Assignment - You are to prepare a 3,000 word report on the following topic.

From an information system perspective, describe and analyse either

• An information system of your choice
• or an organisation of your choice.

This could be

• either by giving an overview
• how a chosen information system is used across industries or organisations
• or how a chosen organisation is using different information systems
• or by specifically looking at how one chosen organisation is using one chosen tool or system

The organisation can be a private company, a department of a company or even a project team, but might also be a non-profit organisation, an artistic body, an international institution, a government or a political party.

There are many ideas what an information system can be. Examples that would be suitable for this report are Enterprise Resource Planning Systems, Content Management Systems or Knowledge Management Systems, including tools for sharing knowledge, like a wiki, for storing and presenting knowledge, like a data warehouse or it could be a system like a Document Management System. Please check with Matthias whether your chosen information system is suitable.

The challenge is for you to find out sufficient information about the organisation or information system so that you can understand the kind of information that it handles, the staff involved, the software (possibly also hardware) involved, how it is implemented and for what purpose and to what effect.

One of the most difficult tasks will be for you to decide on the precise organisation/tool/system that you wish to prepare your report about. Please try to make your decision soon, as this will make the preparation of the report more straightforward.

Report structure

Your report should have a structure. Here is an example of a structure:

1. Introduction

2. General overview of the organisation/tool/system

3. Description e.g. of an organisation's information system

Example: What kind of information does it deal with, what is its purposes, etc.

4. Analysis e.g. of an organisation's information system

Example: How it help/support the organisation/management, how do they profit from the system, etc.

5. Conclusion

6. References

7. Appendices