This page contains answers to common questions regarding the NOMAS environment and approach to
teach systems analysis and design, along with some descriptions and examples of many of the NOMAS
features and benefits that we believe you may find useful.
- So, what is NOMAS?
- What are the features and benefits of NOMAS to the Instructor?
- What are the features and benefits of NOMAS to the student?
- Do I have to use NOMAS if I adopt your text?
- Can I use NOMAS without adopting your text?
- What do my students and I need to have to use NOMAS?
- How does NOMAS work?
- How much does NOMAS cost me to adopt and use?
- How hard is it to initially prepare for using NOMAS?
- How much of my time does NOMAS require during the semester?
- Has NOMAS been classroom tested?
- How will I build and access my NOMAS course website?
- What about next semester? Will I have to go through all this again?
- What security features are built into NOMAS to prevent compromise?
- When will NOMAS be fully functional?
- How can I get answers if I have more NOMAS questions?
- What ISBN number should my bookstore order?
So, what is NOMAS?
Systems Analysis and Design is a complex task. It relies on the dissemination of theory, concepts, tools, and practice-oriented applications. Students need to understand the 'real-world' environment which a systems analyst/designer typically encounters. They must be made aware of the variety of actors who function in this setting, and how to deal with a wide-ranging, frequently disparate, set of needs. Ideally, the student should leave the class with an extensive theoretical base, a repertoire of tools and techniques worthy of a craftsman, an artist's creativity, and the diplomatic skills of a statesman.
NOMAS, a web-based case teaching approach, is targeted at both the Undergraduate and MBA levels and is intended to achieve a significant subset of the aforementioned ideals. The pedagogical approach integrates computer technology, role playing, multi-criteria peer evaluation, lecture, discussion, and team presentations which collectively serve to create a rich learning experience for the students that provides insight into “real world” system design scenarios otherwise unavailable in a typical classroom setting. The fundamental objective of this approach is to create a highly realistic simulation of the social, cultural, and behavioral aspects of business problem-solving and the subsequent introduction of new technology into an organizational setting.
The foundation for the learning experience is a set of 10 teaching cases, originally conceived by Dr. Peeter Kirs and developed for this text by Dr. George M. Marakas, that represent the typical evolution of an SAD engagement. The cases are structured as memos from the CEO of a consulting firm and are directed to the various assigned student teams who each play the role of junior analysts within this firm. The client, North Miami Apparel Suppliers (NOMAS), is a fictitious, family-owned retailer of senior citizens clothing with 21 stores throughout the state of Florida. The client will hire the firm to study the problems they are having with control of their inventory throughout the chain. Using the commonly applied method of structured problem solving, the Systems Development Life Cycle (SDLC), the students will research and investigate a broad spectrum of business-related functions in their quest to fully identify the problems facing NOMAS and ultimately propose a feasible and cost effective solution to those problems. During this experience the students on each team will perform market research, document investigations, construct logical process and data models, interview client employees delivered via multimedia film clips, and meet regularly to prepare for the two client presentations their team must give during the course of the semester.
During these presentations, the student presenters will be expected to play the role of members of the consulting firm engaged by NOMAS. The non-presenters (the remaining students in the class) will each play two simultaneous roles, one actively and one vicariously: client user or manager and firm associate. During the presentation, the non-presenters play the role of client user or manager. This role will be pre-assigned for each of the ten presentations based on team membership. The user/managers will be expected to interact with the presenters as a client representative and must frame their questions or concerns from the cognitive and behavioral perspective of their role. The role of firm associate will be played in a vicarious manner such that each non-presenter will be expected to be able to critique the presentation from this perspective following its completion. This will create a highly realistic simulation of the social, cultural, and behavioral aspects of introduction of new technology into an organizational setting.
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What are the features and benefits of NOMAS to the Instructor?
The NOMAS course container offers several significant features to the instructor.
Easy to deliver web-based program that can be accessed from anywhere in the world with a simple internet connection and browser.
Complete electronic container for all course materials, syllabi, schedules, presentation materials, and student profiles.
A highly structured, yet flexible course delivery system for the running NOMAS case.
A unique pedagogical approach to teaching SA & D which is proven to be both engaging for the student and highly effective in reaching multiple learning objectives.
Automated email of case materials to appropriate team members at a pre-specified schedule.
Several layers of security to insure that no course or presentation materials can be compromised.
Easy prep of multiple sections and future semester offerings.
Easy update and upgrade of materials.
Complete software and delivery support via NOMAS online help and support staff.
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What are the features and benefits of NOMAS to the student?
The student also realizes several benefits from the NOMAS platform.
A unique, interactive approach to developing SA & D skills while simultaneously gaining experience with the
social and behavioral issues commonly encountered in a live SA & D environment.
Easy access to all course materials and handouts.
A collaborative platform for storage and review of team-generated materials as well as several
repositories for reference documents.
A peer evaluation system that creates a sense of ownership in each student with regard to the generation of
his or her final grade.
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Do I have to use NOMAS if I adopt your text?
No, if you choose to adopt Systems Analysis and Design: An Active Approach without making use of the
complementary NOMAS website and case studies you will enjoy a comprehensive and well-organized textbook
designed for both undergraduate and Master's-level systems analysis courses. Given that SA & D is very much of
an activity rather than simply a knowledge domain and skill set, using the textbook without taking full advantage of
NOMAS would be metaphorically similar to teaching an art class without using pens and paints.
Of course, if you have a preferred running case, you will be able to use it in place of NOMAS but you will not benefit
from the web-enabled course management and material dissemination features of the NOMAS website.
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Can I use NOMAS without adopting your text?
Unfortunately, no. At this point, NOMAS is only available to adopters of the textbook Systems Analysis
and Design: An Active Approach. While access to the course creation functions are available to instructors
via a username and password obtained through your local McGraw-Hill Irwin representative, student access to
a created course and the accompanying NOMAS materials is available only by accessing the unique course
URL established by the instructor upon course creation.
It is possible that at some point in the future, NOMAS may be made available as a derivative, independent product
but no such plans exist for this approach in the foreseeable future.
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What do my students and I need to have to use NOMAS?
NOMAS is delivered to all participants via a secured server intended only for use by validated NOMAS instructors
and students. Once a course is created by the instructor, access to the NOMAS website for your course will simply
require the participant (either instructor or student) to type the assigned URL for the course section into any internet
connected browser and enter a username and password. While much of the case material comes in the form of
RealPlayer™ media clips, the media has been designed to be accessed at acceptable quality at modem speeds as
low as 28.8 Mbps. While access can be made by modems operating at lower speeds, the download time and visual
quality will be less than minimally acceptable.
As stated above, since the media clips contained within NOMAS are delivered via RealPlayer™, the RealPlayer™
media player will be needed as well as a browser. This software is available for free download from the RealPlayer™
website and a link will be provided on each NOMAS course website to allow for easy access to the application if it is
not already resident on the student's or instructor's local desktop computer. Each computer intended for use with
NOMAS will require either the RealPlayer™ browser plugin or desktop application for successful use.
Given that most students will access the NOMAS course website from a campus computer lab or a classroom
or dormitory network connection, download time and visual quality can be expected to be quite good.
Currently, NOMAS has been tested using the most recent versions of both Netscape and Internet Explorer. We are
also currently testing NOMAS access via pending versions of these browsersand do not anticipate any problems with
the new platforms. As new versions of the two browsers are released, NOMAS will be tested and updated, if
necessary, to take advantage of new browser features.
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How does NOMAS work?
The delivery mechanism for NOMAS is a highly developed course container developed using both HTML and advanced
SQL Server code. The students will conduct the majority of their investigation within this environment and will be required
to make appointments with representatives of the firm during the course of gathering their information and preparing their
presentations. Their interactions will include streaming video "interviews" with various members of the firm. Each of
these "interviews" will contain some information necessary to complete the assignment and all will be richly laden with
both social and political issues commonly experienced during an actual development engagement. In addition, several
employees of the company will be available for interview by the analysts but will not be of much use in terms of providing
useful or accurate information. These blind-alleys and mis-directions are also typical in a real-world setting and will require
the students to actively triangulate all information to insure its accuracy. Finally, the electronic environment will also include
access to a number of document repositories, for both the client firm and the consulting firm, that the students will use to
review key archival documents and to obtain external research data.
Following each presentation, the presenters will access the Evaluation section of the NOMAS environment that will allow
them to provide anonymous ratings across five performance categories for each of their fellow team members. These
ratings will be tabulated and will comprise the group score. Each of the non-presenters will also access the Evaluation
section and enter two separate anonymous ratings. The first is a user or manager evaluation depending upon their role
assignment for that presentation. These evaluations will require the non-presenting student to rate the presentation on
8 to 10 relevant issues directly pertaining to the content of the presentation. The second evaluation will be from the
perspective of a fellow firm associate. In this rating, the non-presenting students will evaluate the presenters on several
categories of style, accuracy, professionalism, and overall quality. These two evaluations will be tabulated across all students
and will also be included in the calculation of the presenter’s grade. Finally, the CEO (the instructor) will provide a rating
for the group and the final grade for each presenting student will be calculated, automatically recorded, and distributed
to the presenters via a secure electronic delivery mechanism.
After the evaluation process, each non-presenting student will also be expected to provide useful commentary using the Comments section of the NOMAS website. Within this environment a wide variety of discussion threads and dialogues will be maintained for reference and participation by all students. The database will allow for direct response to a particular discussion thread and the tracking of all respondents across all discussions or comments.
The NOMAS website will also allow each group that is preparing a presentation to deposit presentation materials, diagrams, and other project-related materials into a repository for reference and use by future analyst teams. This provision will allow for the simulation and creation of an organizational memory of the project that ensures consistency while providing future presenters with the constraints of the decisions and recommendations made prior to their assignment by their fellow firm associates. The complexity of the cases and the creations of “real-time” constraints will create an atmosphere of controlled ambiguity most often associated with large-scale re-engineering projects. The realism experienced by the students through this mechanism alone is not readily found or achievable in a typical classroom setting.
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How much does NOMAS cost me to adopt and use?
Absolutely nothing when purchased with a new textbook! NOMAS is available free to both adopting instructors and student purchasers of the textbook, Systems Analysis and Design: An Active Approach. Each adopting instructor can easily obtain a course creation username and password from their local McGraw-Hill Irwin representative.
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How hard is it to initially prepare to use NOMAS?
As with any running case or pedagogical tool, there will be an initial learning curve and ramp up time to fully integrate NOMAS into your curriculum. A detailed Instructor's Manual designed specifically forNOMAS users is available for download or review directly from the Instructor's menu within the created NOMAS course section. This IM contains a wide range of resources including a step-by-step preparation guide, detailed teaching notes for each case, sample syllabi, instructions for forming student teams, and a troubleshooting section for easy reference to common problems and solutions.
Essentially, the initial setup for NOMAS will require obtaining an instructor's password from your McGraw-Hill Irwin rep, access the course setup website, and setup your course materials. Once that is completed, the next step would be a thorough reading of the IM and of the case materials.
In short, the initial setup, while somewhat time-consuming, will result in a richer experience for your students and a significantly reduced prep time in future semesters.
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How much of my time does NOMAS require during the semester?
NOMAS will require an increased level of contact time with your students throughout the semester but less classroom preparation on your part. Each case will require at least one face-to-face meeting with the CEO (you) and probably one or two email-based communiqués. The meetings should not last more than twenty to thirty minutes and normally are scheduled following the initial meeting of the team. These meeting are intended to allow the students to use you as a resource to flesh out some of the underlying technical, social, and political issues facing them and to confirm your expectations with regard to content and process.
In my experience with NOMAS, the team meetings can be easily scheduled during reasonable office hours and are actually quite fun to conduct. The students quickly develop a rapport with you that is not easily attained in a typical classroom "chalk and talk" setting. I have not found the out of class time to be extraordinary or untenable in any way. In addition, 10 of your scheduled classroom periods will be conducted by the students as they deliver their presentations.
The only other activity of any time-consuming nature will be to post your evaluation of each presentation and any comments associated with that presentation. This normally takes 5 to 10 minutes per case at the most.
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Has NOMAS been classroom tested?
The NOMAS role-playing concept, beginning with its original text-based version created by Dr. Peeter Kirs, has been actively classroom tested since 1990. Many improvements have been made over the course of the decade and several universities including Florida International University, University of Maryland, University of Central Florida, Xavier Kansas University, and Indiana University have participated in extensive classroom testing of NOMAS. Currently, NOMAS is being used at both the undergraduate and Master's levels, with great success and with rave reviews from both students and recruiters.
It is estimated that over 6,000 students have experienced NOMAS during their SA & D studies since 1990 and, with the commercial release of the approach, this number is expected to increase by several thousand each year.
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How will I build and access my NOMAS course website?
A simple setup routine is all that is needed to be accessed by the instructor.
The process for initial setup of a NOMAS course website is designed to be both easy and user-friendly in every respect. The basic process for course creation is as follows:
Obtain an adopter’s username, password and NOMAS course creation URL from your local McGraw-Hill Irwin representative.
Using an internet-connected web browser, log on to the NOMAS course creation site and enter your adopter’s username and password.
Once you have entered the course creation site, you will be asked to enter your lastname, course number, and section number. This will be used to create a unique partition on the secure server that only you and your students will be able to access. You will then be prompted to enter a permanent instructor username and password.
You will be assigned a unique course URL in the form of:
www.nomasweb.com/nomas/course number+section number
For Example: www.nomasweb.com/nomas/smiths3104811
From this point, you will be able to build your syllabus and course assignment schedule, upload course handouts, slides and materials, provide access for your students by entering their usernames and passwords (a common method for this is to use the front part of their email address as a username and their student number as their password), assign students to one of the five NOMAS presentation teams, and enter usernames and passwords for any teaching assistants or additional instructors for the course section.
Each of the steps necessary to load or edit course or syllabus information can be performed at one sitting or over several sittings and all course information, materals, and parameters can be edited or updated at anytime during the semester.
Once completed, simply give the course URL to each of your students along with the chosen protocol for their username and password and you are ready to use NOMAS.
Upon their first access to the course website, each student will be asked for their assigned username and password.
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What about next semester? Will I have to go through all this again?
Actually, no. NOMAS has been designed to make the creation of new courses or additional sections of the same course relatively painless. Within the instructor's menu, a function is provided that allows for the creation of additional sections of the same course in the same semester or in following semesters. This function will create a new course section and copy over to it the basic syllabus contents and parameters from an existing course. By entering new start and end dates, a new course schedule based on the previous one will be created. All student names, passwords, and team materials will be eliminated in the new course while all syllabus contents, course parameters, instructor-uploaded materials, and instructor and teaching assistant access usernames and passwords will be preserved. In situations where you are responsible for multiple sections of the same course, the creation of additional sections will take very little time. Further, the course structure from a previous semester will allow the important materials and parameters to be carried forward to the current semester without having to start from scratch.
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What security features are built into NOMAS to prevent compromise?
A number of security features have been incorporated into NOMAS to insure no compromise of the course materials as well as to limit access to only authorized users.
Each course section resides in its own unique partition and has it's own unique URL.
The usernames and passwords associated with a particular course section are stored within that course's unique partition to ensure that no student, instructor, or outsider can obtain access to any course other than that to which they are authorized.
Student profiles will only be visible or editable by the original author and students will not be able to obtain access, or even see, another student's personal profile or grades.
Team materials uploaded by a particular team member will be accessible only to fellow team members to read, write, or update but all materials will be available for read-only or download by all team members. All uploaded materials will be tagged with the username of the author and the date and time of upload.
Members of a given team will only be allowed to enter a peer evaluation appropriate for their assigned role in a particular case. Further, based on an instructor-adjustable parameter, the time window for entering evaluations following a presentation can be fixed to ensure that all students enter their peer evaluations within a specified time and any who are early or late will not be allowed to access the evaluation section of the database.
No peer evaluation will be allowed to be edited, erased, or viewed by anyone other than the instructor.
All peer comments entered by students for a particular presentation will be viewable to all other students in an anonymous fashion while the instructor will be able to see all comments along with their respective author's usernames. This is to insure the elimination of any inhibitions on the part of the students to provide honest commentary and constructive criticism while simultaneously allowing the instructor to monitor the commentary for inappropriate comments or dialogue.
Access to the final evaluation and student grade section will be restricted to only those individuals assigned as having instructor status.
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When will NOMAS be fully functional?
NOMAS is ready now! Upon adopting the text, you can begin setting up your course sections and entering your student information. Any updates to NOMAS code will be
totally transparent and will not affect the functionality of any current course.
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How can I get answers if I have more NOMAS questions?
Any additional questions or information you may require beyond this website can be obtained by sending an email to the author, Dr. George M. Marakas. He will be happy
to promptly respond to your questions regarding NOMAS.
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What ISBN number should my bookstore order?
The ISBN for the text is 0072976071. If you require this text to be valuepacked with any other items, your local sales representative can give you and your bookstore the
correct ISBN numbers to use for ordering.
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