CheckiO IT Team Support - Case Study Example

MY TEAMMATE 3. Cause of the problem In order for any business to be successful it needs an efficient IT team to support those who are using the company’s software. The term IT has a very broad meaning and if a company does not have individuals with a strong background in the software being used then when problems occur there will be no one qualified to correct these issues. “According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, in 2010 IT-related professions employed over 8 million people in the U.S. in 2010. These figures might well have been higher, however, had qualified workers been available. Over the previous 15 years, the field had experienced extraordinary volatility.”(Gill, 2011) In the case of CheckiO the company wants to expand and grow as a business how can this happen with limited talent in the market. Without new talent and qualified individuals to take the company to the next step success will not be obtain or reached.  CheckiO revenue is not being generated from subscriptions, product sales, or advertising, they are planning to generate revenue by matching users with firms seeking talented programmers. This is a perfect business model idea that could possible be very profitable for CheckiO. This type of business model has created some problems for the company. “There were a number of problems associated with the typical employment agency or website. First, of course, they were highly dependent upon the information listed on the candidate’s resume. Assuming that the credentials and skills listed were not an absolute lie—an all-too common situation—there remained a grey area, particularly when it came to programming proficiency. An individual with a single semester course in a particular language might judge him or herself proficient, while actually possessing only sufficient skills to inflict considerable damage on large and complex projects.”(Gill, 2011) The problems faced by CheckiO have been experienced by many different line of business. As a company CheckiO must be responsible for confirming the credentials of all possible candidates prior to matching these candidates with a firm. Another source of revenue for CheckiO lies with their relationship with Academia. “Academic institutions could also become a source of potential revenue, although how this could be implemented would require some thought. As implied by the previously mentioned comment from the professor, the site could be used effectively in conjunction with a programming course. In fact, for some highly one at motivated students, it could well become a virtual substitute for a course—and a highly effective that.”(Gill, 2011) CheckiO relationship with Academia has caused some problems for the company.  The first problem is how can the company verify if a particular student is actually the one participating. This can cause a huge problem for the professor how can this be used as a means of extra credit or credit period if a student could possible have someone else use the system to obtain a higher score.  The second problem is how can professors customize the system to meet their own course needs. If the professors are not able to customize the system to meet course needs the system will be completely useless and will reduce revenue for the company. The third problem is creating an intro level version for beginner users, and the difficultly of creating an intro level system for students to use. The fourth problem for CheckiO is facing has to do with privacy concerns. “Legally, universities were bound to preserve student privacy, particularly as it relates to anything involving grades. Ensuring that the system did not expose users to each other’s performance (which might include their individual levels) could require significant reworking of the environment.”(Gill, 2011) Privacy issues could create major problems for the company and open them up to potential lawsuits in the future. Privacy issues have been an on going problem for all major companies. CheckiO must be able to create a program where user information will be safe and secure. The last problem facing CheckiO is who will pay for the systems being used. Should the professor pay should the students pay? In order for the relationship between Academia and CheckiO to be resolved this issue must be worked out in order for the company to be successful. With respect to the problems presented above, there are various ways to resolve them. First, to verify that a particular student is the one participating, the professor can use previous work done by the specific student to check for similarities in sentence construction and writing styles. These vary between individuals and can pinpoint a discrepancy. On the other hand, the professor can ask the student to explain some of the key concepts outlined in an assignment or to explain a specific idea. One of the pros of this is that it can help in pinpointing a discrepancy because individuals do not have knowledge of the concepts involved. However, a key con is that the student may clam the answers although the writing styles change rarely. Second, for customizing the system for personal use, the professors can make use of technology to find ideas. Here, the professor can search for ways of doing this on the Internet, which acts as a large source of information. The advantage of this is that there will be many ways available to choose from and the disadvantage is that the idea will not be original. With regard to creating an introductory level for beginners, it would be appropriate to use an easily understood media; the media. A presentation can be used to explain the most basic concepts to the beginners. This has the advantage of being hard to forget and a con of taking much time to create. Since the grades are the key concern in the privacy concerns, the university can create an application that displays basic information concerning a student and only displays the crucial information if a particular student provides a password or a confirmation through a fingerprint scanner to reveal the grades. While this has a con of being expensive and time consuming, it would address the issue of privacy completely. With regard to paying for the systems being used, both the professor and the students should pay for it. This would ensure that both parties take care of the systems appropriately. Although this has the disadvantage of imposing payments on individuals, it would go a long way in preventing constant replacements. Read More