Course Syllabus
Welcome to BUS303: Strategic Information Technology
Specific information about this course and its requirements can be found below. For more general information about taking Saylor Academy courses, including information about Community and Academic Codes of Conduct, please read the Student Handbook.
Course Description
Explore how managers determine when new information technology initiatives are necessary and how to deploy them by focusing on how to allocate IT resources across your business as part of its organizational strategy.
Course Introduction
BUS206 introduced you to the subject of Management Information Systems (MIS). The focus of that course was on the nuts and bolts of information systems: how they work, how you create them, how to secure them, and so on. This course is developed to help you understand how information technology can be used as part of an organization's overall strategy.
In this course, we will focus on the allocation and use of technology resources across an entire firm as part of the larger organizational strategy. Because firms do not have an unlimited supply of capital, they must decide when and where to deploy new information technology. Firms must not only focus on when to deploy IT, but also if they should deploy IT at all! This brings up the bigger question about technology: Can the use of IT bring a sustainable competitive advantage to an organization? There are those who say "no", and others who say "of course!" You will explore these differing opinions in Unit 1.
In Unit 2, you will delve into how IT might manage business processes and take a look at Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems, Business Process Management (BPM) systems, and business process reengineering. You will then move on to how technology can inform decision making in Unit 3 by studying business intelligence, data warehousing, and data mining. Unit 4 introduces you to the world of e-commerce and examines such important topics as intellectual property and online marketing. In Unit 5 you will explore major trends in technology today like cloud computing, Web 2.0, and mobile technologies. Units 1 through 5 lay the groundwork for understanding how IT can be used in business strategy, which you will put to practical use in Unit 6 and actually write a strategy.
This course includes the following units:
- Unit 1: Information Technology and Competitive Advantage
- Unit 2: ERP Systems, Business Processes, and IT
- Unit 3: Using Information for Decision Making
- Unit 4: e-Commerce
- Unit 5: Technology Trends
- Unit 6: Creating a Technology Strategy
Course Learning Outcomes
Upon successful completion of this course, you will be able to:
- summarize how business organizations employ information technology to create a competitive advantage;
- differentiate among the ways businesses use IT strategically, such as for enterprise, business-to-business, and e-commerce computing;
- explain the roles and impact of business processes as they relate to information systems within an organization;
- compare formal methodologies to improve system planning, analysis, and architecture design;
- analyze the architecture of an electronic commerce system, including the system hardware, system software, database system, online transaction, and user interface;
- summarize how each component of an e-commerce system can be used to improve a business organization and contribute to its competitive advantage; and
- create a technology strategy for an organization.
Throughout this course, you will also see learning outcomes in each unit. You can use those learning outcomes to help organize your studies and gauge your progress.
Course Materials
The primary learning materials for this course are articles, lectures, and videos.
All course materials are free to access and can be found in each unit of the course. Pay close attention to the notes that accompany these course materials, as they will tell you what to focus on in each resource, and will help you to understand how the learning materials fit into the course as a whole. You can also see a list of all the learning materials in this course by clicking on Resources in the navigation bar.
Evaluation and Minimum Passing Score
Only the final exam is considered when awarding you a grade for this course. In order to pass this course, you will need to earn a 70% or higher on the final exam. Your score on the exam will be calculated as soon as you complete it. If you do not pass the exam on your first try, you may take it again as many times as you want, with a 7-day waiting period between each attempt. Once you have successfully passed the final exam you will be awarded a free Course Completion Certificate.
There are also end-of-unit assessments and other quizzes in this course. These are designed to help you study, and do not factor into your final course grade. You can take these as many times as you want until you understand the concepts and material covered. You can see all of these assessments by clicking on Quizzes in the course's navigation bar.
Tips for Success
BUS303: Strategic Information Technology is a self-paced course, which means that you can decide when you will start and when you will complete the course. There is no instructor or an assigned schedule to follow. We estimate that the "average" student will take 83 hours to complete this course. We recommend that you work through the course at a pace that is comfortable for you and allows you to make regular progress. It's a good idea to also schedule your study time in advance and try as best as you can to stick to that schedule.
Learning new material can be challenging, so we've compiled a few study strategies to help you succeed:
- Take notes on the various terms, practices, and theories that you come across. This can help you put each concept into context, and will create a refresher that you can use as you study later on.
- As you work through the materials, take some time to test yourself on what you remember and how well you understand the concepts. Reflecting on what you've learned is important for your long-term memory, and will make you more likely to retain information over time.
- Although you may work through this course completely independently, you may find it helpful to connect with other Saylor students through the discussion forums. You may access the discussion forums at https://discourse.saylor.org.
Suggested Prerequisites
In order to take this course, you should:
- have completed the following courses:
Technical Requirements
This course is delivered entirely online. You will be required to have access to a computer or web-capable mobile device and have consistent access to the internet to either view or download the necessary course resources and to attempt any auto-graded course assessments and the final exam.
- To access the full course including assessments and the final exam, you will need to be logged into your Saylor Academy account and enrolled in the course. If you do not already have an account, you may create one for free here. Although you can access some of the course without logging in to your account, you should log in to maximize your course experience. For example, you cannot take assessments or track your progress unless you are logged in.
For additional guidance, check out Saylor Academy's FAQ.
Fees
This course is entirely free to enroll in and to access. Everything linked in the course, including textbooks, videos, webpages, and activities, is available for no charge. This course also contains a free final exam and course completion certificate.