CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.1 BACKGROUND TO THE STUDY
Information communication technology (ICT) has taken place in every part of human life, through the previous twenty years including in business and government. Education and social are two close environments, in traditional education there is a close relationship within the teacher and students. The education has become a learning-centred system due to the use of ICT with the frequent improvement of technology, ICT is playing a major role in the 21st century education (Noor-Ul-Amin, 2013). The facts that are enforcing the pedagogy and the society into wanting to be at the same level with ICT are including quick access to information, reliable communication methods, a convenient way of learning, cost-effective and the amelioration of learning and teaching approaches (Chewe & Chitumbo, 2012).
The current life style is branded by the rapid spread and the improvement of information technology in many senses. The society is eager to keep pace with technology from general use, individual usage and for working purpose (Rendulić, 2011). The uprising of computing and communications in the previous few decades have validated that the evolution of the technological and the usage of information technology will keep progressing at a fast rate. The effect of reduction of communication cost is due to regular improvement of technology invention and increasing in usage by users (Lee, 2002).
Kolaric and Rendulic define information technology as a combination of any technology that is used process, collect, protect and store information. The term information and communication technology (ICT) encompass any practical method used for management information and enabling communication, including computers, network hardware, communication lines and all the necessary software. This means information technology, telephony, electronic media, and any kind of method that allows the handling and the conveying of audio and video signals, and also including any function that regulate and deal with the transmission of communication over the network of the technologies (Kolaric & Rendulic, 2011).
Many organisations at the moment, are using the web-based information services for their everyday business activities, including mail systems, file systems as well as network devices such as firewall and routers (Dong, 2008). The increased of development of different external aspects have influence on how universities run their courses (Cobcroft, 2006). Use of web-based environment has introduced new and useful roles to librarians and information professionals. Before the uprising of technology informationworker roles was mostly to look after books, but now they provide more like students’ supporters. New roles for Librarians and information professionals is included explaining to students how to use online resources, arranging workshop, book talks, debates as well as providing web-based services to web users (bhardwaj & Walia, 2012).
Learning Management System (LMS) is a software application that is used in education to organise, create and evaluate learning activities (Firoz, 2014). Learning Management System is more in use now than it used to be in the last 30 years of the uprising of technology. LMSs are being used in education as a bridge between the modern educations with the actual improvement of technology (Phillipo & Krongard, 2012). Moodle is an online LMS, which allow teachers to create and post class materials such as assignment, notes, quizzes and discussions (Romain, 2015). With 49, 600 listed sites and 38 million users worldwide, Moodle is considered to be the most used open source LMS, which is being used at the moment. Moodle is more used in organisations such as schools, non-profitable organisations, small businesses, and local government agencies, dues to its effective usability (Monarch, 2010).
1.2 STATEMENT OF PROBLEMS
Considering the firms are beginning to move from the existing legacy information systems toward Web-based information systems. The small and large firms began to investigate migration feasibility. Change, especially in technology or in a paradigm, is extremely costly. It requires a large investment in planning, training, designing, development, new maintenance and administration and carries high software and hardware costs. The author realized at the time when doing the migration required integration but also a methodology and technology transfer (Ron, 2000).
1.3 OBJECTIVE OF THE STUDY
Organizations today are desperate to identify new opportunities in the facilities provided by the Internet. Few have attempted to link interorganizational, interfunctional and interpersonal levels of their organizational processes via Web services. As Guah (2005) claimed that “They have undertaken this process in anticipation of reshaping and improving their core business processes”.
This research details how Web-based could potentially make a significant difference in the integration of software applications across multiple platforms, sites and departments of an organization. As Web-based solution could sooner or later become a permanent business necessity and not just a competitive advantage material, this thesis on “challenges and opportunities in migrating to web-based services” could be interesting for the companies who want to plan and implement the Web-based enterprise. Additionally, it could be also interesting to those companies who have already been Web-based enterprise but still have some issues within the company. Finally, I hope this thesis could support valuable and useful information for the further research in this area.
1.4 RESEARCH QUESTIONS
· Do firms need to migrate the existing legacy applications to web-based applications?
· Does migration of existing information brings about company’s critical Success?
· What are the likely challenges to be faced while migrating?
· What kind of benefits could the firms obtain in migrating?
1.5 SCOPE OF THE STUDY
The purpose of this study is to examine the challenges and opportunities in migrating to web based information service.
In summing up, this study presents a current landscape of the discussions for the companies who are gone to be web-based enterprises or who have already been. To show incredible benefits with adopting this solution for people or organizations who are interested on this area.
1.6 Delimitations
It is important to stress here that the author of this study delimits all of the variables in it: 1. Web-based Enterprise, 2. Information Technology, 3. Risks and Challenges, and 4. Benefits and Opportunities. By focusing on specific keywords, this research can be done in a more efficient way and the reader can understand this report’s problem statement clearly.
In my opinion, Web-based application is becoming the core of the world. More and more companies are completely based on the Internet, and involves minimum of physical element (a person sitting behind a computer connected to the Internet). It interconnects people and organizations from all over the world, and allows them to communicate, interact, easily share information between the different departments of the organizations, etc. It is a great information technology. None the less, it provides opportunity for organizations to obtain considerable benefit with limited resources.
As Mike (2008) explained that Critical Success Factors have been used significantly to present or identify a few key factors that organizations should focus on to be successful. And please note that the critical success factors (that are those things which must go right for the organization to achieve its mission) and benefits discussed in this thesis for the company to be Web-based enterprise are not necessarily the only reasons and conditions of providing references with organizations.
In many cases, each company has its own special IS environment. So, this research report just describes the challenges and opportunities for the company to be Web-based enterprise in widely common sense. As mentioned former, various IS technologies develop so quickly. With the evolution of information technology, other techniques or other factors may become available or even preferable.