Systems Analysis and Design in a Changing World [Hardcover]

John W. Satzinger (Author), Robert B. Jackson (Author), Stephen D. Burd (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 21, 2000 | ISBN-10: 0760058792 | ISBN-13: 978-0760058794

This text presents a balance of traditional and object-oriented concepts to provide coverage of systems analysis and design. The main text can be supplemented by one or more of four supplemental texts of 150 pages each, depending on the coverage you desire in your course, to provide more in-depth, hands-on exploration of key concepts. A running case ties together the main text and the supplemental texts and presents an effective vehicle for learning the systems development life cycle.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

John Satzinger is a Professor in the Computer Information Systems department at Missouri State University. With more than 15 years of teaching and research experience at leading CIS and MIS university programs, Dr. Satzinger's interests and specialties include systems analysis and design, graphical user interface design, object-oriented development, and database and client-server development. He holds an MBA from Cal Poly University and earned his Ph.D. at the Claremont Graduate University.

Robert Jackson is a retired member of the faculty of the Information Systems Department at Brigham Young University. He has researched, published, and taught in the areas of object-oriented systems development, e-commerce, Web systems, project management, and information systems education. Dr. Jackson received his Ph.D. in Computer Science from Brigham Young University. He is currently self-employed as a principal in several new e-commerce ventures, where he gets to practice the analysis, design, and business principles contained in his textbooks.

Stephen Burd is an Associate Professor at the University of New Mexico, where he has been teaching courses in management information systems, networks, databases, and hardware/software since 1984. He received his bachelor's and master's degrees at the University of Baltimore, and his Ph.D. from Purdue University, and has authored more than seven top-selling textbooks for Course Technology. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 650 pages
• Publisher: Course Technology Ptr (Sd) (March 21, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0760058792
• ISBN-13: 978-0760058794
• Product Dimensions: 11 x 8.5 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.5 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 2.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (18 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,481,803 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Systems Analysis and Design Rendered Incomprehensible, January 19, 2003

By 

Ryan D Jamieson (Toronto, Ontario Canada) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Systems Analysis and Design in a Changing World, Second Edition (Hardcover)

Speaking as an undergraduate, _Systems Analysis and Design in a Changing World_ is not an easy read, and I found some parts (e.g., OO statechart diagrams) almost inaccessible despite my persistent and conscientious efforts to grasp the material given my little but solid background in OO programming. The authors know their field well, and it is evident they put much effort into writing this book. Yet the model-making approach they presented (notably in chapters 5, 6, 7, and 9) obscured rather than improved my understanding of software development. Perhaps I tend to be averse to graphical models of this kind. In any case, a good introductory object-oriented programming textbook covering Java or C++ is a better place to start to learn these ideas because without actually implementing program code, the models seem like "floating" abstractions.

I have two recommendations to the authors that might improve the average student's ability to understand the content, especially the treatment on modeling:

1. Make the writing style less academic and more conversational. A good example of an accessible and engaging presentation of otherwise "mundane" content is David Kelley's _The Art of Reasoning_ (I know it's a book on informal logic and not systems analysis and design, but there are many parallels between the subjects).

2. After a new concept is introduced, immediately provide exercises *with* ideal solutions at the back of the book. There are no solutions in this textbook and no student solution manual is available. Most students need to start out with many easy but progressively more challenging problems and build on that foundation in order to gain confidence in the discipline. Again, see the "Practice Quizzes" in David Kelley's _The Art of Reasoning_ as an example of a textbook that helps the student comprehend the material. After every significant section, Kelley includes many small exercises (with solutions) in order to test the student's understanding of the concepts or principles and to ensure the student has thoroughly absorbed the information before moving on to more complex knowledge. I stress that I am not recommending that the content be "dumbed down." What I am saying is that since systems analysis and design is difficult and requires much practice to master, it is the job of the teacher to build a bridge between the challenging but potentially graspable ideas and the students who fall short of brilliant. In other words, this book is in desperate need of many smaller, easier problems that progressively build up to the kind of arduous case studies that *are* included at the end of the chapters.

This is a good book if you have the aptitude and appetite for graphical model-making and some experience in programming. Yet I highly suspect there are better books out there on this topic for introductory students.

13 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars A crummy book, December 16, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: Systems Analysis and Design in a Changing World (Hardcover)

I agreed to teach Systems Analysis and accepted this text as it was the one already selected when I arrived on campus. Later I was told by the person who selected this text, "Your problem is that you believe what you read. I choose books to teach against." In other words, the person who originally selected this book thought that it was full of bunk and planned to use it as a foil for his wit and wisdom. Personally, I see no reason to force students to buy a book that you disagree with. Unfortunately, his assessment that the book is full of bunk is largely correct. If the book was mearly full of drivel it would be a better book than it is. Alas, it also overly long and confuses students. I would not recommend using this book. I will certainly never use it again.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Packed with disjointed and repetitive information!, April 6, 2008

By 

Simon Schofield (Australia) - See all my reviews

This review is from: System Analysis and Design in a Changing World (Hardcover)

If you want to make the subject of Systems Analysis and Design appear to be more daunting than it really is, then read this book! There is no doubt that the authors know their subject, but they seem to have no idea of how to clearly explain the concepts. The real issue appears to be a "disconnection" between the author's knowledge and how that translates into a clear explanation for somebody who is new to this subject.

To explain this better, many concepts are introduced in early chapters, and then again in more detail in later chapters. Sounds logical right? Well, sometimes. What you find here is that you quickly become overwhelmed with briefly introduced concepts, acronyms, descriptions, foot-notes, side-notes, best practice notes, headings, subheadings, dot-points, highlighted-text, diagrams and tables (that often only make sense in subsequent pages), and most of all: repetition. Lots of repetition... Only to read about it all over again in later chapters.

They really have just thrown as much information into the book as they could, but with little thought put into making the subject flow (and make sense). Some concepts like the IE SDLC are explained in detail in chapter 2, but then you discover a LOT more information about IE in chapter 6! It's almost like the authors split the subjects between them and threw the book together without bothering to collaborate. Consequently the book could be half the size.

Given that the subject matter focuses heavily on "flow", I'm completely underwhelmed by the author's ability to introduce flow in their written explanations!

I'm using it with my course at the moment (not through choice), and I am finding myself using Google all the time now to supplement my understanding of the concepts in the book.

Don't buy it (unless you really have to).