NOTE: BA 271 will no longer be offered
by the College of Business.
This syllabus is from the Fall 2007 course -- the last time this course was
taught -- and is for reference purposes only.
BA271 - Information Technology in
Business
Fall Term, 2007
Overall course learning objectives: First, you will learn to use a computer as a partner in everyday managerial
tasks like preparing presentations, building websites, and managing transactions.
Then, collectively, we will begin conversations about how multi-user business
computer systems differ from using personal productivity software. To do well, you will need to practice
hands-on activities on a computer, and you will need to learn about the issues
faced by businesses as they adapt to new technology. To earn an "A", you
will have to show us first-rate computer-usage skills combined with an ability
to think clearly and write well.
Announcements:
 November
8th: In class today, we will use this purchase
order as the basis of an in-class exercise.
 November
6th: We will use this report to create an
entity-relationship diagram in class today ...
 November
1st, part 1: We made less progress in class than
I expected today, so I've put off the due date for Access #1 until next
Wednesday @ 2 p.m.
November
1st, part 2:
I hope you all enjoyed Halloween last night as much as I did. As for today,
in class we will look at how to create an ER (entity-relationship diagram that
could store information from the following Purchase Order:
October 26th:
I just finished scoring the Peer Review activity, and I sent everyone an
individual message about it. Here is a graph showing how people performed across
the entire class on this activity. Scores were spread quite widely.
From my side, this activity seemed fairly straightforward and useful ... and
some students recorded quality videos and completed the rest of the activity
well. Honestly, I am confused about why the average performance was so poor. If
you have thoughts about these issues, I will be interested in listening.
October 25th: This link should take you to
today's midterm exam!
October 23rd:
In class today, we had trouble recording sound along with the screen-captured
video while we were using Microsoft Media Encoder. It turns out that the problem
came from using the wrong hole to connect the head phone. I recommend plugging
the pink microphone-jack on the headset into the FRONT of the computer rather
than attempting to find the correct hole on the back.
Here is a quick sample of a Peer Review file
that I created a couple of minutes ago with Microsoft Media Encoder. While the
sound quality of this file isn't great, it is acceptable.
As a fall-back, if you have trouble figuring out how to record the peer
review movies, feel free to ask me questions about the process before or after
the midterm exam on Thursday. I've postponed the due date for the Peer Review
activity from 10 a.m. on Thursday to 5 p.m. on Thursday.
October 18th: I finished updating the Website
Peer Review process for this term. You shouldn't start this activity until
Friday at 2 p.m. (because your peers may still be finishing their Basic Website
project, so it might not be ready to review). You should complete this activity
before 10 a.m. on Thursday.
October 9th:
 Please read the
Fluffy email message I sent you. It describes the following result and gives
you some options to repair things if your find yourself on the left-hand
edge of this graph:
October 4th:
Part 1: Based on ideas I received in class today, I made the
following changes to assignments:
- I rebuilt the links inside the Student Pages portion of this website
for the Treasure Hunt, Fluffy Activity, and Website Plan activities.
- I fixed some editing errors in the Fluffy Activities description.
(Thanks for letting me know about these bloopers.)
- I removed any need to use Visio or Sound Recorder as part of the
Website Plan activity. I did this largely because it doesn't appear that
microphones in the building are working as well as I would prefer ...
and the Visio portion of this assignment wasn't an essential element.
 Part 2: I finished grading the Prerequisite Exam, and here is a graph that
summarized the results across the entire class. The median score on the exam
was 43 points.
September 21, 2007:
I will use this web page to make announcements throughout the term.
Please check this page whenever you arrive at the BA271 website. You are
responsible for checking for new announcements at least once a week.
Opening activities:
Begin by reading the course
syllabus and the other top-level web pages for the BA271 website. These
pages explain the course structure and have many ideas to help you make the
class a success.
- Spend time examining this website. Become comfortable with its
organization, read the rules in the syllabus, look at prior exams and
assignments, and think about my suggestions for "How to Succeed". Read the
rest of this page carefully.
- Learn about the College of Business computer systems by reading these
Computer Support pages
-
Accounts Overview -- How to use the college's user accounts,
email boxes, and file storage locations, and understanding business versus
ONID accounts.
-
Email -- How to use the college's Exchange email system or
the university's ONID email system, and how to forward email from one system
to another.
-
File Storage --How to store files or create web pages.
-
Remote File Access -- How to reach the college's file server
from off campus.
Using Email:
Oregon State University
gives every student in my BA271 class at least two email accounts on two
completely different email systems.
-
The College of
Business creates an email box for every student, faculty, and staff
member associated with the college.
-
The university
provides everyone with an ONID (Oregon State Network ID) account that
includes an email box.
-
You may have other
email boxes if you take forestry or science classes.
-
Finally, you can
sign up to use a third-party email system, such as
Yahoo Mail.
Since I do not know
which system you prefer to use, I must make a choice about where to send
email. Until last term, I sent all email to my students via their College of
Business email boxes. This made sense to me because I am a business
professor. Starting with last term, I decided to send some messages to
College of Business email boxes and other messages to ONID email boxes. This
made sense because I wanted to encourage you to forward mail so that you do
not have "dead letter" email boxes.
I do not care in the
least which email system you choose to use. Here is what I care about:
-
You should
understand the differences among email systems.
-
You should make an
intelligent choice about which email system will be your primary system;
that is, which email system will you actually open and use to check
messages.
-
You should have
messages forwarded automatically to your primary system so email from me
is not being delivered to a “dead letter” mailbox.
- You
should be able to receive HTML-formatted messages that contain embedded
images, bold text,
and other formatting. The messages I
send out can be quite hard to interpret if
everything is displayed in a crude Courier font.
If you did not already
know about your various email boxes on campus, or if you want help learning
how to forward messages from one system to another — then you should read
the
Using Email help page in the College of Business website.
For whatever it is
worth, I use my Business email box (known as
sullivan@bus.oregonstate.edu) as my primary mailbox, and I have my ONID
(also known as
sullivda@onid.orst.edu)
set to forward messages automatically to my Business
mailbox.
I will send everyone registered for BA271 a "Welcome to BA271" message
on Tuesday, September 21st. Verify that you
receive this message. If you have difficulty finding and reading the
"Welcome to BA271" message, make sure you attend a help session, drop by
my
office, or send me an email message. Taking this class without being
connected to email properly would be like wearing sunglasses while driving
at night.
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