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Title: Principles of Information Systems, Sixth Edition by Ralph M. Stair, George Walter Reynolds, Na'eem Walter Jeenah, Stair Ralph ISBN: 0-619-06489-7 Publisher: Course Technology Pub. Date: 31 January, 2003 Format: Hardcover Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $107.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 3 (10 reviews)
Rating: 3
Summary: A cure for insomnia!
Comment: This book is seriously a cure for insomnia. Now note that I am an information systems major at James Madison University, and I do find the material interesting, but the way this book is written, it will put you to sleep. Better have other textbooks handy if you are planning to read this in order to switch to them to wake up before continuing. It is VERY dry reading. Otherwise, it's a good text, and does convey the point.
Rating: 4
Summary: Stair & Reynolds take the middle road
Comment: Having both studied and taught IS, I'll make two separate sets of comments - one for professors and one for students.
Students first... There is a well-done website that accompanies the book, which includes outlines, sample tests & quizzes, and related study materials. The text is about average in terms of readability in comparison to other texts on the subject (IS texts tend to read a little on the dry side). Unless your professor insists on the latest edition, you may be able to get by with a previous edition, since the chapter structures & content haven't been re-arranged much for the last two editions. You must be advised on the issue of using previous editions, though, since Stair and Reynolds do a fair job of keeping the material up-to-date.
For professors... In my experience, IS texts seem to fall into either a highly technical or highly managerial category. Stair and Reynolds do a fair job of plotting a course between the two, although I have found that the "technical" chapters seem to be a little too much for undergraduate business students in their standard "MIS" course (I've never taught engineering students, but the same may hold true for the "managerial" chapters on the other side of the fence). The text is accompanied with ample instructor resources, including a CD and a website with slideshows, notes, outlines, and various other pedagogical tools. The testbank is easy to use, but can be somewhat challenging for an undergraduate business student, adequate for an undergraduate MIS student, and contains enough "difficult" questions that you should be able to use it for a MBA students as well. I would pick something else for a graduate MS/ MIS curriculum. Stair and Reynolds have also done a fair job of keeping the material up-to-date, which has resulted, after six editions, in a pretty decent proiduct. For me, the instructor resources make Stair and Reynolds a good choice by comparison to other IS texts.
Rating: 1
Summary: Scary that they allow some of this nonsense to be published!
Comment: Although this book must be commended on the variety of topics and sub topics covered, it is very badly researched. Some sections I doubt were even researched at all, it seemed as if the author is just giving his opinion on how he "thinks" things are, and in the majority of these cases, he is at best only half right. My favorites are his lists like, Consists of..., Divided into the following..., Main elements are... etc. Some of these lists can only have been sucked out of his thumb, because they certainly were not based on any thoroughly researched facts.
IS is actually based on some very simple concepts that have grown and developed into today's seemingly complicated IS infrastructure and not the black and white boxes that Stair tries fit things into. I doubt the authors have much practical experience of IT, because they don't know the difference between marketing concepts and real IT concepts. These are just "selling techniques guys" not IS principles!
I would say that this book is not written for novices, but by novices. If you don't know any better then I think you will enjoy this book, because it will fit in well with a novices false preconceptions of how Information systems work. If you come from a practical IT background of 10 years + like myself and have actually witnessed the development of some of these technologies, this is a scary read.
One last note, colleges and universities that use this book as a reference are simply displaying their absolute ignorance about the subject that they profess to teach.
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Title: New Perspectives on Microsoft Access 2002 - Introductory by Joseph J. Adamski, Kathleen T. Finnegan, Joe Adamski, Kathy Finnegan ISBN: 0619020881 Publisher: Course Technology Pub. Date: 17 September, 2001 List Price(USD): $39.95 |
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Title: MIS Cases Decision Making with Application Software by Lisa Miller ISBN: 0130348325 Publisher: Prentice Hall Pub. Date: 16 August, 2002 List Price(USD): $52.00 |
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Title: Principles of Managerial Finance, Brief (3rd Edition) by Lawrence J. Gitman ISBN: 0201784807 Publisher: Pearson Addison Wesley Pub. Date: 30 July, 2002 List Price(USD): $102.00 |
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Title: Problem Solving Cases in Microsoft Access and Excel by Joseph A. Brady, Ellen F. Monk ISBN: 0619159049 Publisher: Course Technology Pub. Date: August, 2003 List Price(USD): $26.95 |
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Title: Quantitative Methods for Business by David R. Anderson, Dennis J. Sweeney, Thomas A. Williams ISBN: 0324184131 Publisher: South-Western College Pub Pub. Date: 01 October, 2003 List Price(USD): $122.50 |
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