firSt daY refLection Ü

My First day reflections/Learnings

Another school year has started after a 2-week summer vacation. Yes just two weeks for most of us still had our summer classes. Another year of project loads, long sleepless nights, and more eye bags LOL. But still schooling is a lot fun for me. Ok, so much for geeky introductions. LOL

The first of our MIS class was on the 18th of June 2008. The subject was handled by “gwapo”(according to him) hEhe, Dr. Randy S. Gamboa who was also our professor in some of our subjects before so we somehow knew him and his policies. Sir Gamboa has his trademark of the "talent portion" when someone comes to class late. And this has always been my alert for me not to be late in coming to class. I really don't want to perform in front of the class. hehe. We had our new classmates who are transferee students from USEP Tagum campus. They had to introduced themselves one by one together with a short talent portion (LOL) as what Sir Gamboa always do for new students and also for late comers as what I've mentioned. We had fun watching their talents and knew our new classmates.

After some introductions about our professor and new classmates, Sir Gamboa introduced what our subject is all about. Our Subject was MIS 1 with the subject description Management Information Systems. In other sources, Management Information Systems (MIS) is defined as the term given to the discipline focused on the integration of computer systems with the aims and objectives on an organization. http://www.bestpricecomputers.co.uk/glossary/management-information-system.htm

Another meaning I’ve got from the web is this. A management information system (MIS) is a subset of the overall internal controls of a business covering the application of people, documents, technologies, and procedures by management accountants to solving business problems such as costing a product, service or a business-wide strategy. Management information systems are distinct from regular information systems in that they are used to analyze other information systems applied in operational activities in the organization. Academically, the term is commonly used to refer to the group of information management methods tied to the automation or support of human decision making, e.g. Decision Support Systems, Expert systems, and Executive information systems.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Management_Information_System

PDOC
What is PDOC? This is the acronym I’ve got from Sir Gamboa that describes what MIS is. PDOC stands for Planning, Directing, Organizing and Controlling.

“Planning involves setting long-term goals, short-term objectives, and the strategy to meet both goals and objectives. Directing moves to the level of day-to-day operations, it also involves last-minute changes to an original plan. Organizing addresses the elements of staffing, physical space, equipment and hardware, workflow relationships, and supervisory relationships. Controlling occurs after the organization's process is in place.”
-Charles E. Beck, University of Colorado at Colorado Springs
-Gary R. Schornack, University of Colorado at Denver
http://userwww.sfsu.edu/~ibec/papers/43.pdf

Now segregating the M and IS to elaborate more of MIS. I’ll take up first the letter M in MIS. Management in all business and human organization activity according to Wikipedia is simply the act of getting people together to accomplish desired goals and objectives. What I’ve learned from our MIS class management means managing obviously (LOL) from the word itself having to manage something or someone. I agree that all of us could be a manager. Managing our money or our belongings for instance is a simple example of managing but never someone. A person could not manage another person definitely because we are individuals and we should be the one to control ourselves guided by our Almighty Father, another thing I should store in my mind which Sir Gamboa told us. God will only guide us on the right path and we are the ones who should take the steps to walk through it. Anyone could be a manager but not everyone could be a leader because it would be hard if everyone will be working as the leader having similar role. It would create catastrophe. LOL
That’s what I’ve understand with the M in MIS. It is now IS’s turn. IS stands for Information Systems. Again from Wiki, Information Systems refers to the specific application software that is used to store data records in a computer system and automates some of the information-processing activities of the organization. To make it easier to understand Sir Gamboa gave us this equation to describe IS:
[IS = IT + PW]
which stands for Information System = Information Technology + People Ware and
[IT = HW + SW]
which stands for Information Technology = Hardware + Software
so we could come up with the equation:
[IS = HW + SW + PW]
which stands for Information System = Hardware + Software + People Ware
This final equation now describes IS or Information System means which is the hardware plus the software and people ware joined together. Easy right?
Now after relaying all I have learned from the first meeting in our MIS 1 class the question our professor left for us is this. Is Management Information System the appropriate description for the subject? How could we say that MIS denotes management of Information System and IS is equal to Hardware + Software + People Ware, when it is mentioned that people cannot be managed?
Sounds confusing? Absolutely! Hmmm.. It is mentioned above that people cannot be controlled and I totally agree but it does not mean that the people ware in IS is being managed by other person. I have found this definition of peopleware in Wiki. “Peopleware can refer to anything that has to do with the role of people in the development or use of computer software and hardware systems, including such issues as developer productivity, teamwork, group dynamics, the psychology of programming, project management, organizational factors, human interface design, and human-machine-interaction.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peopleware
With this definition we can say that peopleware refer to the “role of people” not the people itself in the development of systems. So people here are note being controlled but instead they just do their role in developing the hardware and software of the system. Therefore I believe the description Management Information Systems is just appropriate for the subject MIS 1.


I think that is all for this blog post. I hope I have answered all that Sir Gamboa had instructed. hehe Till my next post!

Have a nice day!!
God Bless us all!!..





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