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Faculty of Science : Guide to courses
Information Systems focuses on the design, specification, and creation of information systems, and on the human and organisational arrangements needed to use information systems to achieve organisational goals. To cover these increasingly interrelated topics, the course offers study in five key areas: information systems, information technology, organisations, analytical skills, and professional competencies.
Bachelor of Information Systems graduates will find employment in a variety of professional roles, ranging from the very technical to the very business oriented, in public and private organisations in Australia and overseas.
Specific capabilities will be developed through work in the five general theme areas of the course:
This is the central theme of the course. Information systems collect, process, store, and distribute information so that it can be used to make decisions, to keep track of resources, and to plan for the future. Particular focus is placed on imagining, specifying, designing, justifying, building, implementing, managing, and using information systems to add value in organisations.
An understanding of the potential of information technology to add value is essential to the successful implementation and use of information systems. Students will become familiar with computer hardware and software, telecommunications, databases and data structures, information technology architectures, and information technology infrastructures. Practical experience in these areas will help students learn how to assess the current and future capability of information technology.
To implement information systems efficiently and effectively in organisations requires the ability to analyse and understand organisational functions, processes, environments, characteristics, and cultures. This organisational perspective on information systems, and its relationship to the technical perspective developed in the information technology theme, is a distinguishing characteristic of the Bachelor of Information Systems course.
Effective design, development, and implementation of information systems in organisations requires a broad range of analytical skills, including data classification and modelling, information mapping and representation, systems analysis and design, discrete mathematics, and statistics. These and other analytical skills are essential for understanding, and communicating about, complex organisational situations and the potential and performance of information systems.
Graduates will, in the course of their jobs, work with people across a broad spectrum of technical and business interests and skills. Success in these interactions will require a well developed set of personal competencies, including listening, collecting and synthesising information, writing, presenting, and working in teams.
Students enrolled in the Bachelor of Information Systems will participate in a Professional Skills Program covering a range of communication, professional and analytical skills. Students will be expected to complete the sequence satisfactorily at first, second and third year levels, and will be awarded a certificate on successful completion of this element of the course.
The Professional Skills Program (PSP), which runs at each year level in the Bachelor of Information Systems, aims to prepare students for the Information Systems workplace by teaching skills in communication, teamwork, leadership, writing, presenting in public, problem solving and more. It is a 55-hour course taught over a 3-year or 5-semester period. The PSP is a non-credit course but attendance is a requirement of the degree of Bachelor of Information Systems. First Year PSP commences in second semester of first year, and comprises an introduction to a range of professional skills, and the rationale for bringing such professional skills to the workplace. In second year, students study thinking skills, people skills, and oral and written communication skills. Third year PSP covers advanced presentation skills, advanced people skills such as negotiation and conflict resolution, and advanced problem solving. Note: Students in five-year programs combined with the Bachelor of Information Systems can complete the five semesters of PSP over the five years of their course duration. Generally, PSP classes are attached to BIS core subjects for class allocation purposes.
The objective of the Bachelor of Information Systems course is to prepare students to be part of teams that imagine, specify, design, justify, build, implement, manage, and use information systems. To accomplish this objective, graduates must understand how to use information technology, including hardware, software, and telecommunications, as a conduit for the value-added information content of formal organisational systems. This understanding is based on a solid theoretical grounding in both technology and organisations, as well as on experience working both individually and in teams to apply the theory to practice.
Upon completion of the Bachelor of Information Systems program, students will:
understand how people use information and information systems;
understand the business value that information and information systems can enable in organisations;
understand the organisational settings in which information systems are used, including major business functions and processes;
have familiarity with, and some experience in, studying large, complex information systems;
understand, and be able to specify, the technical aspects of an information system;
be able to build small information systems;
be familiar with a range of techniques, standards, and tools for building and using large information systems in an organisational setting;
be able to participate in imagining, designing, justifying, implementing, and managing large information systems;
have professional competencies for effective work in organisations, including listening, writing, researching, analysing, presenting, and working in teams; and
know how to operate ethically within society's legal framework.
The Bachelor of Information Systems degree requires a minimum of three years of full-time study.
The Bachelor of Information Systems single degree comprises core (compulsory) subjects. In the second and third years of the course students choose from a wide range of elective subjects enabling them to specialise in Information Technology or Organisations. Alternatively, students can choose elective subjects which suit an individual area of interest, from amongst the range of information systems electives, or other disciplines within the University.
Students must complete at least 300 points of approved studies, which must include:
core studies in Information Systems or other disciplines at 100-, 200-, and 300-level, as specified by the Department of Information Systems (see Core studies below);
at least 50 points of approved electives in Information Systems or other discipline areas at 200- and 300-level;
Completion of either of the following Mathematics and Statistics subjects
620-160 Experimental Design and Data Analysis or
620-131 Scientific Programming and Simulation.
Note: This specification may be modified from time to time in line with subject changes.
615-102 Accounting & Finance for Decision Making
615-120 Information Systems in Organisations
615-145 Concepts in Software Development 1
615-237 Telecommunications Concepts
615-240 Concepts in Software Development II
615-245 Systems Analysis and Design
615-302 The Economics of Information and Information Technology
615-327 Management of Information Systems
615-350 Case Studies in Information Systems
615-352 Organisational Analysis and Change
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Notes:
All subjects in the table (with the exception of the electives) constitute the core studies in Information Systems required for successful completion of the degree.
Prerequisites for subjects are noted in brackets where appropriate.
This course plan is accurate as at July 1998. Minor Changes to subjects may occur from time to time, but the basic course outline will be in this format.
The majority of students who enrol in the Bachelor of Information Systems course will take 615-160 Tools of Analysis and either 620-160 Experimental Design and Data Analysis or 620-131 Scientific Programming and Simulation.
The Department of Information Systems reviews the academic progress of all undergraduate students every semester.
The following criteria will apply in relation to satisfactory progress through the Bachelor of Information Systems.
Students in the Bachelor of Information Systems who pass
75% or more of points attempted in any semester will be deemed to have made satisfactory progress;
between 50% - 75% of points attempted in any semester may receive a letter alerting them to their unsatisfactory progress, and requiring them to attend an interview with their course mentor before subject enrolment is authorised for the following semester;
less than 50% of points attempted in any semester, or pass less than 75% of points attempted in any semester for the second consecutive time, will be required to make a case to the Information Systems Student Progress Committee.
Students who fail a subject for the second time will not be allowed to re-enrol in that subject without the approval of the Head of Department. An application for this approval will be considered at an interview with a mentor appointed by the Head of Department.
Students may be asked to make written submissions to, or appear before, the Information Systems Student Progress Committee or to do both. In considering the student's progress the Committee will normally take into account the student's results, attendance at lectures, practical classes and tutorials, information from departmental records, and any extenuating circumstances.
The Committee will determine the best course of action for the student's academic future and make one of three decisions:
no action; or
limit the student in his or her studies for the following semester or year; or
recommend to Academic Board that the student be suspended from his or her enrolment in the Bachelor of Information Systems.
Information Systems (IS) is growing in importance in the workplace, and currently there is a shortage of IS-trained practitioners and professionals. The Diploma in Information Systems is designed to provide a core of information systems skills to graduates in other disciplines as an important contribution of the Department of Information Systems to the overall educational mission of the University.
This is a concurrent undergraduate Diploma in Information Systems, undertaken in tandem with a degree in some other discipline at the University.
The Diploma will consist of 100 credit points taken over the duration of the concurrent undergraduate studies.
The Diploma requires students to complete the core technical subjects from the existing Bachelor of Information Systems degree, including programming, databases, and telecommunications.
Students who complete the Diploma at a satisfactory standard would be eligible to apply for the Postgraduate Diploma in Information Systems, once they have completed their concurrent first degree.
Students who are interested in acquiring a more complete background in Information Systems, including subjects focused on the economics of IS and managing the IS function, should consider enrolling in the Bachelor of Information Systems or a related combined degree program.
At the time of printing, the Diploma in Information Systems was awaiting final University approval for 1999.
Upon completion of the course, students should:
know how to utilise, analyse, and create the information content of formal organisational systems;
have a solid theoretical grounding in the role of information systems in organisations;
have gained practical experience working both individually and in groups to turn theory into practice;
have a basic awareness of the major activities involved in a variety of business functions;
be able to combine their knowledge of systems and of organisation to recognise and exploit opportunities to create value through the effective design and implementation of information systems;
be able to communicate effectively, and have the skills in written, oral and electronic communication that are necessary for the pursuit of a professional career; and
have a capacity and motivation for continued learning.
The course is available as a sequence of subjects, typically taken over four years.
Students must complete a minimum of 100 points of 100, 200 and 300-level subjects. All points must be from subjects offered by the Department of Information Systems.
Students must normally complete:
Note: It is recommended that students should consider 100 level subjects in Management and Accounting to support studies in Information Systems.
Then, students should normally complete the following 75 points of Information Systems subjects.
615-240 Concepts in Software Development II
615-237 Telecommunications Concepts
Students whose prior knowledge has exempted them from any of the subjects listed above, or who wish to do additional study in Information Systems, could choose from the following:
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Search : Index : Faculty of Science
Prev 8. Combined courses involving the Bachelor of Science
Next 10. Combined courses involving the Bachelor of Information Systems
Status: Official 1999 Last Modified: Tuesday October 20 11:52 SGML to HTML Conversion: Information Technology Services Authorised by: Academic Registrar Email Enquiries: Course_Information@registrar.unimelb.edu.au