MCA-130
Management Information System
Information systems seen from the management floor — how they change a business, how they are planned and built, and what they are used for.
- Semester
- Semester 2
- Credits
- 4
- Scheme
- 3 lectures + 1 tutorial a week
- Contact hours
- 40 across four units
- Category
- Open Elective - I
What the paper is
Management Information System is the paper that asks what all this technology is for. It is taught from Laudon and Laudon, and the organising idea is alignment: a system is only worth building if it does something the business strategy actually needs.
Unit I sets up the analytical tools — Porter's five forces, SWOT, business process management — and they are used throughout. A question that asks how an information system creates competitive advantage is asking you to reach for one of them.
Units II and IV are where the paper stays current: emerging infrastructure (cloud, IoT, big data, BYOD) and business applications (e-commerce, social platforms, ERP, supply chain, CRM). Both are broad and descriptive, and both reward being able to give a concrete example for each named idea.
What to concentrate on
- Porter's five forces and the value chain are the two frameworks most likely to be asked directly and most useful for answering anything else. Learn them well enough to apply to an unfamiliar industry on the spot.
- Know the types of information system — TPS, MIS, DSS, ESS — by who uses them and what decisions they support. It is the most common short question in the paper.
- Unit IV's enterprise systems (ERP, SCM, CRM) are asked as “what problem does each solve”. One paragraph each, with an example, covers most of what is needed.
Syllabus, unit by unit
Summarised from the approved scheme. Hours are the contact hours the scheme allots, which is a fair guide to where the marks sit.
Unit I · Organisations, management and information systems
10 hours- Information systems in business today and how they are transforming business
- The manager's view of information systems; the nature, scope, characteristics and structure of IS
- Functions of management and managerial roles; types of information system
- Business-IT alignment, business processes and business process management
- Competitive advantage, SWOT analysis and Porter's five forces
- Ethical and social issues in information systems
Unit II · Strategic design and emerging IT infrastructure
10 hours- BYOD, data centres and cloud computing, cloud service delivery models
- Enterprise computing, grid computing, green computing
- IoT, sensor technology and RFID
- Big data and analytics, data and text mining, business intelligence
- Strategic management of the business, strategic design of MIS, strategy implementation
Unit III · Developing and managing information systems
10 hours- Long-range MIS plans, ascertaining the class of information, determining information requirements
- Development and implementation of MIS, the development process model, business challenges
- Manufacturing, production and transportation management systems
- Decision support systems and their components; sales and marketing, accounting and finance, and human resource systems
- Securing information systems: data breaches and cybersecurity challenges, IT risk management, mobile, app and cloud security, fraud defences
Unit IV · Business applications of information systems
10 hours- Retail channels, e-commerce applications and issues, e-commerce business models, e-business
- Mobile commerce and applications
- Social media strategies and communities, engagement, monitoring, metrics and analytics, lessons from failures
- Enterprise systems and enterprise social platforms
- Enterprise resource planning, supply chain management and customer relationship management systems
How it is examined
- Question 1 is compulsory, covers the whole syllabus, and is made of objective or short-answer questions. It carries 12 marks.
- The rest of the paper is four units matching the four above. Each unit sets two questions and you attempt one, so there are four more answers at 12 marks each.
- Examiners are asked to map every question to a course outcome using Bloom's taxonomy, which is why questions are phrased as “apply”, “analyse” or “evaluate” rather than only “explain”.
The pass mark is 40 out of 100 in every paper.
Learning objectives
- Understanding the leadership role of management information systems in achieving competitive advantage through informed decision making
- Analysing and synthesising business information systems to evaluate strategic alternatives
- Communicating strategic alternatives effectively to facilitate decision making
- Understanding the issues involved in managing information systems ethically
Assumed beforehand
- General awareness of management principles
- IT infrastructure
Books it is taught from
- TB1Kenneth C. Laudon and Jane P. Laudon, “Management Information Systems: Managing the Digital Firm”, Pearson, 16th edition, 2019
- TB2Ramesh Behl, James A. O'Brien and George M. Marakas, “Management Information Systems”, McGraw Hill, 11th edition, 2019
- TB3Rahul De, “MIS: Managing Information Systems in Business, Government and Society”, Wiley, 2nd edition, 2018
Notes for MCA-130
Lecture notes, question papers and assignments filed against MCA-130 are in the library. Everything there has been checked by a moderator before it appears, and an account is free — new ones are approved by hand, which is what keeps the shelf clean.