42900 Sustainability and Information Systems
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Credit points: 6 cp
Subject level:
Postgraduate
Result type: Grade and marksRequisite(s): 32557 Enabling Enterprise Information Systems
These requisites may not apply to students in certain courses. See access conditions.
Description
Sustainability and Information Systems invites students to proactively and innovatively reflect on sustainability issues and on their effect on organisational leadership and management, manifest in complex systems.
Sustainability here is viewed from multidimensional perspectives to encompass environmental, technological, social, and economic sustainability of contemporary organisations and their operations. To achieve sustainability objectives, engagement with a wide range of stakeholders, often mediated through the use of information technologies and collaborative media, is essential. This, however, often poses significant challenges to many organisations attempting to apply traditional, structured, and short-term approaches in their operations, as well as considerable opportunities for innovative, collaborative, technology-savvy, and long-term, focused organisations. Sustainability and Information Systems offers a learning environment which tackles just such possibilities.
Subject learning objectives (SLOs)
Upon successful completion of this subject students should be able to:
| 1. | Describe the historical and cultural origins and current state of a complex sustainability challenge and the roles that information systems play in identifying, characterising and solving such sustainability challenges. (B.1) |
|---|---|
| 2. | Work collaboratively to understand and resolve sustainability challenges. (E.1) |
| 3. | Apply computational tools to characterize and explore a relevant sustainability issue. (D.1) |
| 4. | Research, create, discuss, and defend recommendations for complex and multidimensional sustainability problems from an IS perspective. (C.1) |
| 5. | Demonstrate personal understanding of critical sustainability problems and the role of information systems in alleviating them. (F.1) |
Course intended learning outcomes (CILOs)
This subject also contributes specifically to the development of the following Course Intended Learning Outcomes (CILOs):
- Socially Responsible: FEIT graduates identify, engage, and influence stakeholders, and apply expert judgment establishing and managing constraints, conflicts and uncertainties within a hazards and risk framework to define system requirements and interactivity. (B.1)
- Design Oriented: FEIT graduates apply problem solving, design thinking and decision-making methodologies in new contexts or to novel problems, to explore, test, analyse and synthesise complex ideas, theories or concepts. (C.1)
- Technically Proficient: FEIT graduates apply theoretical, conceptual, software and physical tools and advanced discipline knowledge to research, evaluate and predict future performance of systems characterised by complexity. (D.1)
- Collaborative and Communicative: FEIT graduates work as an effective member or leader of diverse teams, communicating effectively and operating autonomously within cross-disciplinary and cross-cultural contexts in the workplace. (E.1)
- Reflective: FEIT graduates critically self-review their own and others' performance with a high level of responsibility to improve and practice competently for the benefit of professional practice and society. (F.1)
Teaching and learning strategies
Sustainability and Information Systems is a weekly three-hour combination of classes, discussions, and group activities based on case studies. The core objective of this course is to encourage the students to develop their critical and analytical skills in using IS tools in a sustainability context.
Students will consider various real and hypothetical case-based scenarios, where they identify and evaluate challenges to sustainability, and recommend informed, innovative, collaborative, and rigorously supported arguments and policy initiatives from an IS perspective.
To achieve this, students will focus on various activities including in-class discussions, individual literature review, group-based analytical report, presentation, culminating in an in-class debate. Students will have two weeks to rehearse debating skills to use the gathered information to effect.
The class materials are provided on UTSOnline (Canvas) before each weekly session with exercises attached for students to pose questions and reflect on their understanding and to bring this to class. In the class, the lecturer explains the complex background for each topic based on these UTSOnline (Canvas) materials and students use their sense-making to clarify their interpretations through dialogic feedback.
Group discussions follow classes, in which students are given a question based on a case study. They use design thinking to define the problem and to come up with solution ideas that they present to the whole class. Students critique and evaluate each other’s responses.
Content (topics)
- Defining sustainability as a multidimensional integrated complex phenomenon encompassing the environmental, social, technological, and economic domains.
- The importance of collaboration (stakeholder engagement) as an essential mechanism for dealing with complex sustainability issues.
- The role of Information Technology as both contributing to toxic waste and enabling broad-based collaborative practices and interaction.
- Identifying sustainability stakeholders and their perspectives, interests, objectives, and concerns.
- Sustainability dilemmas and organisational decision-making and leadership, traditional management and evolving practice.
- Globalisation and sustainability and the international effects of organisational operations and practice, along with the mediating role of culture and business norms.
- Green IT/IS tools and processes that empower the collective intelligence and drive sustainable organisational productivity.
- Organisational, national, and international policy issues affecting sustainability, and the potential advantages to innovative and insightful organizations.
Assessment
Assessment task 1: Case Study Analysis Report
| Intent: | Students review, to understand, a particular aspect of sustainability in a particular context, and identify a problem of interest to investigate in more detail. |
|---|---|
| Objective(s): | This assessment task addresses the following subject learning objectives (SLOs): 1, 2 and 5 This assessment task contributes to the development of the following Course Intended Learning Outcomes (CILOs): B.1, E.1 and F.1 |
| Type: | Literature review |
| Groupwork: | Individual |
| Weight: | 30% |
| Length: | Max 2500 words. |
Assessment task 2: Case study recommendation report and presentation
| Intent: | To recommend courses of action to address the “identified”, and “analysed” issues. |
|---|---|
| Objective(s): | This assessment task addresses the following subject learning objectives (SLOs): 1, 2, 3 and 4 This assessment task contributes to the development of the following Course Intended Learning Outcomes (CILOs): B.1, C.1, D.1 and E.1 |
| Type: | Project |
| Groupwork: | Group, individually assessed |
| Weight: | 40% |
| Length: | Max 3000 words. Presentation for 15 mins (each person 5 mins) |
Assessment task 3: Debate on socially sensitive sustainability challenges
| Intent: | Debate on socially sensitive sustainability challenges to deepen social responsibility and improve communication skills and ability to coordinate. |
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| Objective(s): | This assessment task addresses the following subject learning objectives (SLOs): 1, 2, 3 and 4 This assessment task contributes to the development of the following Course Intended Learning Outcomes (CILOs): B.1, C.1, D.1 and E.1 |
| Type: | Presentation |
| Groupwork: | Group, individually assessed |
| Weight: | 10% |
Assessment task 4: Technical proficiency (computational tool)
| Intent: | Motivate the students to exercise computational tools (for modelling skills) taught in the class |
|---|---|
| Objective(s): | This assessment task addresses the following subject learning objectives (SLOs): 1, 3 and 4 This assessment task contributes to the development of the following Course Intended Learning Outcomes (CILOs): B.1, C.1 and D.1 |
| Type: | Design/drawing/plan/sketch |
| Groupwork: | Individual |
| Weight: | 20% |
| Length: | A short report (with an enclosed simulation file) explaining the results (max 1000 words) |
Minimum requirements
To pass this subject, a student must achieve an overall mark of 50% or greater.
Required texts
1. Subject lecture slides
2. Murugesan, S. and G.R. Gangadharan, Harnessing Green IT: Principles and Practices. 2012: Wiley.
Recommended texts
1. Rainer, K. et al. 2014. Introduction to Information Systems. Ed.5. John Wiley.
2. Haag, S and Cummings, M. 2013. Management Information Systems. Ed.9.McGraw-Hill.
3. Turban, E., Pollard, C., and Wood, G., 2014. Information Technology for Management: Digital Strategies for Insight, Action, and Sustainable Performance, 10th Edition, John Wiley. ISBN: 978-1-118-99429-0
4. Laudon, K.C. and Laudon, J.P. 2012. Management Information Systems. Managing the digital firm. 12th ed. Pearson.
Other resources
Additional subject materials will be made available via Canvas.