visible artifacts

By: Chris Malek

Nov 23 2008

tags: screening_exam

Category: Articles

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I hardly know where to start when it comes to restarting studying for my screening exam, but I know that if I write about it, something good will come out. I can start by breaking down studying into a few phases.  I’ve got to break down what I need to do into manageable steps, else I’ll just be forever paused on the threshold, terrified.

1. I need to find out whether I need to know what’s currently being taught in IS360 Fall 2008, the class that’s currently ongoing.  If I do, I need to know the papers; I can just give up on the books.  IS360 is the only core class that I’m generally worried about, because the papers have been the subject of questions in the past.  I think that the other subjects are consistent enough over 2 years or so that what I’ve already studied still applies.
2. I need to organize my study group.
3. I need to assess my study sheets.  Some of them I had thought of as complete: is302, is305, is360.  is328/329 was not complete, and I don’t remember where I was.  I haven’t started is306.   My goal for this is to figure out what I’ve got, evaluate whether that’s enough to study with, and go with it.
4. Finish the is328/329 study sheet, and write the is306 study sheet.
5. Possibly absorb some more topics that people in the screening exam workshop had mentioned as important:  the major IS theories, and what’s going on in the field of IS.   The first I can get from http://www.fsc.yorku.ca/york/istheory/wiki/index.php/Main_Page , the second I would have to get by doing a card sort of posts to [isworld] mailing list.   The screening exam workshop also mentioned another source that I can’t remember.
6. Know the material.  This is just familiarity.  Judging from how fuzzy my is302 knowledge is, I’ve probably lost a lot in the grey mists of my mind.

So there’s three groups there: administrative (1), (2) revisiting what I’ve already done (3), (6) and new work (1), (4), (5).

(1) through (5) are big, but understandable.  (6) is muddy — I don’t know how to wrap my mind about it.   Part of the unfortunate thing about postponing taking the exam from September to January is that making the study sheets covered me for much of the studying — I had to learn the material in order to make the study sheet.   Now I’m more of a consumer of those sheets.

What I’ve already done:

• I’ve sent an e-mail about (1),  and the answer was no there are no new papers for IS360 Fall 2008.  So that’s done..
• Started the ball rolling on (2).   Pat Cahalan and I will be studying together once every other week for for or five hours.  We have our tasks set for the first meeting.
• For  (3), I’ve read through the IS302 one, and I think that seems complete.  There are things I could add in the data warehousing section, and in the future research sections, but I can live with what I’ve got. Maybe I should just draw through some ER diagrams.  Probably I can just do that at work for some of my work projects.  I’ve looked through the IS360 one, and feel confident about all parts except those affected by (1) and (5).  I’m also confident about the IS305 one.

What I should do next:

1. Start setting some deadlines.  That was pretty effective for me last time.
2. I need to get a handle of how much new work there is to do, so I think I’m actually going to start back with IS328/329 and try to finish it.   I’m thinking that I should get the new work out of the way first, so that I can devote the remaining time to studying and integrating.