Research proposal on International Education Association of Australia
Executive Summary:
This report is a detailed research proposal for the sponsor organization that can help them to improve its functions and operations. The writer has explained in detail what type of SDLC model and information system will be applicable that is waterfall model and Management Information System. Waterfall model is a model that analyses the problem and it process ends with the maintenance of the software. The Management Information System is important for decision making as decisions are key in a company to make it a success in the market. This is a research proposal for IEAA to make their company the best in their field, they have not yet taken any initiative for the decision making process. Management Information System will help the company in deciding the student’s future desired career path or education.
This report gives an insight of what the company is capable and what can it do to extend its networks. The first part includes the introduction that introduces SDLC, information system and their type of models being used. Waterfall and MIS are explained with diagrams for better understanding. Then comes the discussion part where IEAA’s functions are explained with its organizational members and mission. There is also a SWOT analyses that analyses the strength, weakness, opportunity and threat of the company. The writer has also identified problems and opportunity of the company with the justification that why is information system important for the company to develop. In the later part of the discussion section system analysis, system design, implementation, testing, deployment and maintenance is explained briefly. Then a conclusion is given that provides an over view of the whole report.
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Introduction:
There are many ways through which a company or a firm can improve its functions and develop itself to adapt new technologies to be the best in its field. This report directs us to find such a plan that will be help the sponsor organization to improve its system. Firstly, we need to understand what is an information system? Information system entails multiple information technologies such as software, computer, smart phones and others that helps an individual to connect with others, to handle multiple tasks and to notify different stakeholders in various administration or intrapersonal institutions (Boell & Cecez-Kecmanovic, 2015). Information system can also be defined as to gather and develop data into reliable information by implementing an array of methods on data collection that means information is acquired from data through information system methods (Hasan, 2018). Through information systems not only different individuals but companies can also use it to their advantage where they can get in touch with their customers and improve their functions and strategies. The information system that will be applied in this report is Management Information System. To implement the information system successfully the company needs a Systems Development Life cycle (SDLC). SDLC aims to come up with a software that has a good quality in a specific time duration mentioned by the client. The quality of the good is upheld by SDLC (Modi, Singh & Chauhan, 2017). For the implementation of SDLC, the companies use different models to launch a new product for the client. The different SDLC models are waterfall, spiral, incremental, iterative and V models (Navita, 2017; Modi et al., 2017). The model that will be applied in this proposal will be the Waterfall proposal. The sponsor company that is chosen is the International Education Association of Australia whose core functions will be discussed further in the report.
Waterfall Model:
This SDLC model one of the first model to be introduced in this field, this model includes different stages that are needed to complete launching a product or a software successfully. This model involves stages like requirements description, software design, execution so on and so forth (Pukdesree, 2017).
This model was introduced in 1991 by David Whitgift, when Information Technology was just introduced this model was introduced; back then programming included only coding and how to debug it. There was no concept of design and analysis, programming was simple and wasn’t complex like today. This model helps in launching a product successfully as when one phase is completed, we can go to the next stage however, if one is not completed, we cannot move to the next one (Wiley, 1991 as cited in Modi et al., 2017). Through this the company can fully keep a check balance and completion of every phase with every detail either big or small. This model monitors every single phase of the product as well as this is easy to understand and doesn’t require a huge investment for the companies (Navita, 2017).
Management Information System:
The Management Information System (MIS) is an information system that is used by the companies or firms to make their decision making process easier and successful. MIS comprises of individuals, methods, machinery, information models and database as its main elements. This type of system is helpful for the managers and supervisors of the company, this system collects information from internal as well as external sources of a company, develops it and provides the Management data to help supervisors in the procedure of decision making (Nayak, Sequeira & Senapati, 2012). Then this valuable information is shared among all the various departments of the company and stores relevant information for business and through this system the company can get reliable and correct data for the administration. The conversion of data into information takes place in multiple types like graphical representation so that relevant information is generated by the administration of the company to improve its strategies and functions (Mishra, Kendhe & Bhalerao, 2015). The MIS provides accurate knowledge to the administration so that they have an idea where do the company require changes and improvement. The MIS figure is given below:
The International Education Association of Australia:
The International Education Association of Australia (IEAA) is one of Australia’s top educational entity for international education. This company is a key component to make Australia among the top countries that provide education to students around the world. There is a total of three thousand members in this organization that are from roughly two hundred and fifty entities and institution from all over the world as well as from Australia (IEAA, n.d. a). This company will be one of the sponsor company and through information system and waterfall model this company will improve its decision making. As in one of the videos of this company, it is trying to develop its decision making process through different means however, the strategy of MIS and waterfall will help the company to improve its decision making process that will be implemented effectively.
· Mission of IEAA:
The organization’s focal aim is to present Australia among the top countries providing high quality education to students around the world. However, there are three main points for mission that are, (i) to serve the professional requirements and interest of the associates with an aim to enhance the quality of expert understanding and skills, (ii) motivate good quality, knowledgeable and moral professional training among the associates and (iii) to endorse international education with different governments, educational institution and within the society (IEAA, n.d.b).
· Organizational Members:
There are multiple members of this organization that are categorized into groups that are gold, corporate affiliate and platinum. Gold group includes majority of the universities some are Australian National University, CQ University Australia, Curtin University, Deakin University, GBCA and many more. Platinum group includes universities as well as companies like Kaplan, IDP, Latrobe University, Monash University and man more. The corporate affiliates include only corporations like Allianz, Boomerang, Fly wire, Toefl and many more (IEAA, n.d.c).
SWOTS ANALYSIS:
Strengths are the internal qualities that will set apart a company from others in the same field. This company is in the field of education that aims to help students to achieve their desired career and to provide education to students around the world. The strength of this organization is that it is trying to making Australia among the top countries to provide education to the students and not only education but high quality education (IEAA, n.d.d). The management information system will help the organization in deciding the students that are deserving of the services of the company. The system will process raw data of the students and process it into valuable information that is what job is suitable for the student? What type of university will be appropriate for the students? Or what are the needs of the academics, professionals or the students? Through this it will be easier for the organization to decide about the future career of an individual.
Weaknesses:
Weaknesses are internal disadvantages in a company that will negatively impact the performance of the company. The organization’s biggest weakness right now is the limited budget and funds (IEAA, n.d.d). Through budgeting and funding a non profit organization works smoothly but if the company isn’t getting the desired amount they couldn’t function properly and cannot help the members. In this organization funding is needed for events, seminars and webinars that are attended by the students for their careers or for their education (IEAA, 2018). As the MIS is responsible of processing the data into information, if the organization won’t have any relevant evidence of the funding how will the MIS process which department needs funding in the organization
Opportunities are external qualities that will positively impact the company. Currently, many international students are visiting Australia for education and many professionals are also visiting Australia for employment purposes. As more and more students are coming to Australia for educational purposes the IEAA can take this opportunity and can target the students to guide them in getting admission in their desired university. Through the use of MIS, the organization can make decisions regarding the capabilities of the student that is which university will be suitable for them or which company is suitable for them to work in.
Threats are the external disadvantages that negatively impacts the company’s performance. The main threat for the organization can be any new educational policy by the Australian government that can halt the services of the organization. It will be hard for the organization to implement the decision of the MIS as the system won’t have any clue about the policy that is restricting the organization of applying that decision in the company.
Problem/Opportunity in the Information System:
Problem in MIS:
Where MIS helps to process raw data into relevant information, this system also has some problems as everything that benefits a person also has some issues. According Babaei & Beikzad, (2013) the problems of MIS can be divided into three categories that are:
· Humanly reasons:
Human beings are not perfect in every way so the supervisors using this system might lack the relevant information needed for processing the raw info into a suitable one. Moreover, sometimes designers don’t understand the requirements of the clients or the supervisors aren’t interesting in running this system.
· Institutional reasons:
The company that has MIS as their information system might be the main driver of failure in the operations of the system such as no proper training to the managers is given about the information system, there is not any cooperation between the human resources department and the managers to process the relevant information.
· Environmental aspects:
There are many environmental reasons through which the information system can be a problem like there are no relevant designers available to design the software, there is no proper evaluation of the decisions made by the information system and no suitable investment for the information system.
Opportunities in MIS:
There are many opportunities in Management information system however, few of them will be discussed below:
· Usage of data:
The main responsibility of the MIS is to process data into relevant information but the information used in one project can also be used in different other projects. The MIS organizes the data in a way that decisions can be useful in other projects.
· Integration:
Another main opportunity of the MIS is that it gathers data from different sources that is internal and external. Then presents it in a unified form that is easy for the managers to understand and implement throughout the departments.
· Privacy:
The main concern of the organizations is privacy of their data and that the information isn’t misused in any way. This system protects the data and only those individuals can access it who are given the rights by the organization.
Justification:
According to Hasan (2018), MIS guides the company or a firm in decision making process and the companies are successful in making decisions to improve their operations. In addition to the procedure of MIS is to obtain data in raw form from both type of environments that is internal and external than transforms it into relevant and valuable information for all the departments of the company. He also explains in his paper that this information system can be used in making exceptional policies that can improve the operations, decision making procedures, performances of the staff, selecting between alterative and value control. For MIS to have a positive impact on the company the administration needs to make a probable atmosphere for the workplace that includes employees, databases, hardware and software that can directly impact the influence and performance of the system.
Management Information System has a systematic structure that is divided into three stages that is the superior management stage, middle and lower management stage. Every stage has their own decisive role in decision making process. This structure has been given by Aldarbesti & Saxena (2014), they have also made a diagram to show this structure that is given below:
As given above in Figure 4, the highest-level deals with strategic decision, the middle stage deals with preemptive decisions and the last one deals with functional decisions. The majority of the tedious functions are prearranged, implemented and administered by the lowest stage such as preplanning, arranging and confirming that all the strategies are executed as decided earlier. The middle stage’s focus is more on tactical activities like critically analyzing, solving any problem, performance evaluation and campaigning. The top most focus is entirely different than that of the other two, these types of managers decides what type of good their organization will introduce, what type of market should be focused on, how to compete in the market and how to get different resources for the organization. The authors explained briefly which type of manager is suitable for what type of information in figure 5:
This information system is appropriate for this organization because IEAA needs a software to process information through which they can easily target their audience and can help Australia in becoming among the top countries in providing high quality education and careers for professionals and students. However, MIS can have some problems like no managers aren’t getting used to it or designers aren’t understanding the needs of the clients but as soon as these minor glitches are solved this system can help an organization in making a decision easily. Decision making in any company is hard and risky but through this system decision making can become reliable and valid. MIS is purely used for the reason that it generates good decisions in the business or the company. Management Information System allows the company to make good decisions on the bases of valuable data however, without MIS a company would be forced to take their decisions on the bases of raw data rather than valuable information and they would end up making bad choices for the company (Nowduri,2011). This system provides accurate decisions on that data only that is completed whereas this system doesn’t make decisions based on incomplete data or information. Moreover, this system notifies the users or the managers of any updates in the firm or any new decision made based on some new information that was obtained from any source (Allen, Heurtebise & Turnbull, 2010 as cited in Nowduri, 2011).
System Analysis:
According to IEAA (n.d.a), in the year 2019 they have expanded their range of services and have introduced a multiple of new things that can help them to be one of the top organizations to provide high quality education to the international students. They have introduced a mobile application for the students and professionals so that it is easy for them to search for their desired university or organization. IEAA have introduced multiple tools to enhance networking like young professionals’ group, enhanced research and development, increase in the expert professional service providers, improved decision making and a network that will empower individuals to plan and manage their own learning. For decision making they haven’t done any thing that is why Management Information System is suggested to this company so that it is easy for the company to guide the students accurately with reliable decisions based on complete processes information. This company is trying to expand its operations to other parts of Australia and MIS will help them to extend their services as good decision making in the company can help a it to achieve huge successes in the field.
System Design:
For the design stage of the SDLC model through MIS structure system development Methodology would be applied in which the development plan is organized and is among the top Management information system’s methodologies. This system at first selects an organized ideology and an engineering procedure. This structure combines the design structure of the entire management system through a top to bottom approach with distinct modules in accordance to the construction of the system through a bottom to top approach and then in the end develops the system. In the design phase we have taken inspiration from Beer’s organizational model that have five main functions:
- Student’s data: the system will input student’s data in the system in a raw form that would the personal data, professional, educational and etc.
- Intelligence: this function scans the explicit data sources, organizes problem situations, detects opportunities and threats
- Control: this function is needed to provide data from implicit sources that is within the company.
- Sub-systems: these functions are a portion of implementation phase; these systems take care of the situations that needs prompt reply and make decisions of such situations that is why they are connected as they need to confer with others and make the company workable.
- Implementation: this is the function through which this design would be implemented and decisions are made accurately. (Source: Espejo & Watt, 1979)
Implementation:
The waterfall model includes development of the information system in the implementation phase, this stage includes development of the software through minor programs that are called units. These programs are then given forward for trial and error that if they are functioning or not. IF the designers are satisfied than the programs are passed on to the testing phase. For the development phase the company would need new computers for the IT personal and they would be given a separate room for the development (Shylesh, 2017).
Testing:
This stage includes the testing phase where the whole MIS is tested by the designers and the users. The units made in the previous phase that is the implementation stage the entire system will be tested either its working or not. Then errors would be reported in the system if any and would be debugged. Conditions for testing:
- The testing should only be done by the designers
- If any errors are found they should be fixed right there on the spot.
- The testing would be done by all the members on the team
- Managers and supervisors would cooperate with the designers if they need any new information to test some other information (Shylesh,2017).
Deployment:
The software is installed after checking each and everything (Navita, 2017), fixing of every error in the software. This software is installed according to the user’s needs and requirements. Then managers and supervisors will be trained on how to use this software and how ti put data so that they could get accurate decisions.
Post Implementation:
This phase also means how to maintain this software, the human resource department can make an evaluation form or take feedback from the managers on the operation of the software. This is compulsory because the company needs to expand their operation to others areas of Australia so decisions are important to make the company a success. If the system is making a bad decision and it is not monitored than the company can face huge budget losses.
Conclusion
The SDLC model is necessary for any company who wants to make a software to launch a product or attract clients. This report requires the writer for a research proposal who suggests an information system for the sponsor organization to improve their operations or current system. The sponsor organization is IEAA who wants to make Australia among the top countries to provide high quality education to the international students as well as guide them with a professional career. The information system that the writer suggested is Management Information System that is key for accurate decision making for the companies. This organization needs accurate decision to extend their services and to attract more clients. Management Information System has its advantages and disadvantages however, it is important foe the company to make reliable decisions that MIS will do it for you. The report entails the whole process of the system development life cycle and informs the reader how the software would be started till its deployment.
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Appendices:
Background:
IEAA is an educational organization that provides services to international; students for education and professional career. This organization has over 3000 members from around the world. This organization came into being in 2004 by Dennis Murray, in the start there were over 320,000 students admitting in Australian universities but now there are over 710,000 students enrolling in the universities. People around the world are recognizing the educational potential in Australia and more students are visiting Australia for educational and career purposes.
