Commentary on W1P2 Grading

The week went pretty well. Read Reflections on Discussions post below.
Students should pay more attention to my comments that come with the grades and correct the shortcomings when I ask to because in some case incomplete task might lead to further grade deductions since the quality of the whole project (like blog network or some labs) might be impaired or it might hamper the future work.
Start early to allow other students help you in Q&A forums (like in case of widget installation in blogs, or future work with apps) if there are technical difficulties. Complaints about technical problems when the work is attempted to be done in the last day will not be considered as a good effort.

Video Lecture on Zoho Sheet Lab

In this videolecture (click on this link to see it) I discuss the new type of software - Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) with apps beinig one of the most popular representative of it. I also show how to use Zoho suite, which is a collection of such apps, for business use on your computers and for the Spreadsheet Lab.

When you will watch the video - do not forget to save the sheet created in Zoho (I didn't do that since I already had one). And only after that start doing the Publishing activities.

Reflections on Discussion and Task Quality

Once the first week is done – you are more familiar now with using discussions as ongoing research with reading the findings of others and commenting on them. Now we are raising the bar for posting quality. Those who aim at good grades should avoid using the same sources as in posts before them (which means read posts of others before starting your work, as well as my comments to them if any) not to have variations on copying chunks of material from the same sources. Also the originality of posts is becoming more important as your ability to reflect on material and creatively rethink it. In the future only meaningful replies adding some substance or reflecting on material will be counted. It is not a regular discussion on Facebook but Research using forums as shared memory!
Also watch for the deadlines. This time posts a few min after the deadline were counted but next time will not!
Another point - periodically read your own post in case there are questions to you by other students or my commentary to which you should respond. This is another example of attendance...

Although you might get max points for your posts and tasks by satisfying the minimal requirements, the quality will be considered at the time of final grading when if you are between 2 grade letters – the quality of your posts and attempts for more advanced ways of doing all the tasks will mean a step up.

W2 Tasks Overview (both Part 1 and Part 2)

This week’s chapters (chapters 2 and 3) are getting into some details (those system's parts and connections that you were talking about in your week 1 discussions) of information systems. They show the role and place of such technology components as hardware, software, and data. These are the main tangible assets of any IS (and of course... think what else). IS are becoming the more and more important parts of modern organizations (especially online ones). IS expenses are becoming the dominant part of the overall corporate cost items and their deeper understanding is a must for any modern career.
As a part of the educational experience closely related to the week’s topics, you will get to work with spreadsheets (one of the most popular part of any office suits) and databases.
The main trend now is in moving everything to the Web, which provides much higher connectivity and sensitivity for the components and processes of organizational systems making them more effective and efficient. This is why our Web Development Certificate program (same idea as Business Essentials, just fully online) might be a valuable option for a competitive graduate.
Zoho, so far, is the best online office suite offering Software as a Service (you might want to research the keyword SaaS) from the cloud (check this one out too). We will start with spreadsheet tools that not only allow to do what all spreadsheet software allows, but also has extended options for sharing, collaboration, and publishing in Web 2.0 style and Social Networks. Best of all, you need only a browser for work with it. I focused on Zoho because you have different operating systems (MAC, OS, Android, etc.) and cloud computing with services (that are like apps, loaded when needed into the browser) will allow you to do the work from anywhere. Later we will use some other pieces of their suite.

Best way of doing T1.4

In order to get the max amount of points for this task pay attention to the part of the task requiring to use as many systems concepts (and terms) in describing your system as possible. The goal is in showing your "systems" vision of some entity. The ability to analyze anything in life as a system (in systems terms) immediately allows you to apply a well developed machinery of systems analysis (one of the disciplines in IS major) and its extensions valid for absolutely any system (entity, process, or event to that matter). Therefore read the book first and use it when writing this task.

W1.P1 Notes and Grading Comments

I want to reflect here on the performance during the first part of week 1 so that you will be able to make proper adjustments and avoid mistakes decreasing your grade.
We already have leaders and those not so effective. This is only the beginning of the course and everyone can still fight for (and get) a good grade, knowledge, and skills. The winter semesters are more intensive than the normal ones since you have to fit all the work into a much shorter time interval. Instead of sitting half a day in the class (as is the case in regular winter/summer classes) in this class you can find the best time and speed of doing the work. It is assumed that you check the announcements (News Forum is VERY IMPORTANT, task blog, and discussions (since you might get questions) AT LEAST every day. Basically, you have to spend less time a day (and in convenient for you times) but do the attendance (online presence) every day since the load is much higher than in regular semester long online classes. I see that some students did a good job quite fast and went ahead of the deadline schedule doing tasks from the first half of the week to better control the time in case of emergencies and holidays. Short winter/summer classes are designed for at least 30-35 hours of work a week (lectures plus assignments) do not think that since it is an online class you have to spend as little time daily as replying to your regular emails. Even the best and the quickest ones are assumed to spend at least 2-3 hours a day working on the course load. Of course, you might do all the tasks in one busy day and then leave less time for work in other days by reading and replying to the posts, reading announcements, blogging, and refining your lab work (which will be in working with various online systems and technologies).

Grading for W1.P1:
Many students did a good job and, since you are on “the curve” where your final grade will depend on your point score position in the class relative to other student, made a good step up above the average class performance.
Some students lost points for NOT READING THE TASKS PRECISELY (like missing the need to post the blog link to Student Info or make me a co-author of the blog, or to name blogs with their First and Last name). Please correct these shortcomings ASAP not to get deductions in the following learning periods.
The assignment also led to some students’ point loss because of not clearly showing the value chains (like it is done in the book). Your next assignment is clearly about value chaining – please read the book and learn the concept, especially given the coming quiz on chapter 1.
A very small group of students managed to totally miss some or even all three assignments (this is a very likely candidate for failing the course) putting themselves at high risk from the start because, as the syllabus describes and I repeat it again, three (3) missed or done on zero-level tasks will automatically fail you in this semester. This is a result of its short nature and, consequently, high penalties for skipping the tasks. One missed week is like skipping 1/3 of the semester and ½ of missed week… do the math… is like skipping 3 weeks of the regular semester.

I also noticed that not all have read my blog – do it periodically (as our best students already do), since we are not in the class and my ongoing reflections, restatement of requirements, help, commentary will be posted on this blog as the main tool of getting my feedback.

Your blogs

Please make sure to allow me the access to your blogs with my login: profabv@gmail.com as it was required by the tasks. Otherwise, your blogs cannot be graded as done since I cannot see them. Later we will work more on security and privacy of blog systems but for now ensure at least my access. Alternative is to make the blog accessible (for now) to all registered users.

Also make sure that the name of your whole blog is your first and last name as was required by the tasks, in order not to loose grading points...

Student info

Some of you grasped the idea of communicating in forums pretty well. But I see a problem in attendance of some students that are supposed to log in daily to see if there is something to respond to from me or other students. Here I see some questions hanging in the air without any answers...
Mutual communication respect and proper attendance are more important for online courses than offline.

Purpose

In this blog I will write reflections on your performance, on grading methods, explain possible task difficulties, provide additional help if needed, etc. Also will start developing a small information system that you all will also do which will use blogs as one of the main tools. Check this blog periodically or start following it (figure out how).