An evaluation of a computer information system in technical vocational education and training colleges

Abstract

Information systems (IS) evaluation is an important topic for study and practice in this digital era. Many researchers had performed studies and research on how to evaluate IS and different accompanying IS-related phenomena, in terms of strategies, needs and methods. Evaluation is also used as a research approach in many IS research studies. The need to constantly improve the quality of service offered by these information systems, resulted in continuous evaluation. The ever-changing trends in information technology cause scholars to have great interests in the evaluation of information systems. Scholars interests vary and the focus and form may differ, depending on the aspect of concern regarding the IS. The major concern is how to evaluate these different information systems, given the extensive differences they have in terms of scope and operations. There are different approaches, different methods, and different knowledge interests that can govern how IS are evaluated. There exist controversies about different ways to evaluate IS, e.g. debates concerning economic vs. interpretive ways of evaluation. According to Stufflebeam, evaluation research had continuously developed as a field, because of the need of assessing public programs that affect society (e.g. within schools, health-care, and welfare enterprises), in order to reveal whether services and improvement efforts were succeeding. Information systems are a critical resource to the business organisation, hence their constant evaluation in terms of performance becomes critical, as it gives direct instructions to the business on how to align strategies. This research used the Delone and Mclean evaluation constructs with modification from the researcher. The researcher evaluated from a layman’s perspective and uses simple statistics to evaluate a student CMIS. From the evaluation on the ITS information system it was established that the errors that occurred were not directly related to the operation of ITS but it was as a result of users not being able to effectively use the I.S. Training was highly recommended to make all user conversant with the I.S. they are using.