Enterprise Systems (ES) Software in Business School Curriculum--Evaluation of Design and Delivery

Considering the increasing importance of enterprise systems in business, and their pedagogical value in demonstrating business process orientation and concepts of integration, several universities have incorporated popular enterprise system (ES) software products such as SAP R/3 into their business school curricula. This paper describes an attempt at that integration and reports on the evaluation of the curriculum design and instructional strategies employed and the perceived knowledge gain. Based on the self-assessment of students' knowledge and students' perception of various aspects of the curriculum design and delivery, the effectiveness of the course was analysed. Analysis revealed that the students had perceived a significantly higher level of knowledge gain during the course on the knowledge domains such as implementation of enterprise systems and SAP software skills than on others such as interface knowledge and management knowledge. Expansion of the curriculum to enhance the depth of the SAP skills, more guest lectures to bring real-world experiences into the class room, integrated project that requires application of conceptual as well as technical (software) skills of students, more case studies that deal with post-implementation issues, better alignment of this course curriculum with other pre-requisite courses, and improvement in the knowledge of academic staff and their access to students are some of the potential improvements emerging from this study. The study also noted significant differences between Commerce and Information Technology (IT) students with IT students more satisfied with the course than the Commerce students. (Contains 7 tables.)