Advanced Business Analysis and Design Essay

Chosen Topic: Software package evaluation and selection

Background

This research essay gives you the chance to research a topic of interest in some depth. It will involve conducting a review of the recent literature on some aspect of business analysis and design of interest to you, and then presenting what you have found in written form. The subject area should be defined precisely enough to focus your search for information and your reading. The essay should pull together the significant readings you have identified, and present a critical summary of the nature, state and likely future directions of the topic area.

To do

To successfully complete the assignment, you must begin searching for relevant literature immediately. Find at least 15 relevant sources of information (journal articles, books etc). After reading each article, you should think about how they all fit together. Your review should be organized by concepts, such as findings, rather than by sources of information. Do not proceed through the articles one-by-one in your essay. Your essay should include an introduction, the main body that reviews the literature, and a conclusion.

Format Guidelines

• Give your essay a title that clearly reflects its contents.
• Include an introduction section that states the purpose of the essay and a conclusion section.
• Use section headings to help structure the main text.
• Your review should be around 2000 words in length, but can be longer if you wish.
• Include appropriate citations throughout and a list of references at the end. All information that you have obtained from literature MUST have a citation in the text. Use a consistent referencing style (e.g. APA).
• Your submission should include a minimum of 10 references. At least half of these should report the results of research studies (ie. not just give author's opinions), these are most likely to come from journal publications.

Tips:

-          Discuss the advantages and disadvantages of meeting system requirements with packaged software

-          Discuss the problems with subjective approaches to evaluation of software packages during software acquisition

-          Describe the types of criteria that should be considered when evaluating packaged software

-          Describe quantitative approaches to evaluation