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INF4015W
Course
Outline
2015
POSTGRADUATE DIPLOMA IN
MANAGEMENT (INFORMATION SYSTEMS)
INF4015W: INFORMATION SYSTEMS COURSEWORK
This part-time coursework component covers system delivery methods and techniques such as
prototyping, event driven systems, object orientation; technology overview from an IT
architecture perspective including hardware and software architectures, system architectures
including client server, multi-tier and service-oriented architectures, application and
information architectures, and security; against the deeper enduring principles of strategic IT
management, and project management.

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Overview
This course is part of a modular postgraduate programme offered by the Department of
Information Systems within the Faculty of Commerce. It is intended for students who have had
significant commercial work experience and are currently working in Information Technology
(IT), or intend to work in IT in a professional capacity. It aims to impart state of the art
knowledge and appreciation in the areas of system delivery, project management, relevant
technologies and strategic IT management. It is highly relevant for the roles of Systems
Analysts, Business Analysts, Architects, Project Managers, System Development Managers, IT
Strategists and IT Entrepreneurs.
Content
The world of the IT professional is changing rapidly. Intended for candidates with business work
experience, this programme addresses developments like graphical user interfaces, prototyping,
event driven systems, object orientation, components, middleware, client server, web based
systems and electronic commerce against the deeper enduring principles of strategic IT
management, system delivery methods and techniques, and project management. A central
principle is that of linking business and IT architectures. The course includes the following
major modules:
• System Delivery/Development Methods and Techniques: Object Orientated Systems
Analysis using UML, Patterns, Architectures, Iterative Methodologies, Agile Methods
• Technology Landscape: An architectural look at current and emerging information and
communication technologies for organisations including: Database, Communications,
System and Application Architectures, Operating Systems, LANs, WANs, Internet,
XML, Service Oriented Architecture, Middleware, Agents, Security
• Project Management: Evolution of PM practice and PMBOK, complexity in PM,
PMBOK overview, language and communication, systems thinking, rethinking PM,
benefits realisation, role of methodology in PM.
• Strategic Management of IT: Challenges facing CIO today, Business and IT alignment,
Business Intelligence and Analytics, Corporate & IT governance, Privacy & IS security,
IT Risk Management, IS Evaluation/ Corporate Performance Management (CPM) &
XBRL, Project Portfolio Management, IT/IS Profession from a Management perspective
and managing people, PMO, Leveraging Emerging Technologies for competitive
Advantage, Strategic Technology Trends, Using Technology for Innovation..
Following the course work, the students who do not enrol in the PT Honours programme are
required to complete and report on a work-related project which demonstrates clearly how the
knowledge gained in the course has been applied in their day-to-day work environment. This is
normally done in the year following the coursework. The nature of the project is very flexible
but a written project report of no less than 50 pages, as well as a presentation of the report is
expected on completion. The report will be treated confidential if necessary. Students who have

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demonstrated a solid academic performance (usually by obtaining a coursework mark of 65% or
very close to it) will be invited to enrol in next year’s part-time honours programme where they
will be taught on research methodologies and expected to do an empirical research project.
Format
Commencing in Jan 2015, successful candidates will complete the coursework in November. In
the following year, student will do their work-related project, or may continue on to Honours
study subject to entrance requirements and other prerequisites.
From February to November, there are two evening sessions per week (Mondays and
Thursdays). Thursday evenings are plenary sessions with all candidates present and include a
taught component (lecture/workshop/demonstration etc.) and student presentations of work
assigned. Duration is normally three hours. Guests from industry or within the University may
be present or critique at these sessions to add richness. Monday evening sessions involve
students in groups of about four working on assignments and research topics. Students are
assigned to new groups for each module to provide wide exposure and variety.
There are two full time weeks, the first one runs from 26 to 30 January 2015 and the second
one from 6 to 10 July. These are intensive and candidates will attend Monday through Friday
from 09h00 till late. If you cannot ensure your attendance at the full-time weeks, you are
advised to delay your registration for this program to a future year.
A variety of assignments, papers and presentations will be required of students throughout the
program. Some of this work will be completed in groups.
Three examinations will be written (check course outline):
• An examination on the first module as soon as possible after its completion (i.e. end
Feb/early March) – weight = 25% of exam mark.
• An examination on the second module in June – weight = 25% of exam mark.
• An examination on the third and fourth modules in November – weight = 50% of exam
mark.
Candidates are also assessed continuously for their attendance, participation and contribution
during the year.
Evaluation
Students will be evaluated on multiple deliverables and overall participation. The provisional
mark allocations are as follows
Written papers and essays 21%
Written Examinations 50%
Student Presentations which includes class & group contribution 19%
Assignments 10%

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Students missing more than 20% of the classes may be asked to leave the programme. (Missing
a full-time week represents 20% of classes!)
In order to pass the course students must obtain:
• An average course mark of at least 50% for the entire year; and
• An average (i.e. overall) examination mark of 50%; and
• No supplementary examinations will be given.
Guests
During the programme, we may on occasion invite guests from industry and other institutions to
participate in the Thursday evening plenary sessions. They may be vendors, IT professionals
within commercial organizations, or independent experts/consultants. They add richness to the
sessions by offering information, critiquing staff and student presentations, participation in
discussions and occasional presentations or demonstrations.
Prescribed Books
The prescribed textbooks will be confirmed at the start of the course. Last year the following
books were used:
• System Delivery Module: Bennett, Simon ; McRobb, Steve & Farmer, Ray. Object-
oriented Systems Analysis and Design Using UML (McGrawHill, 4th
(or 3rd
) Edition,
2010).
• Technology Module: Readings will be given during the course. A recommended
background reading for those new to the IT Architecture landscape is: IT Architecture for
Dummies, Kalani Hausman & Susan Cook (Wiley, Hoboken (NJ), 2011).
• Project Management Module: Readings/e-book will be given. Recommended
additional text: Right-Brain Project Management: A complementary approach by
Michael Aucoin (Management Concepts, Vienna (VA), 2007).
• Strategic Management Module: Readings will be given.
Learning Management System
All course notes, lecture presentations, announcements, schedules and other relevant information
will be posted on UCT’s learning management system Vula. This is also the site where you
upload your own materials, submissions, essays etc. You will be added automatically as a
student to the site on registration.
Please note that up-/downloads using a dial-up or low-bandwidth may be problematic for larger
documents. Although the Vula system is generally very reliable and has a high up-time, it is not
perfect. Allow for slower access in periods of heavy use and occasional downtime.

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UCT Staff Involved with the Course
Role Name Room Tel: 021- email
Course Convenor Jean-Paul Van Belle 3.41 6504256 Jean-Paul.VanBelle@uct.ac.za
Other Lecturers Maureen Tanner
Ulrike Rivett
Michael Kyobe
Mike Hart
Sumarie Roodt
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6504860
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Maureen.Tanner@uct.ac.za
Ulrike.Rivett@uct.ac.za
Michael.Kyobe@uct.ac.za
Mike.Hart@uct.ac.za
Sumarie.Roodt@uct.ac.za
Course
Administrator
Nocky Bobo 3.01.3 6504670 Nocky.Bobo@uct.ac.za
Provisional Lecture Schedule
This is the current INF4015W lecture outline for 2015.
Relevant updates are made continuously.
Full-time week lectures are scheduled 9:00-18:00 but allow for evening group work
Thursday evening lectures scheduled 17:30-20:30 in IS Seminar Room LC3.12
1st Module System Delivery Module
(Maureen Tanner)
Full Time Week - System Delivery (Venue: IS Seminar Room Leslie Commerce
LC3.12)
9:00 till late evening; Monday, Tuesday & Wednesday may have evening group
work
26-Jan 9:00 Welcome & Course overview [JP] & Q&A
10:00 Registration
11:00 Changing the paradigms - Object Orientation and Iterative Development
27-Jan Modelling User Requirements
28-Jan Modelling Structure and Behavior
29-Jan Scrum Bootcamp
15:00-17:00 Library Tour (TBC)
30-Jan Scrum Bootcamp
Mon 2-Feb Academic skills: writing & presentation skills and assignments [JP]
05-Feb Object Oriented Concepts: Components, Patterns and Model Driven Architecture
Mon 9-Feb Group presentation exercise (Handin by 5-Mar)
12-Feb Agile Methodologies: XP, Kanban and Lean + Exam Prep
Prep for SD Examination in your own groups
Thu 26-
Feb
17:30-20:00 Examination: SD Module
(the paper is 2 hours + 20 minutes reading time)
2nd
Module
Technology Module
(Jean-Paul Van Belle)
Mondays: Student Group Sessions (not listed below)
Thursdays 17:30-21:30: Lecture Sessions (topic list below)
05-Mar S1 Building Blocks for Better Information Systems: The What Why Who and
How of Architectural Thinking in IS
(JP) Architectural frameworks e.g. Zachman and TOGAF.

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12-Mar S2 Hardware Architectures: Do you want Moore chips with that?
- Chip architectures: More from Moore’s Law. (History and evolution of CPU, CPU
architectures, vendors, RAM, future trends)
- Who’s there? Biometric input/output devices. (Types of biometrics, use cases &
models of deployment, issues)
- Mass storage architectures: SAN, RAID and clouds. (Storage technologies,
architecture and governance/management of SAN, RAID and cloud storage, use
cases)
- Emerging technologies: 3D printing, Wearable Technologies, Virtual Reality,
Quantum Computing, ...
19-Mar S3 Software Architectures: From OSS to OSs, the tale of Open Source Software
and Operating Systems
- Operating systems for desktop computing: Gates, Apples and Penguins.
(Architecture and distinguishing features of MS-Windows, OS X and Linux. Current
status and future trends)
- The battle for the mobile market: the ecosystems of mobile devices. (Smartphones,
e-readers and tablets: standards, business and societal impacts, use cases, trends)
- Punching in the heavy league: the role and nature of server operating systems.
(How are they different from desktop OS, architecture, components, bundled app
server options, Windows vs Unix)
- System Virtualization (what, architectures, products) & Storage Virtualization
- Open Source Software vs Proprietary Software (from a corporate perspective):
History, Philosophy, Issues, Current Status, Quo Vadis.
26-Mar S4 Computer Network Architectures: LANs, WANs and MANs.
- Wired LANs: topologies and technologies
- Wireless LAN technology: from Bluetooth to WiFi
- WAN concepts, technologies and architectural options
- WWANs Mobile Commerce: architectures, technical platforms, supporting tools,
mobile services and business models.
- Telkom: Welcome or Hellkom? Telecom services available from Telkom (and
Neotel, MTN, Vodacom, etc.)
- Unified Communications
- Network diagnostics, monitoring, optimization and management tools.
02-Apr S5 System and Integration Architectures: High-Availability, Cloud Computing,
SaaS, SOA, Middleware
- From mission-critical, High-availability systems (e.g mainframe operating systems,
Himalaya ServerNet, Compaq VMS, IBM Sysplex etc.) to architectures for High
Performance systems; Distributed Systems and Massively Parallel Clusters.
- Client-server and multi-tier application architectures
- Middleware: Types, RPC, Messaging, TPM, ORBs
- Web Service Architectures and Technologies: the .NET view vs the Java view
- Cloud Computing: concepts, types, architectures, benefits & issues, current status,
vendors, case study or demo
09-Apr S6 The Architecture of the Internet: Building the Web 3.0
- HTML and its short-comings. Overview of common server-side and client-side
technologies. (Brief introduction to Internet 2) [Ryan Carty & Igetia Themba]
- Web servers (software eg IIS, Apache) & Web CMS (eg Joomla, Drupal,
WordPress). Comparison of the leading three packages/systems (at least on OSS) in
each of the categories by feature, vendor, market share, mind share, performance,
requirements etc.
- Web 2.0 What, who, why, why not? Technologies & applications with businesss
opportunities/uses (including blogosphere, podcasting, wikis, RSS and social
computing networks such as Facebook, MySpace, YouTube)

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16-Apr S6 The Architecture of the Internet: Building the Web 3.0
- HTML and its short-comings. Overview of common server-side and client-side
technologies. (Brief introduction to Internet 2)
- Web servers (software eg IIS, Apache) & Web CMS (eg Joomla, Drupal,
WordPress). Comparison of the leading three packages/systems (at least on OSS) in
each of the categories by feature, vendor, market share, mind share, performance,
requirements etc.
- Web 2.0 What, who, why, why not? Technologies & applications with businesss
opportunities/uses (including blogosphere, podcasting, wikis, RSS and social
computing networks such as Facebook, MySpace, YouTube)
23-Apr S7 Information System and Application Architectures
- SaaS: types, concepts, benefits & issues, current market status, vendors. [B-Abee
Toperesu]
- Typical enterprise-wide systems: ERP, CRM, DMS [Richard Russman & Tiaan de
Jager].
- Content Management Systems and Web CMS: What, why, typical architectures,
market overview (including OSS)
30-Apr S8 Information Architectures: from databases to business intelligence and
knowledge management.
- Relational Database Architectures, products and SQL
- BI: OLAP, data cubes, data mining: overview, tools and vendors
- The What and How of Knowledge Management
- Other (non-relational) Database Models: NoSQL, Object Orientation, XML,
Semantic Databases
- Big data
- Data Vizualization
07-May no lecture
14-May S9 Security Architectures: Security, Malware & Identity Management
- Malware technologies and architectures: viruses, trojan horses, common web-
hacking techniques
- Security, encryption & cryptography: principles and Internet applications:
- Identity Management. Give an overview of some important needs not addressed by
the network operating system and how these are being met by a selection of add-on
commercial products.Includes tools for enterprise security management (tools),
identity management, risk identification, authentication
- Enterprise Security Management
21-May S10 Capita Selecta & Make-up Session & Exam Prep
choose your own technology topic in consultation with JP - sample topics include:
- Semantic technologies
- Artificial Intelligence paradigms, techniques and real world business applications
- Complex Event processing technologies.
- Green IT
04-Jun 17:30 - 20:00 Examination: Technology Module
(the paper is 2 hours + 20 minutes reading time)
Venue: TBA
5June-
5July
mid-year break
3rd Module Project Management Module
(Prof Ulrike Rivett)
Full Time Week - Project Management [9:00-late] [venue TBC]
06-Jul Day 1 - Evolution of PM practice and PMBOK, complexity in PM
07-Jul Day 2 - PMBOK overview, language and communication
08-Jul Day 3 - PMBOK overview (ctd), systems thinking, rethinking PM

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09-Jul Day 4 - Benefits realisation, role of methodology in PM
10-Jul Day 5 - Class debate/presentations
Strategic Management of IT
4th Module Mondays: Group Sessions (not listed below)
Thursdays: Plenary Sessions (tentative topic list below)
16-Jul Challenges facing CIO today (MH)
23-Jul Business and IT alignment (MH)
30-Jul Managing Business Intelligence and Analytics (MH)
06-Aug Corporate & IT governance (MK)
13-Aug Privacy & IS security (MK)
20-Aug IT Risk Management (MK)
27-Aug IS Evaluation/ Corporate Performance Management (CPM) & XBRL (MK)
03-Sep Project Portfolio Management (DS)
10-Sep Project Management Office (DS)
17-Sep Managing IT talent (DS)
24-Sep Heritage Day
01-Oct Leveraging Emerging Technologies for competitive Advantage I (SR)
08-Oct Leveraging Emerging Technologies for competitive Advantage II (SR)
15-Oct Strategic Technology Trends (SR)
22-Oct Using Technology for Innovation (SR)
29-Oct Make-up / TBA / Exam prep
05-Nov 10:00 - 13:00 Examination: Project Management + Strategic
Management
Venue: LS2B

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University Regulations
Your attention is drawn to the University regulations, which govern academic progress. In particular your
attention is drawn to:
“All forms of cheating, plagiarism, collusion or interference with other students’ academic work and
performance will be reported to the Head of Department who will:
(a) impose a penalty with respect to the assessment of the course, or
(b) if considered an act of grave misconduct, refer the case to the Tribunal.”
Plagiarism
The Department of Information Systems considers plagiarism to be the deliberate passing off
of another person’s work as though it was your own, and will NOT be tolerated. At the
very least, you would get zero for your work, and we would request that you withdraw
from the Information Systems major.
Since so much of the course mark is awarded for work done outside of our direct control, a great
deal of trust is involved. We therefore view plagiarism in the same way as we do cheating in
examinations. Similar rules apply to all student work such as projects, essays and other
assignments.
Some examples of what we would consider to be plagiarism are:
• You downloaded material from the Internet and submitted it as your own work
• You downloaded material from the Internet and copied whole paragraphs or pages of
text into your assignment, but you edited them slightly so they fitted in. You might have
written other parts of the assignment yourself, but chunks of it are made up of copied
material.
• You found a few articles or books that really say everything you need. You designed the
structure of the assignment yourself and wrote quite a bit of it. But one or two sections
are almost word-for-word from the articles or books you used. You did this because
they said things in a way you felt you could not improve upon.
• You acquired assignments from previous year’s students and used them in the manner
described above.
• Someone else wrote all (or part of) the assignment or project for you, either as a favour
or for some kind of reward.
The Senate policy on plagiarism is accessible at
http://www.uct.ac.za/uct/policies/plagiarism_students.pdf
So what would the consequences of plagiarism be?
At the very least, you would get zero for your assignment, you will have to appear before the
Head of Department, and we would request that you withdraw from the Information
Systems major. In cases where blatant copying has taken place, we would take disciplinary
action, which could result in suspension or expulsion from the University.

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What is acceptable to the Department of Information Systems?
Part of the objective of the course is for you to find lots of other material. All we ask is that you
use it in an ethical, honest and scholarly way. This requires you to be able to analyse and discuss
a broad selection of the material you found, and that you reference the material you use!
Acceptable use of another person’s material at undergraduate level means that the assignment
structure, layout and contents are all your own work. AND
• You used no more than one directly quoted paragraph per page, and you referenced the
author in the manner described in the Departmental Writing Guide
• You used ideas, phrases, concepts, diagrams and statements already stated by others, but
you rewrote them in your own words AND you referenced them
• You have quite a lot of references on each page, but they are taken from several different
sources. (If they are all from the same source, then you have relied too heavily on that
source!)
Plagiarism Declaration
Students are required to submit a signed copy of the following declaration.
Declaration
1. I know that plagiarism is wrong. Plagiarism is to use another’s work and pretend that it is one’s own.
2. I have used the APA convention for citation and referencing. Each contribution to, and quotation in,
this publication……...............................…………........................................... from the work(s) of other
people has been attributed, and has been clearly cited and referenced.
3. This publication………………….. ....................................................................is my own work.
4. I have not allowed, and will not allow, anyone to copy our work with the intention of passing it off as
his or her own work.
5. I acknowledge that copying someone else’s assignment or essay, or part of it, is wrong, and declare
that this is my own work.
6. I hereby release my publication (excepting the contributions from others as
indicated under 2.) under the Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial-
Share Alike 2.5 South Africa Licence
Signature:……………............................................................……….. Date …/…/…..
Full Name of Student
Notes:
• TurnItIn will rate the amount of plagiarism detected in the work but a low percentage does not
necessarily absolve you from plagiarism: any plagiarism whether detected by or not TurnItIn is
wrong and renders you liable to disciplinary action.

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• More information on the Creative Commons licenses on http://creativecommons.org.
• If the publication is written by more than one student, substitute “we” for “I” and “our” for “my”.