Introduction to Information Systems: Supporting and Transforming Business [Paperback]

R. Kelly Rainer (Author), Efraim Turban (Author), Richard E. Potter (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 17, 2006 | ISBN-10: 0471736368 | ISBN-13: 978-0471736363 | Edition: 1

Live IT!

Information technology lives all around us--in how we communicate, how we do business, how we shop, how we learn, even how we register for classes. Smart phones, iPods, PDAs, and wireless devices dominate our lives, and yet it's all too easy to take information technology for granted.

Now, Rainer, Turban, and Potter's Introduction to Information Systems helps make information technology come alive in the classroom. This text takes students where IT lives--in today's businesses and in our daily lives--and helps them understand how valuable information technology is to their future careers. Throughout, the text connects IT to accounting, finance, marketing, human resources, and operations, so students can discover how critical IT is to each functional area and every business.

Technology to help students reach their full potential
WileyPLUS provides everything needed to create an environment where students can reach their full potential and experience the exhilaration of academic success.

With WileyPLUS, students can:
* Interact with engaging activities for each chapter, including simulations and animations that help them visualize IT processes.
* Develop IT solutions for a simulated music venue called Club IT.
* Come to class better prepared for lectures.
* Get immediate feedback and context-sensitive help on assignments and quizzes.
* Access a suite of learning resources, including a complete online version of the text.

80% of students surveyed said it improved their understanding of the material.
76% of students surveyed said it made them better prepared for tests.
69% of students surveyed said it helped them get a better grade.

Visit www.wiley.com/college/wileyplus or contact your Wiley representative for more information.

Editorial Reviews

From the Back Cover

Live IT!

Information technology lives all around us––in how we communicate, how we do business, how we shop, how we learn, even how we register for classes. Smart phones, iPods, PDAs, and wireless devices dominate our lives, and yet it’s all too easy to take information technology for granted.

Now, Rainer, Turban, and Potter’s Introduction to Information Systems helps make information technology come alive in the classroom. This text takes students where IT lives––in today’s businesses and in our daily lives––and helps them understand how valuable information technology is to their future careers. Throughout, the text connects IT to accounting, finance, marketing, human resources, and operations, so students can discover how critical IT is to each functional area and every business.

Technology to help students reach their full potential
WileyPLUS provides everything needed to create an environment where students can reach their full potential and experience the exhilaration of academic success.

With WileyPLUS, students can:

• Interact with engaging activities for each chapter, including simulations and animations that help them visualize IT processes.
• Develop IT solutions for a simulated music venue called Club IT.
• Come to class better prepared for lectures.
• Get immediate feedback and context-sensitive help on assignments and quizzes.
• Access a suite of learning resources, including a complete online version of the text.

80% of students surveyed said it improved their understanding of the material.
76% of students surveyed said it made them better prepared for tests.
69% of students surveyed said it helped them get a better grade.

Visit www.wiley.com/college/wileyplus or contact your Wiley representative for more information.

About the Author

R. Kelly Rainer, Jr. is George Phillips Privett Professor of Management Information Systems at Auburn University, Auburn, Alabama. He received his BS degree in Mathematics from Auburn and his Doctor of Dental Medicine for ten years, Professor Rainer returned to school and received his Ph.D. at the University of Georgia. He has published numerous articles in leading journals. His current research interests include health care informatics and information technology security.

Efraim Turban is currently a Visiting Scholar with the Pacific Institute for Information Systems Management College of Business Univ of Hawaii at Manoa. He obtained his MBA and Ph.D. degrees from the Univ of California, Berkeley. His industry experience includes 8 years as an industrial engineer, 3 of which were spent at General Electric Transformers Plant. In his 30 years of teaching, Dr. Turban has served as Distinguished Professor at Eastern Illinois Univ, and as Visiting Professor at UCLA, City Univ of Hong Kong, Nanyang Technological Univ in Singapore, Hong Kong Univ of Science and Technology, and Univ of Miami. Dr. Turban was a co-recipient of the 1984/85 National Management Science Award (Artificial Intelligence in Management). In 1997 he received the Distinguished Faculty Scholarly and Creative Achievement Award at California State Univ, Long Beach. He was the co-chair of the 1999 International Conference of Electronic Commerce. Dr. Turban has published over 100 articles in leading journals.

Richard E. Potter is Assistant Professor of Information and Decision Sciences in the College of Business Administration at the University of Illinois at Chicago. He received a bachelors degree in psychology from California State University-Hayward, and an MS in Management degree and Ph.D. degree in Management and Management Information Systems from the University of Arizona. Dr. Potter was a Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Michigan’s School of Public Health and Visiting Scholar and Adjunct Professor of MIS at the University of Arizona’s Keller School of Management. He also served Mexico’s ITESM system as Director of Research and Doctoral Programs at their Mexico City Graduate School of Business.

Product Details

• Paperback: 432 pages
• Publisher: Wiley; 1 edition (January 17, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0471736368
• ISBN-13: 978-0471736363
• Product Dimensions: 9.8 x 8 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.7 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #640,486 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

40 of 44 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars A textbook for college business majors (only?), November 9, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Introduction to Information Technology (Hardcover)

If you want a general IT book then don't even think about buying this one, despite its title. This is a textbook for college business majors, and looks at things from the business angle.

The book is less suitable for non-student readers. It is geared for use by a lecturer who can draw attention to the important concepts underlying the field of IT, and can steer students to useful supplementary material.

The book races across the surface of the whole field of IT. The authors have packed in a lot of material, but at a cost. The explanations may be good enough for students to answer a quiz about the various buzzwords, but there is not enough space here to cover anything in depth. The students, and you, may be left without a clear idea of what the words really mean.

At the other end of the scale, the book struggles to make plain the broad sweep of IT concepts. Although the authors try hard, ideas tend to get lost amidst the large number of factoids.

One book is never going to be enough to cover all of IT. Your choices are to be more selective about which area you want to learn about, to pick a book which is more clearly aimed at being a simple overview, or to buy this book and work really hard at following up its leads to other material to fill in the gaps.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars A disservice to students and professors, December 17, 2007

By 

Tim Huffner (USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Introduction to Information Systems: Supporting and Transforming Business (Paperback)

It's a shame that such an expensive, college-level textbook written by three university members and published by Wiley could be so full of errors and sheer unprofessionalism. This review refers specifically to the 2007 edition of this book.

There are multiple glaring technical errors throughout the book and accompanying material. For instance, as a key example the book states that a 16 MHz Intel 80386 computer with 1MB of RAM and DOS 3.31 cost $5,200 without a monitor in 1998 (just nine years ago). This statement, and others that I noticed throughout the book, are wholly inaccurate and it is a real disservice that students are expected to learn false facts and misinformation. Typos and grammatical errors are also scattered amongst the material. Everything about the book and material seems hurriedly slapped together, with little consideration for proofreading. The PowerPoint slides likewise contain mistakes and seem cheaply done. On the accompanying site, ClubIT assignments are available and a number of these are also poorly thought out and unchecked for errors (sometimes complete questions are missing from the worksheets yet students are expected to answer follow-up questions based on the nonexistent material).

Aside from the technical errors throughout the book, I also found the writing to be tedious to read due to the monotonous-like style used. Also, so much material is discussed at such a rapid rate that it becomes impossible to comprehend all of it, but as the title suggests you do get a very general overview of information systems but not detailed information about any given technical subject.

Any positive aspects of this book will forever be overshadowed by its errors, and if I were a professor I would demand a full refund for every copy of this book purchased. A 2009 edition is in the works, but it remains unclear whether or not the new edition will fix any of the existing errors or if it will simply add more material onto the abundance of material already covered throughout the book. Either way, this edition was enough to convince me to stay away from any other books written by these authors.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars This is a book for MIS...!!!, December 21, 2005

By 

Arul - See all my reviews

This review is from: Introduction to Information Technology (Hardcover)

This book is intended for a read on topics of MIS (Management Information Systems), a predominantly Management subject, that analyses solutions for Business challenges through the effective usage of Information Technology. Though it is titled differently, its coverage of the MIS topics is reasonably sufficient.