You are to research and prepare answers to all questions listed below. You may use quotations
or referenced paraphrasing, but you must always summarise your findings and conclusions in
your own words. Failure to do this will cost you marks – see marking guide.
Do not use direct quotations. Instead, you are required to research, read, understand and then
explain in your own words. Any paraphrasing from sources must be correctly referenced intext
and in the References section, using the Harvard referencing standard.
Use a variety of web sources, journals and books (avoid using Wikipedia). It is always helpful
to read about the same topics from more than one source. The minimum resource to use for all
questions is the prescribed textbook.
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Report document layout and formatting requirements
This report should be from the third person point of view, which is standard in reports. Your
report must have the following sections in the order listed:
• Format – 2500 words (+/-10%) excluding title page, table of contents and references. Submit
one file in MS Word .doc or .docx format. The report must have a header and footer as
follows: in the header put your student number on the left side of the page and your name
on the right side of the page. The footer should have a page number that is centred on the
page. The header and footer should appear beginning with the body (the questions) of the
report and continue throughout the rest of the report. There should be no header or footer on
the Title page or the Table of Contents.
• Title Page – clearly setting out the title of your assessment, your name, your student ID, the
unit name, unit code and the name of the lecturer. There must be no graphics or pictures of
any kind on the title page.
• Table of Contents – auto generated using the word processor. The title page and table of
contents itself should not appear in the table of contents. The table of contents should be on
its own page.
• No need to provide ‘Executive Summary’.
• Body (the questions) – this is where you discuss your answers in detail, where appropriate,
headings and sub-headings should be included with the logical progression of your answers
from one idea to the next. Do not use the word ‘Body’ as a heading – identify words that relate
to your report for the heading.
Hint – you do not have to make the entire question a heading that appears in the Table of
Contents. You can use the first sentence of the question as the heading which should appear
in the table of contents. Do not attempt to shorten or to re-phrase the question, as this runs
the risk of accidentally changing the question. Marking will always be against the original
question as published in this specification.
• References – include in this section any web site addresses from which you obtained
information, as well as information or help you received from any other sources, including
the textbook. Remember that only cited sources should be included in a References section.
Use the Harvard system of referencing to correctly cite in-text as well as listing in the
References. For the purpose of this assignment, avoid using direct citations or quotes. You
are to read sources, develop an understanding of the material, and paraphrase using your
own words. Unreferenced direct quotations may be treated as plagiarism. If or when you
paraphrase an idea, you should certainly use an in-text reference to note the source.
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The Questions:
1. Discuss the five IT Megatrends that shape the Digital Future.
Source: Chapter 1
2. Of the five competitive forces presented in the Chapter 2 (Porter’s model), which is the
most significant for an organisation in terms of making IS investment decisions? Why?
Which is the least significant? Why?
Source: Chapter 2
3. Which five Web sites do you visit most frequently? What makes you come back to these
sites? Which ones do you spend most time on? Why?
Source: Chapter 4
4. More and more organisations have discovered Facebook as a way to connect with their
customers and drive word-of-mouth advertising. Any company can create a Facebook page
containing basic information about the business, a “wall” to share content, a space for
uploading photos or pictures (many organizations use this to show “behind-the-scenes”
content), and so on. Further, businesses can add apps (such as an app that allows customers
to make a reservation at a restaurant) to further engage with their customers.
Facebook users who “like” a page automatically receive the business’s status updates in
their newsfeeds. As the liking of a page is announced to others in the user’s newsfeed and
his or her profile, the liking of the page can spread throughout the user’s network of friends.
Further, each business’s page has a listing of all Facebook users who like the page. What
businesses are liked by most Facebook users? As of April 2016, the top 10 most-liked
product pages were the following:
(a) Search the Web for the most up-to-date statistics.
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(b) What is striking/important about these statistics?
(c) How have the numbers changed since April 2016? Which categories seem to draw most
attention in social networks? Why?
Source: Chapter 5
5. Define a Database Management System (DBMS). What is an entity? Differentiate between
records and attributes with example.
Source: Chapter 6
6. Write a short note on the rise of ‘Enterprise Systems’.
Source: Chapter 7
7. Ethical Dilemma: When Algorithms Discriminate
Promising companies the ability to get to know their customers and maximize the benefit
gained from each one, CRM systems could be called a marketer’s dream. CRM software
allows companies to look closely at customer behavior, drilling down to smaller and smaller
market segments. Once so segmented, customers can be targeted with specific promotions.
For the company, this process reaps the greatest returns from marketing efforts because only
those customers are targeted who are likely to respond to the marketing campaign.
From a customer’s perspective, CRM systems seem like a great idea. You finally stop
receiving advertisements for things that don’t interest you. But what if a company uses its
CRM software in a more discriminating way? Where do companies draw the line between
using CRM data to offer certain clients customized deals and unethically discriminating
against other customers? For example, lenders, which often segment their customers
according to their creditworthiness, might use this credit risk data to target customers having
a low credit rating with underhanded payday or subprime loans. Although these customers
are riskier for the lender, the higher fees and interest charged for credit make these
customers especially lucrative.
CRM and all software contain countless algorithms for manipulating, aggregating, and
summarizing data. Algorithms reflect a set of rules to be followed in calculations and other
problem-solving operations. While there is a widespread belief that such algorithms must
be objective and fair, CRM software, and the underlying algorithms, is not free of human
bias. Instances of bias reported in the popular press include a report that Google’s online
advertising system displayed an advertisement for high-income jobs for men more often
than for women. Similarly, ads for accessing arrest records were significantly more likely
to show up on searches for distinctively black names. In a similar way, CRM systems based
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on biased or discriminatory algorithms can potentially do more harm than good, destroying
rather than building customer relationships.
(a) Whose responsibility is it to ensure that algorithms are not discriminatory? Explain.
(b) Google, Facebook, and many other widely used software platforms have been accused
of using algorithms that present biased search results or news feeds. Should such platforms
be bias free (at least as much as possible), or is it acceptable for platforms to reflect the
biases of the developers? Explain.
Source: Chapter 8
Submission instructions:
Note that:
• Submission is a three-stage process of (i) uploading the file(s) (ii) saving the file(s) and
then (iii) submitting the saved file(s) for marking. Please use the ‘Add submission’
button in the assessment submission area of the Moodle unit website to select and upload
your file(s) for this assessment. You must then click the ‘Save changes’ button after
you’ve uploaded the file(s) to ensure they are added to your draft submission.
• Once uploaded and saved, all compatible files will be sent to Turnitin.com for
originality checking. If you wait for half an hour or so after uploading your initial draft
submission, you can return and check the Turnitin similarity report for your uploaded
file(s) to see whether you want to submit them for marking, or whether you want to
delete the file(s), revise and resubmit. For further details, please click here.
• Turnitin has a 24-hour delay in updating similarity scores for all files uploaded
after your initial draft.
• Any file(s) you have uploaded and left in draft format will be submitted automatically
for marking on the due date and time, so you need to ensure that the final version of
your submission has been uploaded by this date.
• When viewing any feedback files for your submission, it is strongly recommended you
use appropriate/compatible software applications which correctly open the type of file
provided. This will ensure that the feedback is displayed as intended.
