6th post

25/11/10(20:33): I started making a supply chain model for education. This is a little harder than I taught I may need input from the others.

25/11/10(20:44): I uploaded the supply chain picture to google docs and asked for help from the other group members.

25/11/10(21:17): I just finished sprucing up the report Introduction.

26/11/10(09:59): Martin Hughes got back to me, he taught my question was interesting but it required some time to answer, time that he doesn’t have. I will probably have to think about it with the group.

26/11/10(16:59): I finished off the Education supply chain in MS Paint and uploaded it to Google docs to share with the rest of the group. I also wrote a few words on the diagram for clarity.

26/11/10(17:08): I wrote an acknowledgement on Google Docs. It will probably need updating before submission.

26/11/10(17:57): I uploaded “NUIG and The Double Helix” to Google docs.

27/11/10(14:02): Robin requested I share some documents on Google docs with his private email, I did so.

27/11/10(19:31): I finished Strategy and I.S. and uploaded it to Google docs.

28/11/10(10:48): I added a bit more to Strategy and I.S. to tie it in. I also received an email from Andrew asking about my project, he also attached a Harvard referencing guide.

28/11/10(11:05): Going over Martin Hughes lecture slides for Competitive advantage and I’m confused to say the least. C.A. and strategy overlap, but according to his notes Porter’s five forces are used to identify C.A. not strategy?! I will have to review my own notes and do a bit more research before submitting my final part of the report.

28/11/10(11:11): I started writing C.A. in education. But I could only get to First mover advantage. This is harder than I first taught.

28/11/10(12:26):  I uploaded Competitive Advantage and Education to Google docs but it still needs to be finished.

28/11/10(17:52): I finished off Competitive Advantage and Education in Google docs.

28/11/10(17:58): Made 6^th Blog Post.

5th blog post

22/11/2010(16:39): Adrian replied to my email and chose 1.General use and History of IS. 3. IS in Business, its purpose to do his report on.

22/11/2010(18:53): I emailed Robin and Cormac asking them to select a topic ASAP!

4. IS and strategy.

7. Decision making. Hierarchy of IS in business

8.Enterprise systems, reengineering (BPR)

10.  e-Business

I also chose 6. Value creation, C.A. and how I.S. aids in C.A. for my other part of the report.

22/11/10(19:00): I Googled “clockspeed double helix” and got eanh.net/notes/DoubleHelix-CharlesFine.pdf. I then got the double helix on page 4/9 to apply to education or an organisation in education. I plan on asking Seamus Hill or Martin Hughes, where they think NUIG exists on the Double helix.

22/11/10(19:15) I emailed Seamus Hill, asking him for his insight on the double helix conundrum.

22/11/10(19:28) I Googled “information systems and strategy” and got a very interesting result. http://www.uremovic.biz/dl/Information%20Systems%20Strategy%202006-2010%20Final.pdf It is a document about Bournemouth Universities Information systems strategy 2006-2010.

I also looked at a few other documents like http://net.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/PUB3001.pdf but they weren’t very interesting.

23/11/10(10:15) Myself and Andrew arranged a meeting for our group, to take place today at ~2pm. We also discussed the progress we have made with our parts of the reports.

23/11/10(12:11) I texted Adrian informing that we had a meeting at 2pm.

23/11/10(13:00): I began writing a hard copy of the report introduction (rough draft). I plan on uploading it to Google docs for the other group members to help compose and edit it.

23/11/10(14:00): we held our meeting in the Cairnes. Cormac chose 4. IS and Strategy and 7.Decision making. Hierarchy of IS in Business. And Robin chose 8.Enterprise systems, reengineering (BPR) and 10.eBusiness.

23/11/10(14:20) I put up a rough draft of the Report Introduction on Google docs.

23/11/10(17:15) I Googled “competitive advantage and information systems” and went onto http://www.helium.com/items/853154-maximizing-information-systems-to-gain-a-competitive-advantage I just gave it a quick scan, it may be useful for later.
I also scanned a few other links but didn’t really find anything of real interest like: http://jis.sagepub.com/content/25/1/51.abstract

24/11/10(21:23): I wrote a “Brief “”Clockspeed”” Analysis of Education” in google docs and granted the other group members permission to edit it. I also edited The Introduction on google docs because it had a few spelling mistakes.

24/11/10(22:07): I started thinking about my other part of the report. I came up with the a few ideas and questions to help me begin my research. I am going to look at the top rated (most successful?) schools in the world. I may investigate Cambridge, Harvard or TCD and see what I.S. they have implemented and see if it has in fact helped them gain competitive advantage.

25/11/10(15:15): Robin sent me an email requesting that I share some documents with his private email account. I agreed and changed the permissions on the Google docs.

23/11/10(16:55): I approached Seamus Hill after the MIS lecture, asking for advice on the Appendices of the report and the double helix. He gave some useful advice relating to the appendices and he said I should refer my question about the helix to Martin Hughes.

25/11/10(18:28): I emailed Martin Hughes asking for advice in relation to the Double Helix of 3^rd Level Education.

25/11/10(18:24): I emailed Andrew recommending he look at Rosetta Stone as a disruptive technology to Education because it is a threat to languages teaching, it is software and hardware based and it wouldn’t be possible without the utilization of Information Systems.

25/11/10(19:04): I wrote a piece on ERP in google docs and shared it with the others.

25/11/10(20:25) : Made 5th blog post

4th post

22/11/2010: I emailed all the other group members asking them to tell me what sections they were going to do there reports on. I also asked them to have a look at the assignment brief to get an idea of what is expected of them.

22/11/2010(16:20): I replied to andrews email, and agreed to help him edit, introduce and conclude the report, I also informed him that the report requires an executive section.  

22/11/2010(16:35): Made 4th blog post.

19/11/2010(15:00): Googled “porter’s five forces template”, and I got a really good template from; http://www.businessballs.com/portersfiveforcesdiagram.pdf. I also uploaded the document to google docs.

19/11/2010(16:25): Began to write my section of the report, I began by research and writing a little on 5. Use of Strategy and Porter’s 5 forces.

20/11/2010: I used Microsoft Paint to create a diagram of Porter’s Five Forces using the template from businessballs.com. I also searched the web for facts and figures related to the five forces. I researched what the strategy of some universities are/were.

·        http://www.dcu.ie/strategy/dcu_strategic_plan_2009.shtml

·        http://www.bristol.ac.uk/it-strategy/

·        http://www.leeds.ac.uk/comms/strategy/strategy/index.html

I also shared more documents with the team on google docs

21/11/2010: I googled “task organizer online” and tried http://www.rememberthemilk.com/ it was terrible, I didn’t know how to set tasks, add contacts or do anything of real use. I also tried http://www.toodledo.com/ which was just as bad, if not worse than rememberthemilk.com. I had to upgrade to “pro” just to do the simplest of tasks that are available for free on other websites.

21/11/2010: I made my third blog post.

Philip's MS Log

MS Log

11/10/2010: Went to MS tutorial, used doodle, meeting wizard, etc.

18/10/2010 (16:15): Used meeting wizard.com to arrange a meeting to discuss what industry we want to study and to organise assignments and deadlines.

19/10/2010(14:18): I Googled “cite it right NUIG”, file not found in the James Hardeman Library. Tried www.ul.ie/~library/pdf/citeitright.pdf and briefly read through their guidelines on Harvard referencing.

19/10/2010(14:30): first meeting commences, we decide to investigate the impact of IS on Education.

We then sub divided education into dep. of education, 3^rd level, 2^nd level, 1^st level and exam/special education.

We also agreed that we need to begin with the history of the education system, from about the birth of the state up until the present day and maybe even into the future, to really understand the impact of ms on the education system of Ireland.

We may also need to look at other education systems in other countries.

19/10/2010(17:47): Googled “history of Irish education”, got several links the first on was https://intranet.londonmet.ac.uk/prog-plan/module-catalogue/3/es/es3006.cfm . It had some useful information and recommended quite a few books.

20/10/2010(13:13): Andrew and I discuss the fact that our essay will require both an opening and a conclusion. Because I don’t really want to do special needs education and I feel that it ties in with all the other sections, I offered to do the opening and conclusion.

21/10/2010(16:23): I did some light research on Irish education system. Looking mainly at the website http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Education_in_the_Republic_of_Ireland. I also feel that our essay needs a section relating to “Porters Five Forces Model” because this seems to be an integral part of the module.

4/11/10: Googled “how to open a report” got nothing useful. Then tried “how to start a report introduction” got: http://wiki.answers.com/Q/How_do_you_start_a_good_introduction_for_a_report I then began writing the start of my report with the limited info that I had.

7/11/10: Went over the lecture slides and extracted the headings of what we need to focus on in our analysis of the impact of I.S. on education. I got twelve headings in total and a few sub-headings. 1. General use and History of IS. 2. IS in a changing world. 3. IS in Business, its purpose. 4. IS and strategy. 5. Use of Strategy and Porters 5 forces. 6. Value creation, first mover, C.A. 7. How IS aids in the creation of CA 8.Decision making. 9. Hierarchy of IS in Business. 10. Enterprise systems, reengineering (BPR) 11. Business and the Internet, disruption. 12. e-Business

08/11/2010: found a good example for me as a guide to referencing at http://www.staffs.ac.uk/uniservices/infoservices/library/find/references/harvard/index.php

I found the following information to be useful.

“Book (1 author)

Format:

Author - Surname, Initials. (ed.) or (eds.)-in brackets for editor(s). (Year of publication - in brackets).

Book Title - in italics or underlined. Series title and volume - if available. Edition - if not the first. Place

of Publication: Publisher.

Bibliography example:

Neville, C. (2007). The Complete Guide to Referencing and Avoiding Plagiarism. Maidenhead: Open

University Press.

In-text examples:

(Neville, 2007)

Neville (2007) commented that…

“Direct quotations are placed in double quotations marks” (Author’s Surname, Year of Publication, p. –

followed by page number – in brackets)”

08/11/2010:(16:38) Talked to Adrian and Andrew about re-evaluating our project. I think we should use the points that I got last night to base our report on. I also think we should focus our report, on NUIG, rather than The Irish Education system because Irish education is too broad and we have easy access to primary information if we report on the impact of IS on NUIG.

11/11/2010: I feel we need to incorporate a “Clockspeed” analysis of the Irish Education system.

15/10/2010: Googled “report writng canberra”. Clicked the first link and read the info on the page. The structure of our report should be something along the lines of

·        Title page*

·        Table of contents

·        Acknowledgements

·        Introduction*

·        Body*

·        Conclusion*

·        Recommendations

·        Bibliography

From, http://www.canberra.edu.au/studyskills/writing/reports. I think we need to include diagrams and tables to illustrate our points i.e. a model of porters five forces on NUIG, or a double helix structure/analysis for NUIG.

15/11/2010(11:48): Used Google doc’s to upload the some of the documents needed for the report. And created new ones. Sent “Test Doc” to caitrianacostello@live.ie

15/11/2010(12:08): signed into www.blogger.com, with “welovems”. Then created a blog “We Love MS” and the link is http://welovems2010.blogspot.com/

15/11/2010(12:30): arranged a meeting for tomorrow at 2pm using meetingwizard.com

15/11/2010(12:34) uploaded files to google docs and shared them with other group members:     a.breen4@nuigalway.ie

a.larrigan1@nuigalway.ie

c.fay1@nuigalway.ie

r.corbett1@nuigalway.ie

16/11/2010: Emailed all the other members a list of subheading I think they should report on to pick from, Using my NUIG email acount.

16/11/2010(16:43): posted first blog.

16/11/2010(17:03): Googled “the impact of information systems on education” and got some interesting information. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Student_information_system

17/11/2010: Andrew told me about a lecture in NUIG, that video’s his lectures and syncs PowerPoint slides with the AV. He then uploads the data for students to access at a later date, interesting use of technology in Education.

18/11/2010: Andrew emailed me, and he chose; 2. IS in a changing world and 11. Business and the Internet, disruption as the areas he wants to do his part of the report on. He also commented on the Blog. I then replied confirming his choice and I requested that he ask the other members of the group to do the same.

18/11/2010(14:23): I invited the other group members to Co-author the blog.

18/11/2010(14:28): Made second blog post.