Business Driven Technology [Hardcover]

Stephen Haag (Author), Paige Baltzan (Author), Amy Phillips (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 4, 2005 | ISBN-10: 0072983019 | ISBN-13: 978-0072983012 | Edition: 1

BDT takes a business-first approach, improving students' perception of the value of IS within the business discipline. This perspective allows instructors to more easily demonstrate how technology and systems support business performance and growth. The adaptive chapter/plug-in organization enables the instructor to adjust content according to their business or technical preferences.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Stephen Haag is the Associate Dean of Graduate Programs and Director of the MBA program in the Daniels College of Business at the University of Denver. Prior to being Associate Dean, Stephen served as Chair of the Department of Information Technology and Electronic Commerce in the Daniels College of Business at the University of Denver. Stephen holds a B.B.A. and M.B.A. from West Texas State University and a Ph.D. from the University of Texas at Arlington. Stephen has been teaching in the classroom since 1982 and publishing books since 1984.

Stephen is the coauthor of numerous books including "Interactions: Teaching English as a Second Language" (with his mother and father), "Information Technology: Tomorrow's Advantage Today" (with Peter Keen), "Excelling in Finance," and more than 40 books within the "I-Series." He has also written numberous articles appearing in such journals as Communications of the ACM, Soio-Economic Planning Siences, the International Journal of Systems Science, Managerial and Decision Economics, Applied Economics, and the Australian Journal of Management.

Paige Baltzan is a professor in the Department of Information Technology and Electronic Commerce in the Daniels College of Business at the University of Denver. Paige holds a B.S.B.A from Bowling Green State University and an M.B.A. from the University of Denver. Paige’s primary concentration focuses on object-oriented technologies and systems development methodologies. Paige has been teaching Systems Analysis and Design, Telecommunications and Networking, and Software Engineering at the University of Denver for the past three years. Paige has published supplemental materials for several McGraw-Hill publications including Using Information Technology. Paige lives in Lakewood, Colorado, with her husband, Tony and daughter, Hannah.

Amy Phillips is a professor in the Department of Information Technology and Electronic Commerce in the Daniels College of Business at the University of Denver. Amy has a B.S. degree in Environmental Biology and a M.Ed. degree in Educational Technology. She has been teaching for more than 18 years: 5 years in public secondary education and 13 years in higher education. Amy has also been an integral part of both the academic and administrative functions within the higher education systems in Colorado and New Hampshire. Amy’s main concentration revolves around database driven Web sites focusing on dynamic Web content. She has just finished writing her first book, Internet Explorer 6.0 with Stephen Haag and James Perry. This book is part of the well-received I-Series from McGraw Hill.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 592 pages
• Publisher: McGraw-Hill/Irwin; 1 edition (January 4, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0072983019
• ISBN-13: 978-0072983012
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 1 x 11 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,664,752 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars A Creative Approach But Some "Tweaking" Needed February 28, 2006

By Yasin Ozcelik

Format:Hardcover

Business Driven Technology by Haag, Baltzan, and Phillips is quite a new textbook (1st edition in 2005) designed for undergraduate Information Systems courses. I am one of the "lead customers" of this textbook and have been using it for two semesters.

Contrary to traditional textbooks, it is a modular textbook. More specifically, the entire textbook is divided into three modules. The first module, Chapters, covers the topics in general. The second module, Business Plug-ins, gives more in-depth insights into the applications of Information Systems concepts to contemporary business environments. Finally, the last module, Technical Plug-ins, offers detailed technical information about the Information Systems tools covered in the first two modules. This modular approach is especially important for instructors today because they desperately seek undergraduate textbooks that include well-defined chapters. Moreover, the time necessary to cover all the topics in Information Systems is quite limited--usually a semester. The modular approach is also useful because it can satisfy diverse needs of instructors: some may want to concentrate on more "soft" issues, such as strategic use of IT or e-commerce, and some want to cover more "hard" topics such as telecommunications.

On the flip side, the book has some flaws that need to be urgently addressed before its second version hits the market. Apart from some minor editorial mistakes and unnecessary repetitions throughout the book, the case study questions at the end of each chapter should be rewritten. These case studies indeed reflect the main points from the chapters but the questions are either too general to discuss in class with students, or they are too simple to draw some conclusions. I am not requesting writing state-of-the-art questions but it will be a good idea to revisit them, and try to find a balance between simplicity and complexity.

Another concern is the scope of the textbook. Rather than trying to cover all Information Systems topics in a textbook, it may be better to focus on certain topics. In this regard, it may be necessary to remove the Plug-in T3 (Decision Analysis Tools in Excel), and T5 (Touring Access). Possibly due to space constraints, these parts of the book are not the best resource if an instructor wants to include some hands-on exercises in class. Especially, the Plug-in T5 has several errors, e.g., the first row in Figure T5.17 on page 456 is missing and it affects all the following figures in the plug-in. Given these concerns, instructors may adopt, for example, Shelly Cashman's Microsoft Access book for this purpose (at least until the 2nd version of the book).

A final concern is about the slides of the textbook. It is a common problem in all business textbooks is that the slides seem to be just copy-pasted from the main text of the book. This will probably force some instructors, like me, to rewrite them all and add considerable amount of information to them that is already in the textbook but not reflected in the slides! In this regard, rather than outsourcing the slide production to third-party editors, it will be much better if the authors themselves edit the slides (and it is an open invitation to all authors of business textbooks out there).

Overall, I definitely suggest adopting this textbook if your student profile is very diverse and you are looking for an introductory level Information Systems textbook that offers well-defined alternatives--there are not so many...

Dr. Yasin Ozcelik

www.misworld.org

2 of 5 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars A Superb Study March 6, 2005

By Peter E. Lazarus

Format:Hardcover

A great textbook, very interesting read, I loved the examples and it was easy to follow, yet remarkably astute. Well done all around, this is a must for today's business place.