Reference no: EM133702638

Research Proposal

Objectives: This assessment is designed to enhance students' skills on critically analyzing and evaluating key issues and challenges in recent IS technologies and how they can be acquired and contribute to business core processes. The assessment helps develop presentation and problem-solving skills.

Instructions

Instructions For this assignment students will be divided into small groups (the size will depend on class size), and each group will select a specific technology/ topic to research.
The research topic you select must be directly relevant to IT in Business. A list of possible topics is provided in the attachment (for reference purposes only).

A set of research groups have been created in the Blackboard. Students are required to join a research group on their campus by Week 3. Group members must only be from the same campus. Each group can have maximum 4 members.

Each group will be required to prepare a presentation on the selected research topic. The video presentation must be in Microsoft Powerpoint only. No other file formats are accepted. Both "presentation slide" and "the face of presenter" should be in the recorded video. Each group should prepare a cohesive presentation that succinctly summarizes the studies related to the selected research topic. Each member should present the part of the work they are most involved with, ensuring a balanced distribution of speaking time.

Each group will then be required to research a real-life company and write a case study report. The case study must be directly relevant to the selected research topic.

The key elements of the case study report

From a broad perspective, a case study is an in-depth analysis of a particular subject. Generally, the study covers a problem-solution-results format. When applied to this unit, a case study examines how a real-life company had a problem, found a solution using a particular information technology, and shares the results of the solution.

The following eight elements must be included in your case study report:
Executive Summary/Synopsis
Introduction
introduce the selected company, including the background and any previous studies of the issue (literature review); briefly describe the key problem and its significance
Challenges
explain the challenge the selected company faced before using the presented technology;
Discussion
discuss how the selected company found the presented technology; discuss the selected company's decision process and the steps they went through before discovering the solution
Implementation
explain how the solution was implemented; discuss if the implementation meets the expectations, and who was involved in
the implementation process

Conclusion
conclude your case study with the end results; sum up the main points from the challenges, discussion and recommendations
Recommendations
provide proposals for future action to solve the problem or improve the situation
References

Research topics sourced from Lecture 2

Application of digital business models by:
Financial institutions
On-line retail business • Government agencies for business advantage
How businesses can leverage disruptive technologies for competitive advantage. Choose a particular business field.
Social media as a driving force for democratisation and how business can take advantage of it for competitive advantage.
Use of social media for collaboration, marketing, management, human resources, productivity. Focus on a business field or industry.
Social media features that businesses can leverage to their advantage. Focus on a business field or industry.
Ways in which a business can leverage online communities for competitive advantage. Focus on a business field or industry.
What is the network effect, and how can a business leverage network effect for competitive advantage? Focus on a business field or industry.
Ways in which a business can leverage enterprise mashup technology for competitive advantage. Focus on a business field or industry.
Ways in which a business can use social monitoring services to improve its competitive advantage. Focus on a business field or industry.

Research topics sourced from Lecture 3
Research the advantages that cloud computing technology has over the traditional infrastructure model.
Explain the three main cloud delivery models. Select one model and research how a particular business can leverage it for business advantage.
Explain the four main cloud deployment model. Select one deployment model and research how a particular business or industry can leverage it for business advantage.
Select a business that uses cloud computing technologies and research some of the main issues and challenges it faces such as cloud computing security and Ethical issues arising from the use of cloud computing.

Research topics sourced from Lecture 4
Research the main advantages that enterprise systems have over traditional types of information systems.
Select a business type or category and research how it can leverage supply chain management system for business advantage.
Select a business type or category and research how it can leverage a customer relationship management system for business advantage.
Select a business type or category and research how it can leverage an enterprise resource planning system for business advantage.

Research topics sourced from Lecture 5
Select a business in the retail industry. Research how retail industry drives e-commerce in the chosen business in terms of how it conducts business-to-business, business- toconsumer and business-to-employee transactions.
Select an online retail business. Research its sell-side and buy-side ecommerce transaction activities and how it leverages various ecommerce technologies for competitive advantage.
Select a small to medium size business. Research how it overcomes its e-commerce challenges of cyber security, competition, order-fulfillment, customer experience, website development and visibility and so on.
Select a business that utilises e-commerce. Research how it is leveraging mobilecommerce (M-Commerce) to enhance its e-commerce activities and become more competitive.
Social commerce refers to e-commerce transactions delivered via social media. Select a business that utilises e-commerce and research ways in which social commerce is enhancing its e-commerce activities and making it more competitive.
Select a business that uses e-commerce and social commerce. Research some of the security threats and challenges it faces and how it overcomes them.

Research topics sourced from Lecture 6
Select a government that you are familiar with. Research the types of cyber threats and attacks it has encountered, the consequences of those threats and attacks, the sources of those and the subsequent cybersecurity measures it took to overcome them.
Select a health care system that you are familiar with. Research the types of cyber threats and attacks it has encountered, the consequences of those threats and attacks, the sources of those and the subsequent cybersecurity measures it took to overcome them.

Select an education system that you are familiar with. Research the types of cyber threats and attacks it has encountered, the consequences of those threats and attacks, the sources of those and the subsequent cybersecurity measures it took to overcome them.

Research a number of organisations that have experienced cyberattacks. Identify the type according to whether it is one of the following crimeware (Spyware, adware, malware or ransomware) and identify the attack vectors (the weak points in the system that allowed the attack to occur.)

Cyberattacks can be carried out against critical infrastructure such as government facilities, emergency services, water and wastewater, transportation, health care services etc. Research a government you are familiar with and study how such cyberattacks had a negative impact on national security, economic security, health care security and so on.