PROPOSAL CURRICULUM FOR BACHELOR OF COMMERCE MANAGEMENT INFORMATION SYSTEMS

Abstract

As years go by, the world is becoming more and more in to an electronic global village. This possess many challenges like privacy, confidentiality, availability and integrity of information held in individual/organizational database. This calls for both individuals and organizations to keep abreast with the current information technology for effective protection and efficient production by optimizing the technology.

It is evident that advances in informational technology, production and usage have increased in the industrialized world while the same is happening at very slow speed in the developing world and especially Africa. In Africa, one may look at it from the illiteracy levels, vulnerability of organizations and individual database, the need for information systems specialists, and management information systems perspectives.

Illiteracy: The number of people who are illiterate in terms of lack of knowledge of usage of computers is very high in Africa. Because of this there is a dire need of people who are well literate in the usage of computers to assist in the production of data and information that will go along way in helping managers to make good decisions. Therefore, this program will seek to address this shortage/gap.

Vulnerability of organizations and individual database: There is a great risk that individuals, through design of viruses, can damage valuable files or destroy databases. The security of data is also very Important in that there could be individuals who may have illegal access to unauthorized files. The program will train people who can better manage systemsfor Individuals/organizations.

Need for information systems specialists: There is a gap between professionals trained in this field compared to per capita availability in the developed countries. Again, this is due to the two points that have been mentioned above. This is a new field in Kenya and Africa as whole. Because information systems has a vital developmental role to play in a any country, Daystar University must have a part to play in the endeavors to create such a pool of experts for Kenya and Africa.

Management Information Systems: There is a need to train managers who will have an overview of information systems in their organizations. This will relate to the types of MIS available, like, decision support system (DSS); transaction processing systems (TPS); executive information systems (EIS), etc. The same managers should supervise such data like: distributed database; centralized database; etc. They should look into modes of communication networks e.g. local area networks (LAN); wide area networks (WAN); etc. Lastly, but not the least, they should oversee the ethics and the security of systems.