Information Management

COURSE OBJECTIVE
Through this course, students will study the topic of information management in breadth and in depth. After taking this course, the student will be able to:
1. Explain the strategic relevance of information systems for modern organizations;
2. Analyze the level of competition within an industry and determine is implications for an information systems strategy;
3. Understand the impact of the advent of the internet on the management of information within and between organizations;
4. Identify the various phases in the development of an information system;
5. Model simple and moderately complex business processes with a formal modeling technique (Petri nets);
6. Analyze process models with respect to various behavioral properties.

COURSE CONTENT
No organization can do without information systems. For some organizations, such systems are even of strategic relevance to them: they offer a clear competitive advantage. Think, for example, of how Amazon.com has become such a dominant retailer or how an organization as Uber is conquering the taxi market.

This course explains the relevance and use of information systems in modern organizations. We will briefly sketch how the role of information systems has developed over the years to reach its current ubiquitous level. Special attention is devoted to the rise of the internet. This has its impact on traditional organizations, but also allows for the emergence of new types of (cloud-based) organizations.

Reasoning from the organizational importance of information systems, we will look into the way information systems are developed such that organizations can achieve their objectives. We will pay considerable attention to an important phase in information system development: the way how to analyze and model business processes. For this purpose, we will rely on the use of classical Petri nets.

This course will approach the topic of information management in breadth and in depth. Breadth is achieved by giving an overview of all relevant topics in the area of information management; depth is attained by introducing students to a powerful, formal modeling technique that they will learn to master in the context of organizational analysis.

TEACHING METHODS
This course consists of lectures (h) and instructions (w). The goal of the lectures is to illustrate the exam material and provide the relevant context. The instructions are meant to practice with the application of the exam material. The lectures and instructions will be provided by prof.dr.ir. H.A. (Hajo) Reijers.

TYPE OF ASSESSMENT
An intermediate exam (T) and a final exam (T) will be used to determine the overall grade of this course. Results for neither of these exams can be passed over or compensated. The re-sit is one integrated exam (T).