Infrastructures Of The Information Technology And Systems - Research Paper Example

Infrastructures Of The Information Technology And Systems. Introduction Entering into the realm of Strategic Business Information Technology was never an easy decision because strategic studies in any field are suppose to be involved but when you study Information Technology in business perspective it requires expertise and mastery of both domains; the business and the Information Technology. It takes an enthusiastic, objective, and restless ambition to fulfill the demands of the undertaking a student assumes being a postgraduate learner at a university. It is a tough ask and the survival of the fittest. The only way out is the hard work to overcome the ever mounting workloads. You have to take pride in learning at NCC and got to enjoy the workloads as they come and thus step by step you went up the ladder to reach the academic excellence, the hallmark of NCC. The expected outcome of the post graduate diploma in Strategic Business Information Technology (PgD SBIT) is a career oriented academic learning in the domain of Information Technology along with the development of the analytical and technical skills. The basic objective is to attain the knowledge that most of the global businesses require today in order to establish a strong information technology infrastructure and expertise. More importantly the skill that most of the employer wish to see in the upcoming lot of their information technology installations in particular and their business in general. The course offer a study of different business models to establish information technology setups in their respective domain with hands on technical and analytical expertise. The enhancement of communications skills including the presentation and reporting skill are other important product of the PgD SBIT. The most important outcome of the module is to attain the skills for various research designs, methods, skills in formulating and answering research questions, data collection techniques that are applicable in various research designs. Particularly, research and its contribution in business organization to establish, maintain enhance and revitalize information technology infrastructures and systems. Major Learning Outcomes The studies at postgraduate level ought to be difficult and absorbing, especially when research methodologies and techniques are involved therein. They demand a systematic approach to be employed in order to overcome the complexities and difficulties of ‘adding’ something to human knowledgebase. Such complexities and difficulties ought to come across and you have to exercise the tested skills and expertise to address these difficulties aptly and promptly. We were lucky to have these skills and expertise taught in the beginning of the course which helped a long way into our studies. The targeted content taught in the initial phase of the course proved quite useful in understanding and applying the different aspects of theoretical and perspective studying skills and various approaches that can be helpful in getting around the tricky parts of the course. The framework provided in this part was tailored to fit the course specific requirements. Other than the taught contents a host of online resources for organizing and managing the studies were introduced to further assist the learning process, theories and the perspectives. The best part of this short initial session was instilling a will to succeed and excel in the career of strategic business information technology. It is all the more important for any study that you are aware of the benefits attached to the set of expertise that the study targets and to know how this may help in the career building process. The better you know about the study objectives the better you can perform to achieve these objectives. The major skills that were induced at this initial phase include time management skills, presentation skills, skills related to listening and learning effectively, team and group management and participation skills and other minor but very tricky and helpful tools were provided to ensure a good management of personal, family and academic commitments and engagements. The most common mistakes that contribute largely in increased workloads were pointed out and a framework was taught to avoid these common mistakes. Assigning priorities to various tasks and commitments, realistic time assignment to these priority tasks and incorporating some cushion to conquer contingencies are some of these common task management skill that we have to employ every now and then in our common life and particularly in our studies to avoid undue burden and to achieve career goals. Useful online and library resources were provided to further polish these skills and master the art of studying effectively. This part of the module proved very informative though has unveiled new challenges for students. The research based studies were new and for most students were challenging because of inadequate expertise and exposure of the field. The word research has an inbuilt sense of echo, which emphasizes the search of new domains of knowledge and purifying them through repeated investigation into the associated facts and existing knowledge. Though research theories are the personal opinions about some fact or concept but they have deep roots in the existing knowledgebase there have to be proved with existing knowledge. Research theories have to have some cause and effect relationship. The business information technology is more often than not is categorized as a natural science domain but as far the research methodology is concerned a mixture of natural and social sciences. Because of its technical aspect the natural research methodologies provide more realistic tools for its conduct because they are based on empirical generalization whereas the social aspect of the business information technology domain proves it a good match for social research methodologies where no strict generalization is possible. Therefore the mix mode of research is usually adopted in ICT domains which provide a space for the employment of methods from each of the research methodologies. However, from the later studies in the field of research it was dawn on us that we cannot confine a specific methodology for any research domain because of very nature the research which means investigation existing facts and novelty of ideas, even if they are concerned with the research methods itself. The research in ICT may be deductive or inductive because sometimes we have to prove existing technology and in the other case research introduce a new technology. The same concept of mixed approach is carried to data collection methodologies and the type of analysis on the collected data using one of the enlisted methodologies. i.e. the quantitative or qualitative as and when appropriate. The concepts taught cover nearly all aspects of the research but at an elementary level and this has caused to instigate a thirst of learning more about the topic. The way the module has progress until now has changed the previous fear of research into a will to learn more about the research and its various aspects. Research appears to be an affordable academic activity now and it is no more and alarming phenomenon. I have notice many students were curious to know more about the research in information technology. This change of attitude is very encouraged because we now feel confident about the upcoming research activities and the course begin to be an exciting and enjoyable voyage rather than a tiresome journey. Our voyage continues and we learnt the importance of research credibility, design, the research process and philosophy and how these factors affect the research outcome. The literature review for information technology domain has also got a sizeable junk of this initial module of PgD (SBIT). The unit has successfully introduced new domains of information technology and has enabled us to think differently and creatively about their employment in practical life. Beside the induction of critical skill in our approach towards assessing, organizing and information interpreting skills the unit also facilitated a career specific approach in our studies and student were able to identify the importance and application of various IT domains in real life scenarios. The unit has also imparted the knowledge of identifying various sources, tools and tricks for literature search from internet and library. Finding your required information from an enormous information repository is not a simple task and we were given amazingly useful tips to conduct such literature search. The next topic was reviewing techniques including the all important citation standards and techniques. Throughout the module various seminars have proved a great help in achieving new skills and practicing the acquired skills. The next unit was first purely related to field of information systems in particular and to information technology in general. Most of the people working in the field of information technology do not appreciate the real importance of information system in the growth of information technology itself and the growth of socio-technical systems, an approach which has proved to be an efficacy and utility. The unit was also interesting in the sense that it enabled us to understand the importance of information systems in organizational control and business flow and continuity. We were able to understand the significance of information systems within the overall domain of information technology and the value it has brought to organizational and managerial fields. The technical aspects of information systems enlightened us on the significance of technology being used to develop and implement these systems into the organizations including various issues that may occur alongside or may influence an information system design and implementation. The social-technical approach demands that the research in information systems domain must be conducted while achieving a balance of focus between the technical aspect of the system and its effects on organizations and society. The unit has imparted a good deal of knowledge about various aspects of information systems and related fields of information technology. The next unit on organizational systems gave us insight into the organizational structures, interlinking the processes that organizations adopt according to their business requirements and the role of information systems and information technology has to play in computerization of these organizations. The unit has talked about the significance of value chain and realization of the information technology and information systems in revitalizing this value chain while adding value to customers and organizations. Conclusion The module of research in information technology is an important module of the overall curriculum and we have been able to extract some good skills and knowledge from it. However, I could not fully realize the importance of this initial part of study like many other students. We were of the view that these are the common things that everybody knows very well and this time should have been allotted to dispense some background knowledge of the subject that we were destined to be taught eventually. This caused reduced attention and interest towards the skills taught for studying effectively. As an obvious result of this lack of interest I fell prey to many common mistakes naively and faced excessive work load towards the end of studies and deliverable. Ultimately a hasty approach was adopted to fill the gaps between study tasks and stretched out schedules of studies had to be employed in order to cope up with deadlines. A late realization of the importance of time management and spreading the workload evenly throughout the course timeline made an inherently difficult and complex task even harder. At the same time it is importance to appreciate the efforts that have been made to impart important skills and expertise along with the academic excellence by the lecturers and NCC. The important conceptual clarity was conveyed in an easy mode and slowly but steadily the research and it various forms and features have become more and more recognizable and familiar. It dawned on us in a real sense that we were living in an age of information, and especially information technology has really changed the way information can be accessed, retrieved and utilized. The internet has revolutionized the information interchange and has become a gigantic information warehouse where you can find information nearly on any topic and the only thing that matters is your art of search and your will to do research. The module has more importantly inculcated a will to know more about the strategic business information technology domain. The unlimited career opportunities are waiting for those who can prove their valor to take up the challenge and those who have a passion to excel in the field of information technology. Read More