Chapter 18: Term 1 Study Overview

Time flies so fast. My first term has just finished 3 weeks ago and I will start my second term from next Monday. I already feel excited about it. In this post, I write about all my studies during the first term. I’m studying MSc. Business Systems Integration, one of the courses in School of Information Systems, Computing, and Mathematics. There are four modules that have to be done for my first term. Additionally, there are 12 weeks for each term, which are divided into 9 weeks of lectures and 3 weeks of assignment completion.

The first module is Professional Development and Research. This module is delivered in one hour lecture session on Wednesday afternoon at 2 PM and one hour seminar session after the lecture session. The module aim is to help student in preparing the research proposal for the 5-month dissertation project. The module is only assessed by individual assignment, in which students need to submit a research proposal with maximum 2,500 words and synthesize 15 references to support the background of the proposal. For me, this is the toughest module, because I need to find a suitable topic for the research proposal. Thankfully there was a seminar session that gave me an interesting topic to be considered. This session was delivered by Dr. Mark Perry, who also gave me an opportunity to discuss my research proposal afterwards.

The second module is ERP System Theory and Practice. This module is also integrated with the third module: ERP Systems Deployment and Configuration. Both of them are delivered in two hours lecture session on Wednesday afternoon at 4 PM and four hours laboratory session on Wednesday morning at 9 AM. The laboratory session is designed to give the students practical experience of ERP system by using the MySAP ERP technology. Both of these modules are only assessed by individual assignments and each of these assignments should be written in maximum 2,500 words. The assignment of ERP Deployment and Configuration module is focused on the critical reflection of the ERP configuration and implementation based on the practical experience from a case study given in the laboratory; whereas the assignment of ERP System Theory and Practice module is focused on the critical reflection of the advantages, the possible risks and challenges, and the implementation stages of an ERP system in a different case study from the one we practiced in the laboratory.

The fourth module is Business Modelling. This module is delivered in two hours lecture session on Friday evening at 5 PM and two hour seminar session on Friday afternoon at 2 PM. The module aim is to provide students with the skill of modelling business schemes in enterprises, which are used for information systems development and/or integration and/or evolution. The module is assessed by two individual assignments and one group assignment. The first individual assignment is a 1,500-2,000 words assignment, which is emphasized on the critical reflection of the role of business and conceptual modelling within the context of information systems development and/or integration and/or evolution. On the other hand, the group assignment and the second individual assignment are based on one part of the case study, which is given in the module seminar session. The group assignment intend to produce the business models and diagrams; while the 1,000-1,500 words individual assignment aim to critically reflect on the issues, limitations, and possible improvements for those business models and diagrams.

All of the assignments need to use the Harvard style for referencing. Fortunately, there is a website named Refworks that can be used to organize the references. Another useful program that I have used during the work of my assignments is Mendeley. This program can be used to organize, highlight, and search specific words within PDF papers. Thanks to Mr. Paul Bracken, who is my teacher for the In-Sessional English program, for his help in introducing those useful tools. In addition, the Academic Skill sessions in the library also gave a lot of useful tips for academic writing. I also gain a specific skill in searching and reading the right papers while I was doing the assignments. One improvement that I need to concern about for next term is my concentration level, because I felt really hard to focus in reading most papers, especially papers that contain difficult vocabulary and concept.

~ by xhino on 09/01/2011.