Home work !

Home Working 
Employers are increasingly getting some staff to work from home – at least for part of the time if not full-time, and in some jobs, people have been doing extra work at home anyway for a long time!

Looking to the future, what equipment and software will make working from home more effective?

The kit
What basic equipment is needed? A fixed computer or a portable device? iPad or tablet? Could just a smartphone do what’s required and replace either?

What sort of printer would you recommend? Inkjet or Laser? Assume colour is required.

Operating system? 

Microsoft or Apple or Linux? Which version?

Internet connection

Wireless or wired? Is speed important? Packages available?

Communications

Instead of a simple landline, what alternatives can people use to communicate? Skype, Google Hang‑Outs, Video Conferencing, MS Live, Yahoo, Facebook, Twitter

Office software
Microsoft Office Starter 2010 is free. So are Open Office, Libre Office and maybe others. Or should they have the top of the range Microsoft Ultimate?

Storage

How would you recommend files are stored? Local drives, on-line? Typical hard drive sizes and options for using the ‘cloud’

Other devices
Camera, web cam, microphone are likely to be needed from time to time. A smartphone will have these already, and a portable device like a laptop may well have a web cam and microphone. If needed, what products would you recommend for occasional basic quality use. (Obviously a professional photographer or recording artist would want all sorts of features but this is just for the day-to-day use by a ‘normal’ person!

And, to help the day go by, personal use items such as music players, download sites, internet stations, does it have to be iTunes?

Summarise your suggestions.

Hardware and software improvements: Task 1

Your task is to advise one of these small business as to how IT could support or impact upon how their various tasks get done. Read their brief background notes and consider what changes could be made to help meet their needs.

Peter's background notes [Word version here]
Peter is a carpenter, specialising in oak timber construction but also happy to take on a wide range of building jobs.

He works with three or four self-employed colleagues from a small workshop in a converted barn in Astcote, Northamptonshire.

They have access to all modern utilities including internet and landline services. a bit old-fashioned, though, they have only recently thought about having a web site and promoting what they do.

They do their own accounts and designs for customers in a small office. Peter and some of his colleagues have good IT skills but currently use agencies for everything to do with accounts and promotions, keeping paper records of almost all their administrative stuff.

Peter’s laptop is about 5 years old, running Windows XP which seems to suffer from frequent virus problems and is really slow when handling the photos he likes to take of his work on his phone. He uses a wireless internet connection to his parents’ house nearby but thinks he should now have a separate one.

His printer is an HP inkjet model, also about 5 years old.

He has some decent profits this year and is thinking about some new equipment and software and wondering how he might be able to put IT to good use in running and developing his business.

• What would you recommend? Indicate how you feel your recommendations could benefit his business. 
• Where possible, suggest specific products and advise the current costs of them. 

Judy's background notes [Word version here]
Judy used to be a Personal Assistant and is very IT-literate but struggling a bit financially as her new business in hypnosis and alternative therapies is only just getting under way.

She works with three associates who help with clients’ treatments and interviews but she likes to do all her own administrative and promotional design work.

She is very much into using ‘cloud’ (on-line) applications but doesn’t know much about what’s available. She understands, though, that some software will have to be installed on her equipment as ‘the cloud’ can’t do all tasks.

She has a three year old PC, running Windows XP and uses a copy of Microsoft Office 97 still as that has Word, Excel and PowerPoint which are all she tends to use. She did see a price of £468 quoted for a latest version of Microsoft Office so didn’t buy it as that was too much!

Judy wants to do all her administrative work and design leaflets etc. efficiently in her spare time but she understands that she needs modern software. She also wants to be able to make a web site. She tried using Dreamweaver and PhotoShop but they were too hard for her to learn and the trial copies expired anyway. She has hundreds of photos of scenes she wants to edit and use selections from in a gallery for visitors to her premises but needs some software and a quick and easy way to make on-line albums.

• Remembering that she’s not got much money to spare, what IT solutions would you suggest? 
• Low-cost internet deals? 
• What options are there for working with documents on-line? 
• What options are available for photo editing and web design? 
• How much should she pay for Microsoft Office if she does decide to buy a new version? 

Help for the small business update task

Ideas!

Services

• Good new deals available for internet in some areas 
• New wireless routers offer more powerful / wider range for devices 
• Other services that can be useful?

Hardware

• PC / Laptops / Tablets costs not increasing these days and all new ones pretty efficient for most purposes. Laptops and tablets portable advantages but maybe not so happy running all day. 
• Colour laser printers becoming affordable but cartridges may be pricey 
• Other hardware that could be useful?

Software

• Operating system – WinXP – no IE upgrade (stuck in IE8), Win7 seems popular and reliable and being updated. Cost to buy? Which version? 
• Office has many editions available – basic package may be suitable. Cost? Student Edition – may be eligible if kids around. 
• Google Docs free and everything done on-line 
• GMail and GCalendar getting popular – don’t need PC-based Outlook these days 
• Picasa free and simple and very good for photo management 
• Web design simpler with Serif WebPlus (including e-commerce and contact form resources) Cost? Compare with Dreamweaver. 
• Free web site development tools also from Google Sites, Microsoft Small Business, Wix, Weebly and Yola and others – may be all they need. 
• Windows offer free Microsoft Security Essentials and plenty other auto-updating and monitoring options. Any need to pay for Norton or McAfee these days? 

Other useful utilities for protection / system monitoring?

Hardware and Software Improvements Task Sheet 2

The Impact of IT on Business Systems
Task sheet 2

You work in one of the departments of Future College Solutions. They provide helpful guidance notes for assignments for a fee.

The departments of this business include: Marketing, Finance, Customer Service and Administration.

1. Discuss with colleagues what hardware and software you would like to use in order to improve how you perform your duties in a given department. For example, in any department, a speedy internet connection or fast processor would make research and general operations of all kinds more efficient. Or having light and portable devices might make staff less tied to a particular desk or office and encourage collaboration. You can assume that the current set-up in your office is a bit dated!

2. Summarise the key changes you’d recommend – at least two should be hardware improvements or acquisitions and two regarding software.

3. Be prepared to explain your recommendations and research some typical costs for the updates or upgrades or purchases so you can estimate the cost impact on the business.

4. Consider also any potential problems or barriers to improvement that might be encountered and the how these might be overcome.

Sample output:

• What I / we use in our department 
• A list of recommended improvements or purchases 
• Costs 
• Barriers to change and possible solutions 

Researching IT use and views

First you need to know what you are trying to find out! In the first task this is how IT has affected an organisation. That's a bit wide, perhaps, so home in on some specifics: choose a department or small business which you can reasonably expect to get a sensible response to questions and choose one or more people to talk to.

Now you need to think of the questions. Before that, the sort of answers you'll need. These could be along the lines of:

The admin person says:
IT has made my job a lot simpler. I used to have to fill in forms for every new customer. The new system gets them to complete a on-line form and collects the data I need and I can access that whenever I need it.


But I still have to copy and paste it manually to another application to do charts for Marketing people.


I use Excel a lot for most of the data analysis and also to send out letters using Word's mail merge facility which can collect the data from the Excel database.


The problem with the charts is that they also need information from Sales about how much they've spend and that isn't on the same database so it's a drag doing them each month.

The Managing Director says
We replaced all the pcs for managers with laptops a year or so ago. Using the wireless network they can do their work almost anywhere on the premises and it's useful at meetings when they want to share what they've been working on.


It cost quite a bit but we got rid of loads of cables and can be much more flexible about accommodation - e.g. if I want to move someone's office it's dead simple now, well, apart from their plants.


There is a problem, though, as they take them home and some guys have some pretty sensitive data on the laptops. One idiot lost his when his car was broken into. We need to address that risk factor.

So to get those sorts of answers you might have asked:

How has IT changed how you work in the last year or two?


Can you give me an example?


What applications or equipment do you use that the changes apply to mostly?


Are there any problems associated with the changes?

Just these simple initial questions should get you some useful information and then you can focus on whatever they mention if you think you can get more - ideally an example of a really good improvement and what they used to have to do and, useful for a future task, some problems or disadvantages that have arisen.

The people you talk to don't need to have an in depth knowledge of their systems but they should, of course, know what they themselves are expected to do with data or how they need to use equipment regularly as part of their job or the business at large.

Look again at the types of departments businesses have and what applications they are likely to use a lot. That should help you guide people when asking questions so that you can get some information about changes that you can summarise and work with for your tasks.

Business Departments

Introduction to the Unit

Developments in IT have had a major impact on the way organisations operate. Few organisations in the developed world would be able to survive in a competitive market without utilising IT in some way. New technologies are being developed all the time and organisations often need to upgrade their computer systems if  only to keep up with the competition. This unit starts by exploring the range of new technologies that have had an impact on business and then considers why organisations need to respond, how they will benefit and what the implications of change may be. Some established businesses have failed because they have not been nimble enough in adapting to the new information technologies. The business environment has changed as a result of technology. The borders between local, national and global markets have disappeared. The impact of changing technology on both employers and employees is considered. Employment patterns and the expertise required of staff are changing. Flexibility in the face of new information technologies will be essential if organisations and individuals are to survive and flourish in the business world. The introduction or enhancement of technologies will always carry some risk and learners will consider the types of risk and how organisations can manage these. Finally, learners will consider how organisational business systems may be improved by the introduction of new technologies and they will propose an improvement to a business system through the use of IT.

Learning outcomes
On completion of this unit a learner should:

1 Understand the effect of developments in information technology on organisations
2 Understand how organisations respond to information technology developments
3 Be able to propose improvements to business systems using IT.