Information Systems in your Career..
For this project, you will be exploring information systems that you might encounter in your career path by talking to someone that is currently working in that field and learning how the information system(s) he or she uses impacts work in that industry. In addition to learning about information systems in your field, you will also need to network. You will write about what you learn from your interviewee and how that may impact you in your future career. Finding a Contact Finding new contacts and meeting new people outside of your immediate circle is important in all careers. To support this, you will need to choose an interviewee that is not currently employed at Ohio University. To begin, research a professional working in your chosen career path or industry. If you are unsure of your specific career path, choose an industry that most closely aligns with your career goals. This person should be someone outside of your immediate family and may not be a coworker unless they are in a management position above the position you had/have. Most colleges have ties with alumni; talk to your college about how to contact alumni. Have you done an internship somewhere? Do you know someone that recently graduated from OU? Friends might be willing to talk to you or be able to provide you with other contacts. Look on LinkedIn. Professors in your college or specific major may also have a former student or other contacts they could suggest. The Interview You will need to set up an interview in person, over the phone or online; emailed questions and responses do not qualify as an interview for our purposes. Use the paper requirements below to help guide your conversation and questions. The main topics outlined below must be covered in your paper, but each specific question does not need to be answered if it does not apply to your contact. If the conversation brings up interesting and relevant information outside of the content listed below, feel free to include it in your paper. It is YOUR responsibility to confirm that the person you are interviewing is actually using an information system. If you ask them what information system they use, and they start talking about something that is not an information system, YOU need to redirect the conversation. Try giving your interviewee an example of an information system to help them understand what you are looking for. If you determine that they are not using an information system, you will need to find someone else to interview. The content of your paper should be based on the conversation as a whole rather than typing out the questions and answers verbatim. Summaries and paraphrasing are expected. An emphasis is placed on what YOU learned from the conversation about the use of information systems and what that means for your future career. Please see the rubric for specific grading details. Paper Content Introduction/Contact • Your college, major and chosen career/industry (My info* college= Communication, Major= Games and Animation, Career= Animator) • Interviewee’s name, company and job tile/role • Brief description of how you know/found this contact and how this person relates to your future career goals (if not apparent by the person’s title or role) • Date of discussion and mode of communication (e.g. “We talked via Skype on Dec 4, 2017”). About the Information System • Determine the 1 or 2 most useful/important information systems in the interviewee’s job (Remember that Excel, Word, PPT, SPSS, etc. are software programs/applications rather than information systems; while useful, those are not the focus of this project) • Include the specific information system name(s) (e.g. Microsoft Dynamics, OnBase, Tableau, etc.) and general type/category (e.g. POS, manufacturing, scheduling, CRM, hotel management, etc.) • Description and purpose of the specific information system from the interviewee’s perspective. (Additional research should be done to provide more detailed information about the information system after the interview.) • Are there things that the person would like to see improved with the current system? Impact • If around before the system was implemented, how did it change his/her daily work? • How would his/her daily work change without the use of the information system? Experience/Training • What information systems experience did the person have previously? Did it help/hinder the use of his/her current information systems? • What kind of system training was provided, if any? Did the person learn more on their own? Takeaways regarding information systems in YOUR career • What did YOU learn about the use of information systems in your career path? • Do you think the use of information systems will increase or decrease as you move through your career? Why or why not? • What specifically could you do to help prepare yourself for the use of information systems in your career? After your interview and doing additional research on the ‘chosen’ system(s), if needed, write a 700 – 900 word, single-spaced paper explaining what you learned from your interview and how what you learned could impact you in your future career.
