Critique of Information Systems and Technology in a World University

This report analyzes the management issues related to IT within the context of a hypothetical World University, a fully online institution offering degrees from various universities globally. The report examines the university's customer loyalty scheme, 'Study Together Loyalty,' which rewards students for referrals. It also explores the provision of pre-configured laptops and e-books as part of the course curriculum. The report further proposes two business solutions, AARDVARK and PENGUIN, to enhance the online learning model and discusses the role of social media in promoting the World University.

ITC563
IT MANAGEMENT ISSUES
ASSESSMENT 4
CRITIQUE IN INFO SYSTEMS & INFO
TECHNOLOGY
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Contents
Executive summary:........................................................................................................................3
Introduction:....................................................................................................................................4
Main body:.......................................................................................................................................5
Conclusion:....................................................................................................................................12
Recommendations:........................................................................................................................13
References:....................................................................................................................................14
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Executive summary:
The business report will be analysing the issues of management related to IT, the evaluations in
system and technology will be carried out in the report. Technology has been developing rapidly
and the means for education along with the technology are enhancing. As per the scenario, many
of the universities will be coming together to form a World University. The report will be
discussing the customer loyalty scheme which is called as study together. Providing online
education is very convenient as it will allow the students to choose from which universities they
want to graduate. There will be flexibility for the lecturers to teach online from any of its
campuses.
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Introduction:
The business report will be based on the World University which is opened by the group of
private educators, the university will be fully online and the tutors will be able to provide the
lectures from any of their campuses to the students all around the world. The students can get
graduated from any of the universities in the world and can choose any of the study programs.
The study lectures will be available all around the day and the benefits of diverse facilities
available to students will be given. The concept of customer loyalty will be discussed and even
two suitable business solutions will be discussed in the business report.
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Main body:
Assumptions
1. A customer loyalty scheme called Study Together Loyalty will reward students who introduce
another student with fee credit depending on which course is picked. The university also uses
agents to sell its offerings to employers. Applications are approved in less than 5 minutes.
Payments for non-refundable fees are by credit card or PayPal.
2. E-book and laptop purchases are part of the course and will be available online. Students
cannot opt out of purchases. A pre-configured laptop loaded with required software will be sent
out to all students.
3. You are required to provide any two suitable business process or solution that could be
employed to enhance this model. Substantiate this process or solution with relevant references to
literature.
4. Suggest how social media can play a role in promoting this model – giving suitable
approaches from literature. Avoid writing about the teaching aspect of education or item related
to enrolled student activities such as clubs, societies, etc.
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1. A customer loyalty scheme called Study Together Loyalty will reward students who
introduce another student with fee credit depending on which course is picked. The
university also uses agents to sell its offerings to employers. Applications are approved in
less than 5 minutes. Payments for non-refundable fees are by credit card or PayPal.
It is a positive step by the management of the Universities to offer rewards to students with the
fee credit depending on the type, of course, they have chosen as per the customer loyalty scheme
which is also called as Study Together Loyalty. This step will be assisting greater advantage to
teach the students all around the globe. There are even agents of the universities who take the
assistance of the private agent ‘so that they can provide offerings to the employer which is a
great step. The program can be assisted in various ways so that the students will be gathering to
use the customer loyalty program by assisting the students to complete their tasks and keep them
motivated. The universities can utilize various ways to keep a track of the activities that are done
by the students so that they can attend the online lectures (Hubbard, 2013).
The customer loyalty will be enhancing the confidence of the students and keep them attached to
the actions of the World University. This program will encourage the students to achieve more;
the reputation of these universities will be boosted along with the confidence of students. The
assumptions and ways in which loyalty programs can benefit the students are,
 Recompense the students with the points to pass the tests and their assignments.
 Create an all-in-one card which can be utilized as point connection tool.
 Maintaining a connection with the students so that they can be informed about the special
activities or events in the universities.
 Students would be able to check the payments done to their accounts as per the customer
loyalty programs online.
 The lecturers can personalize the emails and send them to all the students engaged with their
customer loyalty program so that they can be kept motivated.
The student loyalty program can assist the students to feel appreciated when the universities
reward them certain benefits. The reward system is an advantage as it will lead to appropriate
behaviour of the students, the self-esteem of the students will also be enhanced. The agents that
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are appointed by the universities are also beneficial as it will be engaging more number of
students in the courses offered. By reference system, the students can earn the extra profits. The
personal relationships with the students can be enhanced with the trust among them (Keropyan
and Gil-Lafuente, 2012).
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2. E-book and laptop purchases are part of the course and will be available online.
Students cannot opt out of purchases. A pre-configured laptop loaded with required
software will be sent out to all students.
The pre-configured laptop is a great assistance to the students. There are many benefits of
providing laptops and e-books to the students as a part of their course as the laptop will be
configured with the required software’s which will lead to eradicating the confusion of choosing
the right software or any problems relating to the license of the software’s that are utilized to
study. The lectures will be online and the World University will be providing the lecture 24/7 to
the students and the software’s are the only source to access the lectures. If the students purchase
laptops from outside then it may lead to problems in accessing the required software’s or even
the configuration of the laptop may fail to support this software’s so it is a decent step by the
world university to provide laptops and e-books along with course. This will assist the students
to admittance the lectures from a specific place on their systems (Sperling and Reeves, 2013).
The decision of not letting the students purchase the laptops from outside may be harsh but it
may provide long-term benefits to the students who will be getting all the required software’s
pre-configured. The e-books are more beneficial than the normal books as at some points there
may be the unavailability of some books at some locations but the e-books can be provided to
anyone at a point in time. The e-books will not require any use of papers as they are all based on
the technology and can be accessed by the students at any required time. There are no space
issues with the e-books and can be stored in the laptops provided by the world university. This
electronic format books can be sold nowadays with the bonuses and no library room is required
to store them. As many as the wanted number of e-books can be carried at a single time which
decreases the burden of the students and adds another plus point to the laptops provided by the
universities. The laptop that will be provided to the students will be possessing all the software’s
that are required at the whole course of students where the student can revise the portion that is
left out at a certain point of time (Cheng, et. al, 2014).
The syllabus provided by the universities can vary from the syllabus of the software’s that are
purchased by students from outside resources as after great research and methodologies the
syllabus for this students is prepared by the world university and if the software’s that are
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purchased from outside have any single point different from the software’s provided by the
lecturers then it may lead to serious issues for the grade of the students. The e-books are portable
and flexible for the students to carry and use which becomes a burden at the time of using actual
books. If the software’s are pre-configured by the universities then it may assist the lecturers to
keep track on the development of the students. The efficiency of students can be tested by
conducting tests on this software’s, the fees of the course may get increased certainly high after
involvement of the pre-configured e-books and the laptops, by purchasing all the software’s and
a laptop from outside may lead to less price but it will be a time-consuming task (Swanson,
2012).
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3. You are required to provide any two suitable business process or solution that could be
employed to enhance this model. Substantiate this process or solution with relevant
references to literature.
As per the model of the World University, the lecturers provide a number of solutions to all the
students engaged in their courses. Two of the suitable business processes or the solutions are
provided in the task, one of the business process used is of AARDVARK which can also be
distinguished as a service of the social research that can connect the users live with the other
students who are learning through the online lectures. As per this process, the students can
submit their questions with the help of different platforms like mail or message the tutors. The
second process that can also be utilized in the business process in PENGUIN which can assist in
the solutions related to the IT departments. It can be analyzed that the world universities utilize
various solutions for their students engaging in the online learning program (Lee, et. al, 2016).
When a student joins the AARDVARK the AARDVARK is joined to the students IM buddy list.
The students can then submit their questions via IM or using emails. The users are guided by the
AARDVARK after getting the messages that are the confirmed receipts of the questions. If a
user reports positively to the question provided by the AARDVARK then it communicates the
name of the questionnaire. The PENGUIN model is also very much beneficial for providing the
students with the required data. These models support other messenger platforms which assist
the students to interact with their lecturers (Voorveld, et. al, 2018).
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4. Suggest how social media can play a role in promoting this model – giving suitable
approaches from literature. Avoid writing about the teaching aspect of education or item
related to enrolled student activities such as clubs, societies, etc.
Social media is a vast platform to promote the activities within the universities or the campus
courses launched by these universities. The model of launching the World University can be very
much beneficial for the students all over the world; this module can be promoted using the
different stages of the social media like online marketing or communicating with the help of
social platforms. Creating digital platforms and advertisements can improve the reputation of the
programs and even make them famous throughout the students. The social sites will enable the
students to keep a connection with the lecturers for their further interaction and guidance
(Ricklefs, et. al, 2016).
The clubs are a social setup to set a meet up of students along with their lecturers, the students
can join certain clubs where other students will be coming, the interaction increases through such
clubs and the online programs can be promoted them easily. The activities of the students can be
posted online along with the development they have made from time to time so that they can
attract more number of students to their programs. All the activities which lead to the learning of
students can be shared through social platforms and any big announcements related to the world
university can be posted on social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter where the
attention can be gained at a mass size. Social media can be proved as a development tool for the
World University and also help to promote all its programs globally.
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Conclusion:
After analyzing the assumptions made above it can be concluded that the teaching model of
world University can lead to benefit of student all over the world. There are various profits of
adopting these online courses for the students as they will be able to learn any of the courses
from their home and will be able to choose from which university they would like to graduate.
For example, an individual who is studying in the USA can gain a certificate of any university in
the world. The e-books and laptops are also provided by the universities to the students which
have pre-configured software’s that may assist them to get access to their lectures. As per the
assumptions and the report having a World University will benefit the students globally.
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Recommendations:
The world university can utilize various software for the development of the programs. The
interface of the software’s configured by the universities can be made more user-friendly so that
the students can easily get access to the tasks. The universities need to remove the excess images
and graphics; they should choose the right fonts in their e-books, if any complex problems are
there then they must be showed with the help of diagrams and charts. The lecturers need to use
proofing tools and should uplift the constancy and cohesiveness in the e-learning materials.
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References:
 Cheng, B., Wang, M., Mørch, A. I., Chen, N. S., & Spector, J. M. (2014). Research on e-
learning in the workplace 2000–2012: a bibliometric analysis of the literature. Educational
Research Review, Vol. 11, 56-72.
 Hubbard, R. (2013). The Really Useful eLearning Instruction Manual: Your toolkit for
putting elearning into practice. John Wiley & Sons.
 Keropyan, A., and Gil-Lafuente, A. M. (2012). Customer loyalty programs to sustain
consumer fidelity in mobile telecommunication market. Expert Systems with
Applications, Vol. 39(12), 11269-11275.
 Lee, J., Kim, S., and Ham, C. D. (2016). A double-edged sword? Predicting consumers’
attitudes toward and sharing intention of native advertising on social media. American
Behavioral Scientist, Vol. 60(12), 1425-1441.
 Ricklefs, C. A., Asdigian, N. L., Kalra, H. L., Mayer, J. A., Dellavalle, R. P., Holman, D. M.,
& Crane, L. A. (2016). Indoor tanning promotions on social media in six US cities#
UVTanning# tanning. Translational behavioral medicine, Vol. 6(2), 260-270.
 Sperling, R. A., and Reeves, P. M. (2013). A Review of “Effective Questioning Strategies in
the Classroom: A Step-by-Step Approach to Engaged Thinking and Learning, K–8” Fusco,
E.(2012). New York, NY: Teachers College Press. Vol. 143 pp.
 Swanson, T. (2012). Managing social media in libraries: Finding collaboration,
coordination, and focus. Elsevier.
 Voorveld, H. A., van Noort, G., Muntinga, D. G., and Bronner, F. (2018). Engagement with
social media and social media advertising: The differentiating role of platform type. Journal
of Advertising, Vol. 47(1), 38-54.
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