INFORMATION SYSTEMS SYMPOSIUM

Masters in Business Administration

BUS 704

Breyer State University
Instructor: Kenneth "Micheal" Townsend, Ph.D

SYLLABUS

COURSE OBJECTIVES: This course is a symposium course offered as part of the MBA specialty program. This course serves two main purposes. The first is that the course serves to further the student's knowledge of a very important segment of the master's program and information systems. Secondly, it further gives the student the chance to enhance their learning in the program. The class itself will consist of a very specific guided project with monitoring by me of the entire process. The actual project is decided with you, but I must approve all steps and the paper must follow very specific guidelines that will be noted below. This project can take on several different shapes depending on your plan for the future. This project can also serve as a introduction to your ultimate project of a dissertation. You can use this project and course as a stepping stone toward that one. This course is set to run for ten weeks. Each week begins on Sunday and ends on Saturday. There will be no deviation from this unless specified by the instructor ahead of time. Any deviation must be approved before hand and the only excuses are death or serious illness.

TIME FRAME: This is a fifteen-semester hour course. This course is allotted ten weeks of time. You must complete all of the requirements for the course successfully by the end of the ten-week period. The first day of week one will begin the day that you register for the course, of the day which you notify me that your text book(s) have arrived and you are ready to begin your studies. Please be aware of the time frame. It is unusual that extensions of time are permitted, unless you have good justification. Upon successful completion of this course, you will be awarded fifteen semester hours of credit.

PREREQUISITES: You must complete all regular courses within the program before beginning symposium courses.

REQUIRED TEXTBOOK: You are not required to purchase any textbook per se for this course, but it is required that you use some sort of specific format for the course. The accepted format for this type of writing is APA. The newest APA guide is fifth edition and is available at any college or online bookstore. Though not required for this course, the student should use a format they are comfortable with. If your not comfortable with a specific format, I will recommend APA.

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OTHER REQUIREMENTS: Please note that the course itself will utilize the following format. You will complete a project that has been approved by me. It will adhere to the following minimal guidelines.

a). The paper will be a minimal of 25 to 30 pages double-spaced.
b). The paper will have a minimum of 25 to 30 reputable sources of a variety of kinds. These may be a combination of journals, magazines, books, and online sources. Online sources are fine, but they cannot be the only sources for this paper. If used, the sources must be cited properly and use one of the formats previously noted.
c). This paper is a project and should be treated as such. This project is given at a master's level. This is an important frame of reference. If you go on to complete the other symposiums for this program as well as possible Ph.D dissertations in the future, this course with its project will help in those as well by giving a proper frame of reference for classes research papers. This project will be graded with reference to a master's learner. In other words, there are many things a master's learner should be able to do with their writing and this will be covered in the grading of the project.
d). Any paper topic must be approved by me. Any revisions of said topic must be approved by me.
e). The guidelines for the paper week by week are given below and must be followed. This course will run for ten weeks. You must meet all guidelines or paper deductions probably will be taken.

1). In week one, you must decide on a topic. This must be approved no later than the end of week one.
2). In week two, you should begin researching your topic. You should send a list of at least ten prospective sources properly documented to me in e-mail as an attachment in either a .doc or .rtf format. Other formats may or may not be accepted. I prefer .rtf formats due to the fact the format is maintained in the attachment.
3). In week three, you should have a very rough outline of the paper. This should be sent to me as noted in previous weeks.
4). In week four, you should have a finalized outline and a good idea of the direction the paper is taking. You should send the outline, a brief overview of the project and the direction it is taking, and the plan for finishing the project. At this point, I will give you the go ahead to continue on the project. If I say everything is go, you will be given a mid-term score and you will proceed to week five work. The grading scale will be given below.
5). In week five, you will do a rough draft of the final paper making sure to include any pertinent information for the paper and the proper citations, etc.
6). In week six, you should be finishing the final draft, but it is still rough. If you want me to make final comments, they should send a final rough draft this week to me.
7.) In week seven, you should be working on the final revisions for the paper.
8.) In week eight, you should plan on one of the following: submitting the paper completely done and ready to turn in (just in case major revisions need to be done by the end of week nine), or submit a last draft of the paper for me as is and ready for grading. This paper needs to be labeled as such. If not labeled, I will assume the project is completed and will be graded as such.
9.) In week nine, the paper should be submitted no later than the last day of week nine. For week nine, I will consider Sunday the last day of week nine. Papers submitted following these guidelines will be considered progressive in nature. Those that did not may lose points due to lateness, etc. If you submit the paper in a methodical manner labeled here and the paper is found to be satisfactory, I will give the paper a score from the list below. The RUBRIC for the paper is given next. Please also note that I am making this paper due in week nine. You may submit your paper at the end of week ten, but there will be no chance of rewrites if this is the case.
10.) In week ten, you will have a final opportunity to do any rewrites. If you do not submit the final paper until the end of week ten, you will not be allowed to make any changes. This course will last no longer than ten weeks no matter what without an excused reason from me with proof.

f). RUBRIC for paper-The paper is considered an A paper if it does the following. The paper must have met all criteria noted in 1-10 above. The paper must have a clearly defined objective. It must have a very well thought out premise and research methodology. The paper must also flow and be directly related to the approved topic. The grammar and syntax must also be flawless. It is in the best interest of yours to have someone read over the paper who is totally objective to the paper. The paper is considered a B if it meets all but one of these criteria. If a paper is missing minor components, it is up to me whether the grade will be dropped. If the paper is missing several minor components, the paper will be considered a B paper as well. The paper will be considered a C if it is missing more than one major component noted above or if it is missing one major and several minor components. An example might be a paper that does not meet length requirements or requirements for citations. Another example might be a paper that does not meet length requirements and has several problems with grammar and syntax. If a paper appears to be worse than a C, you must redo the paper and will have a maximum of one week to do so. This is only if you submit the paper by the end of week nine. If you submit the paper early in week ten, I will give you until the end of week ten, but the end of week ten is the end. Any rewrites at this point must be approved by me and can be done for a totally new grade. If you do not fix the errors or fixes the errors inappropriately, the final grade is the final grade. If you make lower than C, the paper is a failure.
g). You will have to take the course again at this point. If your in this situation, it is a major problem on their part due to the laid out procedure noted above concerning this procedure. This is why the paper is laid out so well.
h). You may complete the paper early, but must make sure every step is followed. No steps may be deleted even if the paper is done early. Missing steps will result in problems in the final grade. You should plan on having the paper completed no later than day seven of week nine for any final revisions which is Sunday of day as noted above.
i). Extensions for this course may be granted for major illness or personal problems. These must be approved before the course starts and should be discussed with me either in e-mail or by phone. A phone conversation must be set up ahead of time and you must instigate it. We will not have a phone conference unless I know ahead of time to expect it. If problems occur during the course, I must be notified immediately for any variations in the schedule above.
j). Please note that I am working for your success. I do not want or even like failure. It does neither one of us any good. Questions are welcomed and expected from you. I will answer e-mail usually no later than 24 hours after it is sent. This might be different with weekends and holidays.
k). Finally, this is your project and should follow my guidelines, but your train of thought. It would not be a bad idea for you to be compiling information as you go to prepare for this course. It is also a very good idea for you to be familiar with the writing formats noted above for this course. Questions concerning this are welcomed.

INSTRUCTOR AVAILABILITY: Upon registration, you will be given my e-mail address. Please e-mail any questions. That is the reason that I am here. I will try to do everything I can to help you as much as possible. Please do not wait until the end of class to get help. It will be too late. Anytime your grade falls below C, I will try to contact you about it. If I do not, or fail to get a hold of you, please contact me through e-mail.

ATTENDANCE REQUIREMENTS AND SUBMISSION DEADLINES: You must submit all assignments on time as listed above. Other interactions are encouraged, but not necessary. Late assignments will result in point deductions as noted above. This is not my only class. Questions need to be properly labeled and signed. The only requirements for attendance are the assignment deadlines given above.

GRADE DISTRIBUTION: There are 100 total points available for the class.

GRADING: The grading scale for this course is as follows:

90-100%    = A
80-89%      = B
70-79%      = C
Below 70% = Fail

Please note that anything below C is considered failing for this course.

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