BUSM10001D

Group Project: Impact of Technologies on Business Processes

(20% of your final grade)

This project is done in groups, typically three or four students. Groups will be assigned automatically
and randomly, using the function in Slate.

Half of the grade for this assignment will be based on the group’s written report, and half will be based
on the group’s presentation in class.

This document provides the details regarding the topic and written report. A separate document,
describing the presentation requires and grading, will be available in Slate.

Due:
The project has four due dates. See Slate for specific due dates.

 Due date 1: Topic choice must be posted to the discussion forum in Slate. See information
below.
 Due date 2: The purpose of this deliverable is to get feedback on the quality of your writing. To
ensure that your writing is effective and provides evidence of critical thinking, you are required
to submit a 250-300 word segment of your report. This segment should come from the main
body/analysis portion (e.g. do not submit the Introduction or Summary). You will get feedback
from the instructor within a week of the due date for this deliverable.
 Due date 3: The final submission.
 Due date 4: The group presentation in class.

Purpose of Activity
The thrust of this activity is to develop an appreciation for information technologies can impact business
processes. You have the choice of focusing on either:

i. Specific business process(es) that make use of information technology, or could make use of
information technology
ii. A specific information technology that is being used, or could be used to improve business
processes.
 NOTE: You must get approval for your topic prior to beginning your report.
 Please send your topic choice as a posting to the indicated discussion forum in Slate.
 No two teams may choose the same topic – the first team to claim the topic owns the topic.
 Make sure that in your posting you identify the following:
 Your group number
 The names of all members of your group (first and last names, please).
 The topic you have chosen.

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Please ensure that you post your topic choice no later than 11:55 pm on the Friday of week 6.
The specific date will be indicated in the discussion forum.

Task: (total length: minimum 1500 words, maximum 2000 words, APA format)
You must use an APA template to write your document, as such templates already have the
formatting built in, in terms of font, paragraphing, headings, etc. You can download APA templates
from many sources on the Internet. Additional detail regarding the use of an APA template is
provided in the grading rubric section; make sure you read this information before beginning to
write your content.

1. Introduction: A one or two paragraph introduction, with a clear thesis statement, is required.
2. Background: Describe the process or technology that you have chosen, and provide context as
to its development, and economic or business importance.
3. Impact: Discuss the impact or potential impact of information technology on the process under
consideration. Make sure you discuss how the processes under consideration would operate
with and without the technology. Ensure that you consider the four functions of information
technology, as covered in the course, as well as the following:
a. Reliability
b. Usability
c. Speed and/or efficiency
d. Cost
e. Risk
4. Conclusions: A one or two paragraph conclusion, summarizing your report.
5. To develop the knowledge you will need for this report, you must research and cite at least five
(5) peer-reviewed articles from Sheridan's online library databases. As you see fit, you may
cite other articles in addition to the five required from the online library databases.
a. You may find that the most appropriate library database to use is Business Source Complete,
but you are encouraged to explore other library databases that might be of value to your
report. You will find it most helpful if you contact Claire Wollen and her team in the HMC
Learning Commons on the second floor.
b. You must use Mendeley to manage all aspects of your references, citations, and
bibliography.
Reports that do not use Mendeley as required will be penalized 20
percentage points.
This means that all citations and all bibliographic entries must be done with Mendeley.
There are no exceptions to this requirement. For example, if even one non-Mendeley
citation is included, the penalty will be applied. This would mean that if your paper would
otherwise be worth 75%, failure to use Mendeley as required will result the report receiving
a mark of 55%. This penalty will apply to all members of the group, regardless of which
member was directly responsible.

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c. Because this is a group effort, all group members must have all articles referenced for the
project included in their own, personal Mendeley databases; this includes having saved the
PDF files and associated them correctly within Mendeley. A 2% bonus will be given to each
group member that attaches a screen print to show that this has been done.
1. From the Mendeley desktop program, Click on “All Documents”, or click on the
folder to which you have saved the relevant references.
2. Select the menu Tools / Options, and on the resulting popup box, click on the “File
Organizer” tab to show the folder into which your files are saved.
3. Take a screen clipping to focus in on the files in the folder, and to show the file
directory that has been used for saving the files on your hard drive. Do not take a
screen clipping of the entire screen.
Note: Microsoft OneNote has a very good screen clip feature which you can use
for this purpose.
Note: Microsoft Windows also comes with a screen clipping tool that is very
easy to use. You can find this screen clip tool under:
Start / All programs / Accessories / Snipping Tool.
4. Paste each team member’s screen clipping into the team’s report, AFTER the
bibliography, and label each member’s screen print.
5. A screen print example is provided for you at the end of this document to give you
an idea of what the result should look like. Note that the references in this example
are from a research folder on Corporate Governance, not on Business Processes,
and that the folder structure is not the structure that you should be using on your
own computers, per the Library Technologies assignment you must complete early
in the semester.
6. Although this assignment is a group effort, each team member is assessed
separately on this aspect of the marking. If the appropriate screen clipping is
missing for an individual team member, or if the screen clipping indicates one or
more of the references used in the report is not in that team member’s Mendeley
database, then that team member will not receive the Mendeley screen print bonus
mark. Note that this bonus mark is completely independent from all other marking
aspects in this assignment. Correct screen prints, but failure to use Mendeley
properly for citations and bibliography can result in the 2% bonus being awarded,
and the 20 percentage point penalty being applied.

6. Please DO NOT put these instructions in your submission (Turn-It-In won’t like it.)
7. Screen clipping for Doug Peebles’ Mendeley Governance folder follows:

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Grading for the written portion of the assignment is as follows:

- Preliminary submission for feedback: This portion is not for marks. However, the feedback will
provide you with information on how to improve your final report
- Final report: This is worth 10% of your final grade in this course. The report is graded out of 100
marks, which are distributed as follows:

Item Weight Expectations / comment

Introduction 10 A clear, well-written introduction, with a specific thesis statement.

Background 15 A clear description, with appropriate context of the technology / process

chosen, and why it is important

Impact 30 A solid discussion, considering the four functions of IT, as well as the issues
of reliability, usability, speed/efficiency, cost, and risk

Conclusions 15 An effective summary of your report and its significance

Spelling and 15 With no spelling or grammar errors, 15 marks will be awarded. One of these
grammar marks will be deducted for each spelling or grammar error detected.

In addition, no quotations are allowed in your report. Instead of showing

your copy-and-paste skills applied to what someone else thought, show the
marker what you think, and how well you can write. This means you must
paraphrase, interpret, assess, critique, summarize, etc., instead of quote.

Any use of quotations in the body of your report will result in a grade of
0/15 on this segment.

Format 15 If the format is fully consistent with APA formatting, citation, and
bibliographic requirements, the full 15 marks will be awarded. One of these
marks will be deducted for each format error, citation error, or bibliographic
error. In order to achieve APA consistency, you must use an APA MSWord
template. Check out the following opportunities:
- https://templates.office.com/en-us/APA-style-report-6th-
edition-TM03982351
- http://apatemplates.weebly.com/
You can also get enormous help with the APA style from:
- The Sheridan Library
http://sheridancollege.libguides.com/citation_guide
- The Purdue OWL website
https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/560/01/

You must change the proofing language on the template to English (Canada).
To accomplish this, open the template before saving it to your hard drive.
Then, from the Home ribbon, choose Select All in the Editing group to select

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Item Weight Expectations / comment

the entire content of the template. Next, in the Review ribbon, select Set
Proofing Language in the Language dropdown of the Language group, and
choose English (Canada). Then save the document as a template by
choosing File / Save As and then clicking the Browse icon. This will open a
popup window for the save. Change the Save as type dropdown to Word
Template and then save the template.

Mendeley 2 A 2-mark bonus for meeting screen print requirements will be awarded, as
screen print discussed above.
bonus

Sub-Total 100 Note that it is technically possible to get a mark of 102/100 on this portion of
the assignment.

Penalty for 20 percentage points will be deducted from the total mark if Mendeley was
not using not used as required for all citations and for all aspects of the bibliography.
Mendeley as
required

TOTAL

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