Grading W4P2 Research

The quality noticeably increased in this series of posts.

As it has been announced in the tasks – max points for the main post offered 6 points. Replies were not sufficiently deep and the highest grade for a reply was 2.5. Extra work done by some students helped in increasing the grade.

More on AI

Speaking of neural networks... You all heard that the machine is only as smart as the smarts that man puts into it. Well, this is not true. A huge part of modern AI is dedicated to machine learning, when AI systems can learn and become MUCH smarter than all programmers put together. But... they learn differently and their “smarts” might be different from human. For example,the system charged with keeping water in NYC clean might start adding poison to the drinking water after concluding that the problem of dirty water is in human activity. It means that a bunch of other thoughts and moral judgments should be included in the systems that can potentially harm people.

Another anecdotal case of different ways that AI learns was the failure in DoD project, when the system had to take millions of photos made by American spy satellites and find the tanks on those photos. In the final analysis the system was ably to pinpoint tanks on many photos but NOT SEEING the obvious tanks on others. After a long study of human and computer psychologists of the cause of that failure they found out that the system was taught to understand that there is a tank by using photos done during sunny days. In some forms of AI it is possible to check how exactly the learning goes, what is the logic, etc. But in some forms of AI (like neural networks) nobody knows how the system learns and thinks. You just have to TRUST it. So it turned out that in the case of tank recognition system devised its own way (somewhat inhumane) in deciding if there is a tank there – by its shadow! Then if on a gloomy day there was no shadow – there was no tank.

Grading MIS and DSS research

Posts on MIS/DSS were of a much better quality than I expected. I usually give normal grades (7 points) or below that for various problems. All grades during this learning segment ranged from 5 through 7 and up. Thus getting 8 for very good work is really difficult, but some of you managed to get there with quick reaction to critique and good reply work! More than that, very few got 9!!! I gave 9 for good required work and because they doubled the load by producing serious research-replies on the scale of the original post.

Although the difference in 1 or 2 points doesn't seem much compared to what you can loose on the quiz, but it carries additional notes about the effort, merit, attendance, etc., that are important in the final evaluation.

Good job! Repeat the quality in the few remaining research assignments and you can improve your class standing. As you can see, some students are already moving up from where they were...

Commentary to T4.4

Almost all students uunderstood the idea of the use of absolute refernces in parametric formulas and their use in scenario analysis.

Although a number of students wanted to enhance their standing - nobody did additional work in finding what interesting analysis could be done (like break-even analysis suggested by me in the first commentary )... except of Rita's work who did it for iPAD!

Commentary on T3.6

E-Business/Enterprise 2.0 research in T3.6 was done on a pretty decent level. Many students enhanced the quality, definitely using grade-improvement opportunities. The quality of replies has been also improved. Remember that you have one extra day after the deadline to improve your research based on replies to your AND OTHER work. Such additional improvements are very valuable in many aspects...

Keep up the good work. The finishing line is approaching J

MIS and DSS

The main goal of MIS is in allowing you to see (like in those sci-fi movies) the entities of the real world as they really are in all their properties, changing views and angles and focuses as you need to inspect some features closer and some from a bigger perspective. For example when you walk through the College you actually do not see much beyond the walls, offices, and posters. Once you access the College MIS – you immediately see (supposedly) all involved entites and processes in their normal activities and deviations that have to be notices and corrected. Augmented reality allows you to combine physical vision with MIS orientation (this is where the research on MIS and AR will be appropriate!).

Decision Support Systems serve not as much as vision enhancers but as enhancers of your abilities of making decisions based on the vision. Human abilities to juggle numbers and keep various relationships among multiple parameters in mind are severely limited. Here come DSS. They allow you to use such tools as scenarios (when you change some assumptions and see what will happen to ALL parts you are interested in by providing formulas of the corresponding relationships), optimization (when the system quickly finds for you the best decision among many possible), and many others. Armed with such tools (especially now available in mobile formats) you become super beings (cyborgs, if you wish, as part human and part systems) far more advanced in your mental abilities than those who doesn’t use special supporting systems. I actually run a special course fully dedicated to DSS where students learn the decision theory (on how to always make best decisions in all situations) as well as how to arm yourselves with simple (and more advanced) DSS dramatically enhancing your decision making abilities and outcomes in all your activities. Recently one student email me that he got a job because of this knowledge with which he shocked the potential employers that realized who (WHO!) they were dealing with (answer: superhuman being) :)

You can use this power throughout all your life experiences no matter what you do and where you work. Although many industrial systems of this kind are very expensive, there are some simple tools (like spreadsheets in the advanced form of use) that already upgrade your abilities significantly. Some of them we are learning in this course. This is kung fu of modern life. The more you put in work and understanding of the material of this week – the more you will get out of it. This is the way to compete with AI allowing the mankind to stay relevant.

Forum Grading for W3P1

Basically, students showed good research effort and judging by reviews learned a lot of additional stuff complementing the textbook.

At the same time there were some problems that I hope will be avoided in the future posts:

1. Improper format, no bold sections, less than required size and number of references

2. Poor use of the opening and closing statements that are supposed to show the specific focus of the following short research, that cannot be done by just a bunch of poorly related quotes and some own words around them. You need to think what you research will be about, clearly state, research and support your point. The closing statement can not be a quote or a general phrase since has to show what the result of your focused research was, did it accomplish what the opening statement said it would do.

3. Poor response to the reviews (where despite of their general weakness there were some critical notions). Not paying attention to the reviews of other posts that they could have learned from. Many students did not adequately used the time that I gave for improvements. Most of my additional points are reserved for this additional improvement work. Some lost points here ending up below 8-point grade

As a result almost nobody had more than 10 points with quite a number of students having less than that.

E-Commerce and E-business

Yes, it is important do understand these differences where e-commerce is basically a front end of e-business, which does most of the operations that a business should do (but in a more advanced way).

Personally, I am against the use of the term e-business as the one rapidly loosing its meaning, that was originally important to state the new ways Now it starts sounding like “t-business” for telephone-using business... In my course Technology Enhanced Business (TEB), which I think is a more modern term, I am showing the technologies and methods that should be used in ALL businesses and most of their processes and subsystems. Unfortunately, there are plenty of businesses that learned too much from business schools teaching old stuff and are trying to implement and maintain old methods. These should die out in modern economic situation.

E-Business and systems science

The tasks of the second half of the week take you into a more specific area of systems science: Business IS. They have all the features of general systems and could be analyzed and dealt with according to the general systems models and ways of analysis. They also have all the features of generic IS with all the processes and components learned in Part 2. But they also have elements and processes of the socio-economic domain adding more specifics and the need in such necessary knowledge.

Grades for W3.1 grading

Critique is somewhat better than in the previous reviews. Students with zero critical notes (like everything is just fine) had lower grades than those that checked the work more critically, which also will allow the authors to do the improvements and get the higher grade for the research. Nobody has max 9 points because nobody really showed the analysis of the material itself, that would require to follow the links, to understand the content of the post and suggest ways of improving on the content presentation, thoughts, focusing, ways to answer the questions in a deeper way than the current critique, which practically didn't touch the essence of the research. Grades were more adequate and the zoho part with csv files was done properly. This is why the grades for grading are not very low as they should have been for the lack of the analysis of the presented research and the adequacy of the answers.

How to improve the grades?

Since we are in the last half of this short semester, some responsible students are asking questions on how they can improve their grades, their standing on the class curve, how to get ahead of other students.

As I said in the tasks – in this course the good responsible work and attendance will allow you to get any grade you are willing to WORK TOWARD. The main way of improving your grade is in reading the reviews and use the chance (see the tasks) to correct the problems. Even if the reviewers didn't mention some problems that you might find after reading other students' work and reviews - do the correction based on your understanding since when I will use the distribution of the extra points - I will consider everything, even if it was not mentioned by the reviewers. This fast reaction to the critique (and your enhanced understanding of quality based on Q&A and other comments) is the tool which might allow you improve your standing. Also preparation for the quiz should be very good since some students started preparing much better than for the first quiz. The same group of emerging leaders also show excellent attendance, put more time in reading Q&A, work of other students, and commentary as well as showing desire to do the work right (even if, in a number of cases, this does not result in regrading of that work). They also show much more attention in reading the tasks – hence less shortcomings.
Of course, the best way to get a bad grade or fail the course is to miss the deadlines that some students manage to do.

Join the leading group and their enhanced performance! Otherwise, with their increased efforts you will be moving toward the back of the class...

Grading Task (databases)

Looks like reading and trying to critically understand other students' posts was beneficial in terms learning experience. You also have been exposed to something presented by real database practitioners in all their variety.

Although all posts were interesting, but none was perfect with all having various areas for improvement. And here student critique task showed some problems. A number of students got 2 points for no critique at all. Students with some critical notes had from 2.5 to 3 points. Nobody got 4 points. Really good review should show not only format problems and brief notes of lack of explanations but would also get into the analysis of the material itself. Understand that missing criticism does not allow the authors to improve on their work and will result in lower grading for me.

I hope that the following reviews/grading will be better.

Web 2.0 and CI

The best way of learning systems, and IS features in particular, includes the design of a small information system versus just learning buttons for the current version of Excel and Access. Normally, the development of an IS, even of a small size, is quite expensive and/or requires a lot of man/hour investments of highly skilled systems developers. Only organizations with sufficient capital were able to develop and use IS...

The evolution of software as a service (SaaS) with various types of accompanying web services (and apps) created a possibility of new methods in IS development – assembly of systems out of existing services LEGO – style. This simplicity has led to a dramatic increase in end-user creativity and development capabilities. In this course I want you to learn the most simple but effective ways of such system development for personal and organizational use. Become a one-person army... The basic services we were using so far included free blog development and support services, Zoho spreadsheet and database services and, what is most important, services allowing sharing and collaboration. Already this set of tools, if learned a bit deeper than you've done so far, allows for some basic IS development.

The new, mostly free, and easy to use services that can be incorporated in any custom IS design/redesign led to a new phenomenon: social networks. But the most important effect goes beyond increased activity of emerging social structures. This new unleashed power is studied in Collective Intelligence (CI) dealing with creation of super intelligences out of rather simple processing performed by its parts. Examples include ant societies, various swarm intelligence examples, and... effective teams and organizations. This possibility of acquiring enhanced intelligence is the biggest asset and advantage an organization can dream about nowadays, which comes not as much from the mere infrastructure presence, but its proper architecture and processes in accordance with this new Web 2.0/CI developments.

Web 2.0 technologies released the power and creativity of regular IT users making them producers/consumers (prosumers). These Web 2.0 technologies paired with proper CI organization (where effective collaboration is the key) are the main and the most fascinating developments in modern IS.
Another important event, not to be missed, is rapid growth of cloud computing (see the textbook) that makes Web 2.0 services and accompanying networking even easier.

Preparing for Quiz 2

Prepare for the tomorrow's quiz by not just reading the two chapters but re-reading all the concepts and special terms (skipping stories and examples) with their definitions, parts, and functions. Quizzes on concepts and terms are the only way of checking if they are firmly placed in your head (not just that while reading you will have SOME understanding...).

The course is seemingly simple, but ONE reading when you feel that you understand the material is not enough since there are quite a number of concepts placed into the chapters. They require careful re-reading while paying attention to concepts/terms formulations and structure of what they consist of in order to have them ready in your head for the quiz that still will be rather swift with no time to read the book. More than that, attempts to find answers in the book will hinder the performance since they will take more time and you will have none left for the remaining questions. The advice is to start answering questions that you immediately know how to answer leaving the more difficult ones for later. After the easy questions are done – yo will see how much time is left for thinking on the more difficult ones.

The quiz, like the previous one is STRICTLY based on the book material. Every semester the book authors update the quiz which is then offered country-wide. I agree that sometimes the proposed “right” answers might not be so exclusive after “imaginative thinking.” In the previous quiz the answers that could've been correct too - philosophically speaking – I was offering some points versus zero since it was your first quiz. In Quiz 2 the correct answer will be the one corresponding to the textbook formulas.

WARNING: this time some students might prepare much better than average (poor like last time) preparation and change the curve. This might not save those who did not firmly internalize the material for quick reaction to the questions like it did last time where almost were placed roughly into the same narrow sector of grades – thus not loosing too many points. Alternatively, the good preparation might move you high above the curve.

Reflections on W2P1 Grading

W2P1 was successfully completed by majority of the students. Yet some students had lower scores than they could have gotten if followed the important aspects of the course work that I repeatedly emphasize:

1. Read the task carefully until you completely understand what is required.

2. Read my comments after you post your task (especially early) since yo have time to correct like some students successfully did

3. Before starting the task and even posting it – read all Q&A where many aspects are being addressed. Also look at other students' submissions with my comments. In these two sources I assume that all read them (as proper attendance requires) and not only the authors.

4. Periodically check news forum and your email since this is the only way for me to communicate with you personally, and sometimes in urgent matters (like audio conference with same day announcement).

5. Do work early to have time to get feedback and make the corrections

In an online class you are spared from dedicating several whole days sitting in college and then doing homework, but it doesn't mean that it is effortless. Attendance as DAILY checking (and preferably several times a day for good students) the site for changes (along with your email) may be require 10 – 15 min but is crucial for a good grade. All your activities on the site are being reported and the best students seem to have far more frequent and thorough checking of the site's areas, replying to other students, doing necessary adjustments. Basically this is all that is needed for success in this course.

Intro to AI in systems

Since some of you showed interest in AI – I am putting a few words here with more to come when we will get to this topic. I actually have a course “Intelligent IS” where students not only learn the theory of various types of AI (from neural networks to genetic algorithms, fuzzy-logic systems, etc.) but also do some hands-on labs on each of these types with a an expert system as a term project.

In my over 30 years of IS experience (I an not only teaching the stuff :) I saw a growing demand in intelligent IS since controlling very complex modern systems is almost impossible. They should be able to learn, adapt, and survive on their own. Like when you do gardening – you do not control every cell in every plant, but rather rely on their own intelligence and self-organization, just providing necessary CARE. For this section of the week an important message about artificial intelligence is in understanding that modern IS get more and more complicated (you probably felt it already in our labs :) to the point of hitting the limitations of complexity.

Modern economy has to grow and it cannot use more and more resources as before, as in primitive economic models of growth. But if the complexity of IS, as they are built now, is limited – it puts limits on economic development, which is deeply depending on IS to control such expansion and growing connectivity (topic of the next week).

A few years ago IBM and some other top developers issued SOS asking researchers to spend efforts in taming complexity of modern systems, since it can choke economy and well-being of mankind. Artificial intelligence is the only domain capable of dealing with this task. The problem is that you cannot really control AI and just have to trust its learning (yes these systems learn and soon know much more than their creators) and judgment (like AI used on military drones deciding who to kill).

Commentary on the Course Organization

I want to say a few words about the online organization of this class and its goals (you might use some of this info in your Experiential Learning Report to be written at the end of the semester). The experiential learning in this class is based on the learning and working in online environments (versus face-to-face). One of your tasks at the end of this semester will be in showing your understanding of this experience,  what you’ve learned from it, what practical skills and orientation you obtained, as well as how it served your better understanding of the subject of the course.

The learning goal of placing students in such environment for this particular course is based on the fact that information systems (as the subject of the course) normally include heavy use of computers in communications, orientation, learning and decision making. In the IS major this introductory course is further enhanced with all those chapters that are in the book - as separate courses. From this point of view, being exposed to computer-mediated activities on your own (without the teacher standing behind your back) is important for the understanding of benefits, difficulties, and problems that have to be addressed during IS use and development. In this course you actively use an original IS, which includes Moodle, Internet, and your local systems, augmented by you, as producers/developers and consumers at the same time (so-called prosumers), with additional system components (like Blogger, Zoho, and others that we will use later), with shared files, user-created content, Q&A knowledge base, learning accounts in these systems, spreadsheets, databases and various means of sharing and publishing information across the set of networks (local and the Internet) – the topic of the next week.
Also, as you’ve noticed, the labs as well as exploration of the material require sufficient feedbacks on the work done, that just cannot be offered in an hour and a half of face-to-face lectures. You probably noticed that in this course you have almost uninterrupted flow of feedbacks from me and other students (those who ask for help or require some guidance from my point of view – get it whenever necessary). This is impossible in face-to-face formats. I am actually spending much more time on this course than coming twice a week to school. My local network shows the course situation on several screens (along with my ongoing research in artificial intelligence). Your course connectivity is close to modern corporate "always on" status too. this allows for dynamic adjustments, additional explanations, and corrections (impossible in traditional environements). Such flexibility is becoming more and more important in the real world settings when change management is continuous and dynamic with similar continuous and dynamic availability of employees to accept changes, corrections and additional info for adjustments in individual work. And here understanding and experience of IT beyond traditional monthly reports is indispensable.

For organized students the possibility of time management and deciding when and how much time to spend at each particular learning episode is important especially combined with saving time on doing this without commuting efforts. Of course, such benefits are not for all. There are students that feel better in the class and cannot work/learn on their own. This is why the course format is announced in advance and only those who feel that online format is better for their situation are expected in these classes.

More points to learn :)

Here I want to emphasize that not only IS are also systems with their general properties, but they also make systems out of non-systems (or poorly developed systems with insufficient feedbacks and concerted collaboration among its parts by connecting entities and processes together in a new mutually beneficial way. This is a new power of business growth: not by using more resources, but including more stuff in the orbit of their networks.

The reason why we use quite a few software-as-a-service (SaaS) tools in this course is that many of them are free, easy to use, and are very powerful mechanisms of connecting things, processes, and people over the Internet. They are the modern resources of organizational and individual power. Simple hardware, like smartphones and publically available software services can allow individuals to have full office support on the run (go mobile, like you can do with this course). Mafia understood the benefits of being connected long ago :)

W2 Databases

Although a database table might look like a spreadsheet, the capabilities of a database management system (software engine behind the databases) are quite different. For better understanding you might go to the Featured Samples (while on the Home page in your Zoho Reports site) to see that after the initial tables are created and filled with data, the rest of the database consists of various queries (that could be saved for future easy customer use), reports, charts, etc. All other database products, created from the data tables by using simple and effective tools, allow to SEE and ANALYZE a LOT of DATA form MULTIPLE POINTS OF VIEW, as compared to the relatively small amount in typical spreadsheets.

Well designed and developed (in terms of convenient analysis) databases - is what create added value to the initial data collection often stored in some input “flat” files. Data warehouses (or smaller data marts) are systems enhancing this analytical and decision support function of organizational (and even personal) data.

In my professional capacity, I was often asked by organizations that invested a lot of money into collection of valuable data – to help them make better use of this information (bang for the invested buck, if you want). This usually results into the development of an information system with a database at its core (this is why they call them “information systems” :)

W1P2 Performance Notes

Looks like you get the format and the idea of online learning. The work done this half-week was on a quite high level with many good posts. A few observations that will allow you keep all the points that you deserve:
1. Attendance. I noticed that the best students have also good attendance checking my blog, news forum, Q&A posts, replies to other students’ posts, AND responding to this info by improving on their initial posts (if necessary). Reminding you that attendance is min 10%, which might mean half a letter grade. In addition it will improve your grades since you will be able to improve on your performance.
2. Please read the tasks carefully, noticing where, when and how the posts should be done.
3. May be this point should be the first -do not leave work for the last minute. The system might have short blackouts (like last time) or the labs, that are most unpredictable, might take more time since something will not work right away and you will have to figure it out. No more after the deadline work will be accepted because of the last minute problems. This also does not reflect well on the assessment of the merit of your studies. Normally, I will not provide help for last minute dramas – again, do it early.

Week 2 tasks overview

This week’s chapters (chapters 2 and 3) are getting into some details (those systems parts and connections that you were talking about in your week 1 discussions) of information systems. They show what the role and place of such technology components as hardware, software, and data. These are the main tangible assets of any IS. IS in turn, are 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 social network systems. 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. This is why our Web Development concentration program (same idea as Business Essentials, just fully online) might be a valuable option for a competitive graduate.
Zoho is, so far, the best online office suite offering Software as a Service (you might want to research the keyword SaaS). We will start with spreadsheet tools that not only allow to do what all spreadsheet software (s/w) allows, but also has extended options for sharing, collaboration, and publishing. Best of all, you need only a browser for work with it. Later we will use some other pieces of their suite.

Video Lecture for Zoho Sheet Task

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.

Problem with task T1.6

Students should read posts of other students and especially... my replies to them where I comment on what is wrong or could be improved. Thus I made a comment that some of yo ignore in their work on T1.6: you ACTUALLY should clearly formulate/PROPOSE a business idea of how you might use the services provided by social media monitoring companies.

Results and Grading of W1P1

The first half-week was done pretty well. Most of the students did a great job in understanding the tasks and way of doing them. These students got highest possible grade for all three tasks.

Yet some students didn't read the tasks carefully and missed some requirements, like sharing blog authorship with me, replying to other blogs in their blog spaces (not in the blog address forum), and not describing the min required components of the discussed systems (input, feedback, processing, output).
The lesson – please read the tasks carefully in check if ALL required parts were done before posting the results.

Another lesson – read all Q&A posts of the week before staring the task and before posting it (since new important notes might come up focusing your attention on something that might be missing as well as responding to some unclear/difficult parts in tasks).

Two students have been sent warnings about potential failing the course sine not all tasks were done. This is the most important lesson – not to work hard and yet fail just because you totally missed the task (reminding you that 3 not completed tasks will automatically lead to failing the course). One person due to circumstances started late but was motivated and energetic enough to complete ALL tasks (although with some point losses but without missing any).

I also noticed attendance problem with some of the students that do not log into Moodle daily (as required). The site is dynamic and new things periodically arrive: my or students' replies/questions, new explanations, reaction to your and other student posts (read my comments to other students' posts since I assume that you saw it and ignored if they are not followed through). Although it is not a class attendance but the system gives me statistics of all visits, views, parts of your work online, and online presence, reading all parts of the course communications and participating in them is your attendance. In addition it is a part of your mandatory experiential learning as having experience in the collaborative online environments that are becoming the major part at work. Also those who do the tasks early score merit points (to be considered at the end) and have a chance of getting a feedback (no last day feedback will be provided) and correct problems.

This half-week was the easiest designed to let you understand how the course works, get orientation in your learning environment, and learn on first mistakes/shortcomings. Use the lessons to avoid point loss since quite a number of students are very effective and it will be hard to climb the grade curve after point losses when many of you will collect max points for all tasks in a form of internal competition.

More about systems

Congratulations with the successful start of the course (since you are reading this post :) ! I noticed that most of you are in various biz majors (mainly marketing) as well as other non-IT ones. Therefore you might learn a few useful things here.

This course is designed to enhance/offer an understanding in systems theory and information systems and technologies in particular. The first week is may be the most important since you are getting here the fundamentals of the "so-called" systems vision. Regardless of the variety of entities and processes surrounding you in your personal or organizational lives a stunning discovery has been made by Karl Ludwig von Bertalanffy - the founder of the General System Theory (GST) - that they all are systems. More than that there can be created a science that can cover all types of systems as having common properties, features, and traits. Since then the theory has been evolving and now many organizations require from their leading employees "systems thinking" as ability to apply GST to any situation of any kind that they encounter.

After you get familiar with the main systems concepts we move to the applications of this theory to a specific type of systems – information systems (IS) and information technologies (IT). You will often find a term ICT (information and communication technologies) instead of IT. And finally, we will move to the role of IS/ICT in business and organizational systems. The Information Systems major in the Business School (has a minor too) offers students a professional grasp of the most general and widely useful knowledge, which nowadays is being used in all organizations/jobs – IS/ICT. With deeper knowledge and skills in this area students learn of how to dramatically enhance individual abilities by using various methods, skills, and tools that are offered in the major in order to enhance personal ability of consistently making best decisions under all circumstances, of how to put artificial intelligence to your personal and organizational service, of how to design systems that are the most important competitive resource for individuals and organizations, and how to develop electronic businesses and start-ups. This course offers you a glimpse (although important) into the IS/ICT world.

As one of the extensions of the IS activities we offer a completely online Web Development Certificate Program (just like Business Essentials) increasing your knowledge and skills in developing modern Web-based systems, sites, and organizations. This course might be a good foundation for this program.

There is a lot more to the systems theory than we can fit into this course. Such areas a Complex Systems Theory, Dynamic Systems Theory, Chaos, fractal systems, and Theory of Catastrophes are some of the more specific areas that being actively used in economics, finance, business, marketing analysis, medical and biological studies.

Week 1. Task 2 Commentary.

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.

Blog 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 be a part of a small information system that you all will co-design, which will use blogs as one of its components. Check this blog periodically or start following it (figure out how).