Innovation in Information Systems Education-II Enterprise IS Management: A Capstone Course for Undergraduate IS Majors

As information technology becomes increasingly embedded in critical business processes, IT professionals continually seek to improve the security, reliability and performance of the systems for which they are responsible. Systems and network applications vendors are unveiling a wide array of new products designed to assist in this effort and the trade literature is devoting significant coverage to the IT operations processes required to achieve required IT service levels. Despite increasing industry attention to the importance of IS operations, the authors believe that such concerns are relatively unaddressed in the typical undergraduate business-oriented IS curriculum. This article describes a course currently offered at the authors’ university that conceptualizes the enterprise management of IS as including both IS governance and IS management processes. The distinction allows for coverage of traditional content related to the strategic use of information technology while providing an increased focus on IT operational management issues.