Aim/Purpose: The directors of Tech Latinas were happy with what they had created and the impact their company had made in Ecuador, Peru and Guatemala. Now that they had seen their vision come to fruition in ways that were astounding to them. They wanted to take the next steps in growing their business so Tech Latinas mission could spread beyond its current bounds. Before working out the logistics, ...

The current data management systems for the life cycle of scientific models needed an upgrade. What technology platform offered the best option for an Enterprise Data Management system?

Should Syniverse, a company whose principal business involved routing text messages between telecom carriers, re-think its business? Rob Hammond, product executive for enterprise products, wonders if he focus the company on the products it knew, expanding the existing text messaging business into high growth mobile markets, or should he invest in expanding the new product of enabling mobile for bu ...

Determining how a corporate real estate organization estimated its project costs was a big decision that impacted budgets, customers, and the bottom line. What recommendations should be made for improvement of cost estimating at our upcoming management meeting?

Ricardo Lasa, CEO and co-founder of SiteWit Corporation, and his team faced a critical technology challenge in scaling the core database systems to meet rapidly escalating data volumes. Should he stick with well-known relational database technologies? Or should he re-implement core components in newer, highly distributed NoSQL databases in search of competitive advantages?

Joseph Bromer, Head of IT Solutions Delivery at LifeInsure Emerging Markets, deliberated on a challenge that he had just been given. TIBCO, a vendor supporting ObjectStar, notified LifeInsure that support for the application would cease at the end of 2017. ObjectStar was the Product Administration System (PAS) system used by LifeInsure. The ObjectStar platform was called Alpha and was used in over ...

Mark Dumas, a Systems Specialist at a Telecommunications Company located in South Africa needed to make decisions regarding the current virtualized infrastructure platform. These decisions also involved the renewal of hardware that had reached the end of its maintenance period and the latest virtualization platform software. Dumas further needed to formulate a plan to ensure that there was enough ...

South Africa’s largest bank has recently completed a transformation from traditional systems development to the scaled agile framework. The individual leading the transformation is now considering how to keep the momentum going and possible new directions.

Josef Langerman, Head of IT Transformation for Standard Bank, reflected on the extraordinary transformation that his organization’s IT group ...

A South African insurance company is considering how to automate the process of handling home insurance repair claims in order to make the process more efficient and improve the customer experience. Should they stick with the status quo, develop their own system, purchase existing technology or employ a hybrid solution?

ABC Insurance was a leading short-term insurer in South Africa. The FSB (Fi ...

After the successful launch of a DBA program for working executives, the program’s academic director ponders whether or not there might be an opportunity to create a cybersecurity doctoral program based on the existing program’s research core.

Grandon Gill, Academic Director of the Doctorate of Business Administration Program (DBA) at the University of South Florida’s (USF) Muma College of Busi ...

A professor in information systems discovers that his personal website has been hacked. Even worse, his ISP has suspended his site because the defacement included a PayPal phishing scheme. This is not the first time this has happened. How should he recover?

Dr. T. Grandon Gill, a Professor in the Information Systems and Decision Sciences Department at the University of South Florida, was travel ...

A physicist who studies the human brain has adapted dynamic logic, a machine learning algorithm he developed, to run on a test database of network traffic. The algorithm has proven surprisingly adept at identifying malware traffic. Now he ponders how the project might move forward, given that cybersecurity is entirely outside of his domain of expertise (and interest).

Dr. Leonid Perlovsky, dist ...

A client of a security services firm has received an email from the dark web demanding a ransom or it will start selling data it has stolen from the client. The client as asked for the firm’s assistance in paying the ransom. How should the company proceed?

It was late on a Friday afternoon. The ReliaQuest Security Operations Center was busy as usual, but nothing was out of the ordinary. ReliaQu ...

Table of Contents of Journal of Information Technology Education: Discussion Cases, Volume 6, 2017

The investment decision was made last year, and after a time-consuming selection process and intensive negotiations, the contract with the general contractor was signed. The business segment Fixing systems of the fischer group of companies faced a significant investment in its logistics – the development of automation technology in the Global Distribution Center (GDC). According to the project sch ...

How do you balance flexibility and security in deploying a new online journal? Is WordPress the best solution? An information security case that was developed during the launch of the MCR and MBR journals and was also used in a cybersecurity program.

Does it make sense for the University of South Florida to acquire cyber insurance? This case study explores the issues involved and the nature of the cyber insurance product.

A small consulting business has the opportunity to work with a new age company interested in moving its proprietary psychological software to the cloud. But if the security of that software is compromised, it could seriously damage the client. Should he proceed?

A supplier of marketing and logistics web sites has been approached by a customer wanting to incorporate multifactor authentication. What approach should be taken and how should it be configured so as not to disrupt existing customers?

JVAB, an elite small business that specializes in cybersecurity penetration testing has more demand for its services than it can handle. The skill set required for its activities is very specialized, however. It is also hard to find. How should it go about seeking new employees?

Should Mission Critical Solutions (MCS) stay converged in a functional organization strategy with capability-based teams, or organize into separate standalone entities with unique identities and separate overheads, focusing more on the individual capability-based technology specialization?

The Chief Information Office at Moffitt Cancer Center worries that his physicians may not be ready for the shift to electronic medical records (EMR). Could he get the organization to change its view from an IT driven project to an institutional change in clinical and operational workflows?

Justin Hurd, a regional manager for Marten Transport, Ltd. (Marten), knows that Marten’s data gathering initiative had produced a wealth of information related to these issues, but how could this data be transformed into useful, actionable metrics that could reduce inefficiencies and protect Marten’s bottom line?

Mike, the head manager of Mellow Mushroom Tampa, is considering replacing his manual employee scheduling system with an automated system named Schedulefly. As he considers the complexities of the system and its potential implications for employees, he wonders if he should really go forward with the project.

Chris Milan, Managing Director of Southeastern Region at Tribridge, Inc., is considering the installation and implementation of the Enterprise Social Network (ESN) Yammer. He has to decide whether to go forward and, if he does, how to implement it and what it can be expected to achieve.

A firm that specializes in setting up computer systems is asked by a potential client to guarantee 100% security. Knowing that is an impossible request, the owner considers what he might offer as a counter proposal that would make sense.

Table of Contents for the Journal of Information Technology Education: Discussion Cases, Volume 04, 2015

John Burger, the founding member of house4hack, despite his passion for social good using practical innovation, was fully aware of the cost of getting people and organizations actively involved in social enterprises. The successful electrical and electronics engineer with a number of academic (PhD and Masters – cum laude) and corporate accolades (executive in a top firm) had already been at the to ...

Dr. J. K. Suresh, Vice President and Principal Knowledge Manager at Infosys Limited (Infosys), pondered a question that continually needed to be addressed, but never could be truly answered. For a number of years, he had been responsible for overseeing the internal knowledge management (KM) activities of the large, global IT-services company, headquartered in Bangalore, India. The existing system ...

In the scorching and sultry heat of a Mumbai summer Prem Yadav, the Director of Pratham Info Tech Foundation (referred to as the Foundation), Mumbai, India and his team were busy teaching basic computer skills to students attending a school for children raised in poor households. These children were stumbling at every stage. Classrooms were very small and congested. Electricity supply was erratic. ...