Application Exercises can be found at the end of each chapter in the O’Brien text. These application exercises allow students to use any database package (MS Access, Lotus Approach, Corel Paradox,etc.) for database exercises, any spreadsheet package (Excel. Lotus 1-2-3, QuatroPro,etc.) to do hands-on Spreadsheet exercises, and any Web browser (Internet Explorer, Netscape Navigator) to do hands-on Internet exercises.

In addition to the application exercises found in the O’Brien text, you can supplement your database experience by packaging the text with Morgan’s Application Cases in MIS. Specific information regarding this supplemental text is listed below.

Application Cases in MIS: Using the Internet and Spreadsheet and Database Software is written to support any MIS textbook that is used for courses with a substantial hands-on component. The primary goal of this casebook is to help students learn to design and develop computer applications, which use common end user software packages to solve real world managerial problems. The cases presented here are centered on combinations of Internet skills, spreadsheet skills, and database management skills. Students enter MIS courses with widely varied levels of experience in the other functional areas of business. The cases presented in this casebook have been designed to present real world business situations without requiring the use of advanced functional area skills that some students may not have. Brief explanations are provided when basic terminology or calculations requiring on functional area knowledge are used.

Three sets of cases are presented: a set of applications using the Internet, a set of spreadsheet applications, and a set of database applications. Some of the database cases require the integrated use of both database and spreadsheet software and several of the spreadsheet and database cases involve incorporating information gathered from the Internet into spreadsheets or database tables.

The web site for this casebook provides startup files for use on those cases requiring the use of substantial amounts of data. These files are provided in order to reduce the amount of repetitive data entry required to complete these cases. Completed files for the sample cases presented in Chapters 1, 3, and 5 are also available for download. The files for spreadsheet cases are in EXCEL format and those for database case in ACCESS format, but they should be readable by most common commercial spreadsheet and database packages. The requirements for your computer system to be able to support the cases in this book are quite minimal.

These files will have the names indicated in this casebook and can be found either on the student side (data files) or the instructor side (solutions files) of the O'Brien Internet site: www.mhhe.com/business/mis/obrien