chair of the International Association of Business Communicators. He calls these his “three e-mail rule”:

1. You should exchange only three e-mails with anybody on a single topic. If you haven’t resolved the issue after three e-mails, you should have an actual conversation.

2. You should copy only three people on any e-mail. If you need to copy more, you should have a meeting.

3. If you are in the same office with someone and that person is less than three feet or three floors away from you, you should talk with them in person or call them. The same applies if you are not in the same office, but the person is less than three hours away from you.

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By the way, the Information Systems Audit and Control Association (ISACA) is an excellent organization!

FREE MIS Textbooks for Students

Flat World Knowledge and others have ‘open education resources’ (i.e., free) for some formats of the books. The site also has a list of universities that have adopted the book. For those teaching a core Information Systems course I encourage you to review Information Systems: A Manager’s Guide to Harnessing Technology—by John Gallaher: http://www.flatworldknowledge.com/printed-book/227252

The benefit is the price (free for students if read online) and availability of multiple formats for students. The book has exam/quiz supplements in Blackboard format as well as Powerpoint presentations. It may be an option to help reduce the cost of textbooks for students if the quality is reasonable. From what I can see the book is continuously being updated and quality is good.

Pricing for Books at Flat World Knowledge:

• Read Online- FREE
• Hard Copy (Color) - $69
• Hard Copy (Black & White) - $35
• Download a PDF to Read Offline and/or Print Yourself - $25
• Audiobook - $40
• Ebook (kindle, nook, ipad) - $25

I’m not opposed to textbooks from traditional publishers, but in the courses that may require multiple texts, I’m a proponent of finding inexpensive or free materials for students at least for some of those required texts, given they’re of similar quality and based on the purpose of the text for use in the course.

Is the CIO the highest ranking IT executive in a company?

InformationWeek generates an annual list of 500 of the "nation's most innovative IT organizations, providing a unique opportunity to understand and examine the business practices of these firms across core areas of operations, including, technology deployment, IT budgets, business-technology infrastructure, and IT strategies" (IW500 FAQs). Although the IW500 collects a great deal of benchmark data I only took the publicly available (i.e. free) demographic information from the 2010 list and put the data in a spreadsheet.

Although the basic methodology for determining the IW500 may have weaknesses, the data still provides a useful snapshot of the current state of IT governance across industries. The variables include the organization name, industry, name of the 'highest IT executive' in the company as well as the title of the highest IT executive. I did a simple text analysis of the titles to determine how many companies identified their highest IT executive as someone holding the title of Chief Information Officer. Of the 500 companies on the list, 386 (77.2%) included CIO as one of the titles of the highest ranking IT executive. Some organizations listed other C-level executives or joint-titles including CTO, CFO, VP for Information Technology, and even CEO. See the chart I created that breaks down the number companies on the list by industry. For the 114 companies that included someone other than a CIO as the highest ranking IT executive, it remains unclear whether or not those organizations have a CIO at a lower level in the company. View or download the Google Spreadsheet I created for additional data [1=Yes; 0=No].

Patent Office Struggles to Catch Up With Technology - NYTimes.com

Patent Office Struggles to Catch Up With Technology - NYTimes.com

Dharavi Slum Tour in Mumbai

One of the best experiences of my trip to India was a tour of the Dharavi Slum in Mumbai (by Reality Tours). The guy giving our tour was a college student who grew up and still lives in one of the other Mumbai slums. asked that we not take photos on the tour, but you can view some photos here, here, here, and here. A few scenes from Slumdog Millionaire were filmed in Dharavi.

Tenure Portfolio Submitted... It's time to party!

I submitted my Tenure portfolio to the Dean's office yesterday at 4:45 PM (due by 5PM), and it was a weight lifted off my shoulders. I think if I would have had the weekend to complete work on it I would have continued to work up to the last minute. I think it may be my education courses that emphasized portfolios, organization, etc., so I like to have them well organized. I am confident in the work I included in my portfolio. My Statement of Accomplishments is likely way too lengthy, and I am sure I could have added more supporting documents for teaching, research or service, but I tried to be as concise as possible.

The past two weeks have been even crazier than normal. As soon as I returned from India our college faculty had an Assurance of Learning Retreat and an Online Teaching workshop. I had to prepare for my online course to make sure it was ready for Tuesday's first day of class, and then are those other two classes I teach. At the same time my tenure portfolio was due on Friday. Needless to say I breathed a huge sigh of relief yesterday afternoon at 5 PM. During this process I have been very thankful for a supportive division chair and dean. A small amount of encouragement and positive feedback goes a long way. I need to remember to do the same as an instructor.