SWOT Analysis For IT Infrastructure Management And Social Media

SWOT Template

Describe about the SWOT Analysis for IT Infrustructure Management.

The SWOT analysis is a method of analyzing a business for each of its services, products and market when there is a need to decide on the most effective way of achieving future development. The SWOT analysis process includes identification of the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats to the business.

Overally, SWOT analysis has a purpose of examining the external as well as internal determinants that assist or prohibit organizations from realizing their goals. Organizations use the SWOT analysis to brainstorm and stay focused on the key asspects of the objectives. SWOT analysis is also used when there is a need of gathering information from various viewpoints or it may be utilized for strategic benefits by either converting threats to strengths and weaknesses to opportunities or by matching strengths to opportunities.

SWOT analysis plays a significant role in making uncommon and non-conformist concerns to brought up and discussed. It also plays a significant role in coming up with a way of finding solutions when it is used in the process. However, it is significant to be aware of its disadvantages as well. Some evident limitations include; the risks of oversimplifying matters, the fact that personal interests can inhibit threats and weaknesses from being taken into consideration, and the risk of overloading information since there are no limits as to what information is relevant or not relevant.  

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Description of current/new ICT service: A platform of a movable optimized to all the members of Charles Sturt University including students, proffessors and other staff members to get in touch with the services offered at the university through their tablets, smartphones and the rest of movable appliances. Making this application more fruitful requires that the university seeks to come up with a form of an interface of a mobile application that will act as an entry point to learning support, collaboration, training and professional development for all the members of the university who will come in contact with it both in and off campus (Charles Sturt University, 2011).
STRENGTHS The university is known for leading in innovation and distance learning. The university already has an extensive mobile infrastructure. The members of staff are active participants in researching innovations of mLearning and other best practices. A great number Charles Sturt University students and other staff members are used to web as their source of learning and are therefore better off to adopt as compared to members of other institutions. The library of the Charles Sturt University has already come up with its own mobile application.	WEAKNESSES The systems of online information of the university are becoming convoluted and aging since the institution has been working on this arena for a long period of time. Because of this, finding the right portal among the different many portals confuses students. The university has no enough IT experts. They may not be able to devote a team of personnel to specifically deal with the development of the new system of information. Though many students can access mobile devices, the university still does not have enough equipment to aid the  available methods of obtaining knowledge via technologies of mobile. Therefore, the university still depends on third parties like Vimeo and YouTube whenever there is a need to upload content. Extensive application of these devices in the university for errands users may have ended on laptops and desktops places pressure on the wireless network of the university. This might cause delays and hence force the institution to bring in ore capacity. The university will need to train more people to work as experts in the information system.
OPPORTUNITIES The market of computing is fast adopting mobile computing and most students now prefer mobile computing to desktops or laptops computing. Mobile devices increase the outlook of  more activities involving learning and assessment especially for distance learning students. There is an increased number of people using mobile phone for collection of data. Mobile devices make it easy for students to engage in group discussions through teleconferencing. The upcoming trend of BYOD will make most people prefer using their own devices thus saving the university the amount it would have spent on purchasing related equipment.	THREATS Since innovation is happening at a very fast rate, it is not easy to anticipate what device the students will use next and whether the device will be interoperable with the available ones. If the university intergrates apps and services by other organizations like database aggregators into the platform, the university will have to adjust with the changes the vendors will be making on their apps. External apps like Vimeo cannot guarantee user privcy. Competition in distance education from universities that are oversease as well as those within Australia puts pressure on the university to have interfaces of high quality.
Summary and Recommendations: Though it is advantageous, mobility also offers a lot of challenges to institutions all over the world. For a long time now, the Charles Sturt University has been keenly observing the impact of mLearning project on education. Because Charles Sturt University is the biggest institution that provides distance learning in Australia, it should take up the opportunities that come with the rampant marketing of mobile computing and the availability of the more engaging and flexible interfaces that are being developed for mobile device users. Through the establishment of a mobile-optimised platform as the only point of entering the resources and services of the university and by availing that platform as a mobile application, Charles Sturt University can realize its goals of making its position stronger as a leader of learning full of flexibility and relaying information in a specific focus on professional education. Short Term (Now) There will be a preliminary survey and investigation will comprise of the staff from several departments of the institution and especially the department of student education, information technology and library so as to make sure that the project will not be interfered with and will offer support to the entire university just as laid out in the university long-term objectives. Identification of the functionalities and generic abilities for education are the main concern in the beginning of the project (Charles Sturt University, 2011). These, as well, should be the priorities of the mobile interface and the application to operate together with the information technology experts to steady the delivery of the rich media to the devices of the mobile accessing the website and the network so as to stimulate and promote awareness of the available Charles Sturt University mobile applications.          Mid Term (next 12 months) In the next 12 months, the strategy of implementation grows into numerous plans, negotiation and tendering procedures and studies of user capability. After both the students and staff members have taken the first survey, the enterprise architect in charge of the project will have to carry out an investigation on the offerings of different sellers and the kind of assistance they can offer to the first execution and thus provide the way the system will be maintained in the entire lifetime (Charles Sturt University, 2011).   Long Term (next 3 to 5 years) The office of the Enterprise Architecture and Laison of the university is committed to offer lifetime service. In the coming three to five years, the staff members will launch a periodic review of the service to give the assessment of its alignment with the strategic objectives in the plan of the educational technology. This means that the effectiveness of the university governance of wide IT in the maintenance of consistent storage of data and utilization policies throughout the depatments will decide the success of the project (Charles Sturt University, 2011).

Abstract

This section gives a brief overview on how social media evolved and developed, looks into how social media affect the interaction of people online and puts into consideration the potential impact social media can have on the way people interact. Social media has come a long way. And now it has reached a point where almost everyone is on at least one social media platform. The effect of social media is evident on the society today, ranging from the way people interact to the way people transact business. It has an effect in political, economic and social lives of people.

Introduction

The Internet has altered so many things on the way people handle their activities. Apart from changing the way people purchase music, do school project research and prepare for vacations, it has also affected social interactions among people in the society (Van Dijck, 2013). Social media can enable people to share videos, photos and exchange news from one part of the world to the other. It is also possible for people to share their thoughts on social media platforms such as blogs, Facebook, Whatsapp and Instagram. Social media also provides an opportunity for individuals, companies, governments, organizations and members of a particular group to interact with each other when they are geographically far from each other. Due to the fact thet there is an increase in the number of online activities, there is a concern on how to collect and analyze the information shared by the social media users.

Description of current/new ICT service

“Social media refers to the services that are Internet-based and mobile-based that enable users to take part in online exchanges, become part of online group or share content with others. Blogs, wikis, social bookmarking, social network sites and status-update services are some of the most common Internet services commonly linked with social media” (Van Dijck, 2013).

The term ‘blogs’ is short form for web blog. It refers to an online journal where pages are normally shown in opposite sequential pattern. Websites such as WordPress, Blogger and Tumblr always offer free hosting to blogs.

Wikis refer to a collection of websites where any member has permission to adjust any page or bring in a new page using their web browser. Wikipedia is a good example of wiki.

Social Bookmarking are sites that enable users to prepare and share links on websites. Digg, StumbleUpon and redditt are examples (Tufekci & Wilson, 2012).

Social network sites are defined as services based on web that enable users to come up with a profile that is either public or semi public within a system that is bounded (Laroche, Habibi & Richard, 2013).

Status-update services enable people to see updates shared by others and to also share their own updates. A good example is Twitter.  

Social Media Evolution

The Internet grew in popularity in the late 1990s. Websites that enabled people to come up with and share content started to appear. In 1997, the first network site known as SixDegrees.com appeared (Gil de Zúñiga, Jung & Valenzuela, 2012). Very many ntwork sites were started from 2002. Social media had become integrated amongst the people in the late 2000s. For instance by 2012 November, Facebook already had a total of 1 billion users across the world. And Twitter announced that its users had hit 517 million by 2012 July (Gerbaudo, 2012).

Several factors have led to this rapid increase in social media use (Couldry, 2012). Some of the factors that might have led to this include; the availability of broadband, improved software tools, and the coming up of more powerful computers and sophisticated mobile devices. Other factors that might have contributed as Laroche, Habibi & Richard (2013) note include social factors such as the increased social media use by the youths. Economic determinants like affordability have also played part in this.

Attributes of Social Media

Through social media, people have found out ways of discussion and collaboration online. One way is through persistence. This is because content uploaded online can stay there for a long perioed of time. It also has replicability since it allows copying and sharing content online. Another important attribute is accessibility since anyone at any place can use it provided he or she has an Internet connection (Dabbagh & Kitsantas, 2012).  

Strengths

These characteristics shape the way social ineraction takes place online. For instance because both the reader and the writer are not visible to one another, questions can be raised about the comprehensibility or the appropriateness of the communication (Dabbagh & Kitsantas, 2012). Also, the motives and the intentions of those who post content remains unclear.

How does social media affect its users? As Couldry (2012) explains, social media has affected people in different ways. For instance, there has been a claim that social media has made some people become indoors. Others also think that social media gives an opportunity to people who are afraid of interacting with others the ability to freely interact with people (Boyd, 2014).

In addition to social impact, social media has also had economic impact with respect to the ways of conent creation. People create content, write useful information which they sell through social media and thus earn a living to raise their standards of living. Also, many organizations are incorporating social media into their strategies of marketing. This makes them reach wide audience thau increase their sales. For politicians and musicians, social media presents new ways of engaging with supporters (Aral, Dellarocas & Godes, 2013).

Conclusion

For most people, social media is a way through which people connect with friends and relatives. It also enables politicians, celebrities and organizations to reach many people at the same time. Social media also allow people to share personal information with each other, though it is not clear the extent through which this happens. More and more social media platforms are currently being invented and it is evident that people are going to witness more development as far as social media is concerned.

Reference

Aral, S., Dellarocas, C., & Godes, D. (2013). Introduction to the special issue-social media and business transformation: A framework for research. Information Systems Research, 24(1), 3-13.

Boyd, D. (2014). It’s complicated: The social lives of networked teens. Yale University Pres

Charles Sturt University. (2011). CSU educational technology plan, 2011-2013.

Couldry, N. (2012). Media, society, world: Social theory and digital media practice. Polity.Duggan, M., Ellison, N. B., Lampe, C., Lenhart, A., & Madden, M. (2015). Social media update 2014. Pew Research Center, 9.

Dabbagh, N., & Kitsantas, A. (2012). Personal Learning Environments, social media, and self-regulated learning: A natural formula for connecting formal and informal learning. The Internet and higher education, 15(1), 3-8.

Gerbaudo, P. (2012). Tweets and the streets: Social media and contemporary activism. Pluto Press.

Gil de Zúñiga, H., Jung, N., & Valenzuela, S. (2012). Social media use for news and individuals’ social capital, civic engagement and political participation. Journal of Computerâ€ÂMediated Communication, 17(3), 319-336.

Laroche, M., Habibi, M. R., & Richard, M. O. (2013). To be or not to be in social media: How brand loyalty is affected by social media?. International Journal of Information Management, 33(1), 76-82.

Tufekci, Z., & Wilson, C. (2012). Social media and the decision to participate in political protest: Observations from Tahrir Square. Journal of Communication, 62(2), 363-379.

Van Dijck, J. (2013). The culture of connectivity: A critical history of social media. Oxford University Press.