Teaching with Enterprise Systems

TLDR

Enterprise Systems such as SAP, Oracle, and Peoplesoft are widely adopted in medium and large organizations, creating a growing demand for students who can work with these systems and help companies realize their benefits, even as developer demand has declined. The paper offers guidance on integrating enterprise systems into undergraduate and graduate curricula across information systems, management, and engineering programs. The guidance is drawn from five professors with extensive experience teaching SAP or Oracle e‑business suites at California State University at Chico, Louisiana State University, Queensland University of Technology, Bentley College, and Worcester Polytechnic Institute. It summarizes each institution’s experiences, provides advice based on an AMCIS 2005 panel discussion, and lists resources useful for educators teaching with enterprise systems.

Abstract

With the wide-spread adoption of Enterprise Systems (ES), such as SAP, Oracle, and Peoplesoft, in medium and large-sized organizations, there is increasing demand for students who know how to work with such systems. While the demand for ES developers and integrators has declined, the demand for employees that can help companies achieve benefits from these systems continues to grow. Such employees need skills in decision-making and process design in an integrated, data-rich environment enabled by an ES. This paper provides advice about teaching with enterprise systems at the undergraduate and graduate levels within the IS curriculum and across management and engineering curricula. This advice is provided by five professors from five different schools, California State University at Chico, Louisiana State University, Queensland University of Technology, Bentley College, and Worcester Polytechnic Institute that together have many years of experience in teaching with SAP or with the Oracle e-business suite. This paper includes a summary of the experiences at each of these schools, advice based on questions from the audience at an AMCIS 2005 panel, and references to resources that may be helpful to those considering, or already engaged in, teaching with enterprise systems.