Business Information Systems (BIS) are an integral part of modern organizations throughout the commercial and nonprofit sectors of society. These systems tie people, information, processes and other resources together allowing organizations to operate efficiently and effectively in achieving their organizational objectives and thrive in spite of growing global competition and tumultuous economic turbulence. Professionals in BIS perform a wide range of roles integrating their technical, project management, business-organizational, and people skills together in developing, enhancing and managing these organizational information systems. With individuals possessing quality, combinations of these skill sets in short supply in Connecticut and New England, many nonprofit and startup organizations simply lack the fiscal resources or skill sets required to develop or enhance the information systems they needed.

For students entering the world of Business Information Systems, analyzing, designing, developing, implementing and enhancing information system solutions in “real world” organizations are valuable learning experiences. Having BIS student teams work with real world organizations in developing and refining systems for nonprofit and startup organizations results in win-win-win situations. Students gain valuable professional real-world experience. Nonprofit and startup organizations receive information systems helping them to operate more efficiently and effectively and better meet their organizational stakeholder groups’ needs. The local Windham and Connecticut communities and the greater society benefit from the improved outreach and services provided by the nonprofit organizations facilitated in part by the BIS service learning projects and resulting systems and websites.

The BIS 377 – Organizational Website and Database Management course is designed to allow students to integrate their liberal arts and BIS experiences and skill sets. Students draw upon their liberal arts learning and engagement experiences (social science, philosophical, historical, artistic, math, scientific, technical and communicative) in designing, creating and implementing Business Information Systems that meet the local contextual needs of eastern Connecticut nonprofit organizations. The students integrate those skill sets with knowledge from multiple business disciplines and processes along with BIS project management, people and technical skills to create organization specific databases, information systems, and websites. The following linked web pages provide a quick snapshot of the Service Learning projects developed through the BIS 377 – Organizational Website and Database Management course.

Spring 2009 Projects:
Covenant Soup Kitchen Pantry Inventory System
Peoples Pantry System Project
ARC Project
Covenant Soup Kitchen - Community Service Hour System
Covenant Soup Kitchen- Volunteer Event System

Spring 2010 - Description of Projects:
Covenant Soup Kitchen - Enhanced Website Project
Eastern Health Services Inventory System
Windham Cemetery Management System
Windham Veteran's Benefit System

Spring 2010 - Project Videos:
Windham Cemetery Management System
Windham Veteran's Benefit System
Eastern Health Services Inventory System
Covenant Soup Kitchen - Enhanced Website Project

Spring 2011 Projects:
WAIM Donation Management System
WAIM Website
Holy Family Home and Shelter Website
No-Freeze Database Driven Website
No-Freeze Guest and Volunteer System

More Service Learning Opportunities:
For more information on the wide variety of service learning opportunities at Eastern Connecticut State University, please visit the Academic Affairs Service Learning website here.