Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
and professional organizations during a review and re-accreditation of a Bachelor of Business
(Administrative Management) degree. The course forms one of 24 courses in the degree
program and is a core of this program. The student body is large and from a diverse range
of backgrounds. Students can study full-time, part-time, or mixed mode, in internal (on
campus) or external (off campus) modes or offshore (Hong Kong). External students are
primarily from Australia, but some are scattered around the world. The course is also offered
as an elective to other business students.
Barker and Monday (2000) highlighted the increased development of spreadsheet and
database applications by many of the business graduates, as well as other employees. In most
instances, they demonstrated little understanding of the concepts of problem solving,
information gathering, analysis, design, and implementation of databases or the implications
of the process used in developing the application, or the quality of the applications
developed, for the organization.
DMA consists of 140 hours of study over 14 weeks. Internal students attend lectures,
tutorials, and workshops. External students work from a study package and have access to
tutors via the Web, email, and telephone. Overseas students attend lectures delivered by
visiting UniSA staff, and workshops supported by local tutors. Access to UniSA tutors
throughout the semester is via email and the Web. Access to technology is not consistent;
currently, it cannot be assumed that all external students have access to the Internet and, thus,
the course Web page, or to email. The course is a 4.5 unit course, and the balance of the
graduate qualities (GQs) is detailed in Table 1.
Table 2 provides a summary of the course objectives, graduate qualities, learning
outcomes, teaching and learning strategies, and assessment activities.
TEACHING/LEARNING STRATEGY
Case-Study Teaching
Yuan (2001) identified a significant shift to alternate methods of teaching, including
problem-based learning, student-centered learning, and the use of case studies. Case studies
are used to describe problems or incidents based on real-life situations (Roselle, 1996). The
problems to be analyzed are usually those that have occurred in the past or are likely to be
encountered by the students in their professional lives (Kreber, 2001). It is essential that case
studies contain sufficient data for analysis and observation to be made, while being
conducted in their natural context (Yuan, 2001). When used effectively, case studies should
give the students an understanding of the problems they are likely to experience in business
and ways to approach these problems.
Gross Davis (1993, cited in Kreber, 2001), in summarizing research into effective case
studies, listed the features of a good case study as one that tells a story, raises issues for
discussion, contains elements of conflict, lacks a definitive answer, encourages students'
thought processes, requires a decision to be made, and is reasonably concise. Each case
study for DMA is written within these parameters. Students are supplied with the basic
procedures adopted by the organization and are required to develop a small-scale database
to solve the issues raised by the business.
