Information Systems for Business and Beyond – Open Textbook Library

Reviewed by Efrem Mallach, Adjunct Faculty, Rhode Island College on 4/11/17

Comprehensiveness

rating:
3
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The book’s comprehensiveness is variable, presumably reflecting the interests of its author. I find that a plus in many ways. I like a book that reflects its author’s personality and preferences, rather than being designed by a committee of reviewers who will collectively make sure that it covers everything that any instructor could possibly want and is also twice as thick as any student can possibly stand. That also makes it easier to decide if a book suits me or not: either its coverage matches my personal biases or it doesn’t.

This book gives job descriptions and career paths a chapter of their own, but gives CRM (Customer Relationship Management) a bit over four lines. For me, that’s backwards, especially when 90 percent of the students who use this book won’t be MIS majors, but for other instructors it may be just fine. It gives business processes a chapter of their own, but gives agile development ten lines. You’ll have to decide if its balance is right for you.

I feel the book falls down in this regard when it comes to hardware. It has a generally-good discussion of the kinds of hardware students are already familiar with: desktops, laptops, tablets and so on. (It doesn’t recognize that students are already familiar with this content, but that’s a style issue rather than a comprehensiveness issue.) However, it spends no time at all on kinds of computers that students don’t already know about but should as entry-level professionals: from servers to supercomputers, other than a couple of references to mainframes in passing as something outdated. (Ask any user of IBM’s z series how true that is.) The book also doesn’t even mention the most common enterprise storage systems, RAID, NAS and SAN, which again students will not generally have seen before. To my mind, it’s more important to tell students something they don’t already know than to confirm what they do know.

Content Accuracy

rating:
4

I noticed only two real inaccuracies:

1. Processor speed is equated with clock rate. This ignores the effect of micro-architecture on how many clock cycles it takes to execute a typical instruction. More importantly, it effectively ignores multi-core, multi-threaded processors. Cores get two lines (p. 16), threads get nary a mention. They are a key element of 2017 processor architecture.

2. Parallel conversion is mentioned (p. 116-117) as if it were still viable in 2017, assuming its cost is acceptable. This is not the case for online systems, where timing differences can affect results and where it is not practical to get customers to enter their transactions twice. This conventional wisdom has propagated from textbook to textbook without a reality check ever since online systems became the norm. I am disappointed that it is still doing that today. (There are a few situations where parallel conversion is viable. They involve internal systems such as financial accounting, where all users are internal and the sequence of activities can be controlled.

I also felt that the software split into OS and applications is too simplistic. Applications are defined (p. 26) as programs that do something useful for the user. Later, compilers are grouped with applications, as are DBMS – even though both of these exist simply to develop or facilitate “real” applications. I would vote for the traditional split into systems and application software here, with the OS considered a type of systems software but not the only type. Others may disagree with me, of course.

Relevance/Longevity

rating:
5

It’s certainly relevant. As for longevity: parts of the information systems field move so rapidly that no book can hope to remain current for more than a few years, even if it is up to the minute when first published. “Longevity” is too much to ask for in an MIS text! That said, its chapters on business processes, ethics and so on should stand the test of time fairly well.

Clarity

rating:
5

This is a strength. I like the writer’s style.

Consistency

rating:
5

I didn’t notice any problems in consistency of content, except for the trivial one that mainframes are described as being from the 1950s-1960s in one place and from the 1970s in a table right afterwards. Either way, they’re described as being from when a reader’s parents were in kindergarten. The point is the same whichever decade one picks.

There is an issue, though, in consistency of approach. Much of the content is written for the non-MIS major. For example, there’s no need to go into database normalization for MIS majors; they’ll take a full course on database management and will study it there. Other parts are written only for MIS majors, such as the section on MIS career paths. I would prefer to see the author take a position, one way or the other, on who his audience consists of and then write for that audience.

Modularity

rating:
4

It is divided into modular chapters, with each chapter divided into major and minor sections. The section structure is difficult to follow, though: sections are not numbered in outline fashion, and section heading type size differences are not always obvious enough to serve that purpose.

Organization/Structure/Flow

rating:
5

The order is traditional for MIS books: start with an introductory chapter or two, continue with technology in the order hardware-software-database-telecoms, then talk about how systems are used and how they’re developed, and wrap up with ethics and perhaps a look to the future. Most MIS instructors are used to this organization and will feel comfortable with this book in that regard.

Interface

rating:
3

There are no navigation issues, as the text doesn’t really have navigation other than the standard PDF sidebar with chapter headings. However, the reader interface is flawed by random jumps in type size (sometimes within a paragraph; e.g., bottom of page 7, line spacing, and other errors such as the SQL examples on page 45 running off the page. This is distracting. The book needs a thorough, careful going-over by an expert in Microsoft Word or whatever other package this book was created in. In addition, since type size changes are the only clue to section/subsection organization, they should be made more obvious (or, better, number at least the top-level sections within a chapter).

Grammatical Errors

rating:
5

No problems here. Either the author knows how to write coherent English or he had a good copy editor. I can’t tell which, but the end result is fine in this regard.

Cultural Relevance

rating:
5

It has few if any examples that involve people, so opportunities for cultural insensitivity aren’t there. The thorough attention it pays to ethical considerations is in its favor as regards cultural relevance.

Comments

It’s a short book, almost “Information Systems in a Nutshell.’ The content starts on page 5 and ends on page 149, including questions and all. Part of the reason is that it doesn’t spend much (if any) time on topics the author doesn’t care much (if anything) about. If your choice of topics matches those of this book, take a careful look at it. If you’re teaching a quarter or two-credit course, take a look at it also: it’s short enough for those without having to skip chapters or cover them too lightly. If neither or those is you, it may not be a good choice.