Research paper

UNIVERSITY OF THE CUMBERLANDS

ITS 833 INFORMATION GOVERNANCE

2019 SPRING – IG BI-TERM

MERCHANT’S BANK OF AMERICA INFORMATION GOVERNANCE PROJECT

PHASE I: 15% of the Student’s semester Grade.

If you have not done so already, please read and familiarize yourself with the general description

for your research project for the credit card industry and the introduction to Merchant’s Bank of

America, its credit card processor and the role you will play at Merchant’s Bank, both included in

the CONTENT section of iLearn, within a folder labeled SEMESTER RESEARCH PROJET.

As described in the Introduction to Merchant’s Bank of America, you are an employee of

Merchant’s Bank Of America (“MBA”), and have accepted the role of chair of the steering

committee and Project Manager for the Information Governance Team tasked with designing and

implementing company wide an Information Governance Plan or Program for the organization

that will address the concerns expressed in the company introduction.

1. You will need to discuss with your IG Team the different organizations, associations, affiliates and agencies who provide standards, oversight and accountability for Merchants,

Merchant Banks (Acquiring Banks), credit card processors, and Issuing Banks, and the

significance of PCI DSS in this process. In order to be enlighten your team members,

conduct the necessary research to be able to respond to the following questions.

a. Who, or what organizations, bodies, associations, affiliates, etc., are responsible for setting standards, providing oversight and insuring accountability for data security

and information governance in the credit card processing industry;

b. What is PCI DSS and how did it evolve; c. Which player(s) in the credit card processing industry are affected or impacted by

PCI DSS and in what way;

d. Who is responsible for setting standards and insuring compliance with PCI DSS; e. Specifically how PCI DSS and the associated topics researched will impact

Merchant’s Bank of America’s Information Governance design and

implementation plan/program.

2. You, as Project Manager, are ready to select the members of your Information Governance Team who will be responsible for the design and implementation of the company wide

Information Governance Plan or Program. Collectively, including yourself, the Project

Manager, the Board of Directors for MBA have informed you that IG design and

implementation team will consist of 10 representative from the different functional units

of MBA. You have been told by the Board of Directors that you may hand pick 5 members

of your team, and that after you have selected those you deem most important to the success

of the project, that the Board of Directors, with input from MBA’s executive officers will

appoint the remaining four (4) members of your team. Explain which five (5)

representatives you would request be a member of your team. For each member selected,

explain why you chose that representative.

3. You have been asked by the Board of Directors and Executive Officers to identify what

you expect (at this early stage in the process) to be the major tasks, steps or milestones

(whichever you choose to call it) in the design and implementation for the Information

Governance Plan or Program for MBA. Explain the order in which each of these major

tasks or steps will be taken, whether any can be performed at the same time, which must

be completed before beginning the next task or step, and try to project roughly how long

each will take. For each major task or step in this design and implementation process,

describe generally for the Board of Directors and Executive Officers what will take place

in task or step. That is, you are being asked to develop a high level plan that sets out the

major tasks to be accomplished, the order (steps) in which the tasks will need to be

performed, and an estimate of the time frame for accomplishing each step, in order to

complete the design and implement for the IG Plan or Program for MBA. This should be

the blueprint that you and your team will follow. In other words, explain how you and

your team will go about the business of designing and implementing the IG program for

the company. It is NOT the IG Program itself. This should be something that you will give

the Board of Directors and Executive Officers, as well as your team members, as the

“master plan” for accomplishing the goal of IG at Merchant’s Bank of America. You may

use as many lists, diagrams, tables, drawings, illustrations or charts that will facilitate your

explanation. However, you are not to substitute these aids for your narrative explanation.

Further, in your narrative explanation, do not rely on bulleted items. You may include

bullet points, but they must have complete explanations in sentence form.

Plagiarism and/or any other form of “sharing”, “collaboration” or cheating will not be tolerated.

You should cite to anything you use in your paper that is not your own original work for the

purposes of this paper. When you reproduce another author or source verbatim, you must include

the portion of work reproduced inside quotation marks and provide a complete reference or citation

to the author and source. Where you summarize portions of works that are not your own original

work (as the result of your research), then you must cite to that source and give credit to the author

and source. If you are summarizing information you gleaned from your own work from an earlier

paper or work, then you are also required to cite to yourself. When you summarize or provide

information from your Professor’s documents you must also cite to your Professor’s work. It is

presumed that anything that the student has not cited or referenced, the student intends for the

Professor to accept as the student’s original work produced for the first time within the confines

of the assignment submitted. Should it be determined that portions of the student’s submission is

not the student’s own original work, the student will be charged with plagiarism.

Students should submit Phase I before January 29, 2019, 11:30 p.m. Eastern Standard Time using

the submission link in the SEMESTER RESEARCH PROJECT folder for PHASE I. The

SEMESTER RESEARCH PROJECT folder will be located in the CONTENT section of iLearn.

When submitting the paper, the student should make certain that he/she has checked the

appropriate box to permit the student’s submission to be submitting to the SafeAssign global

database for plagiarism checking. Students should know that the Professor reserves the right to

also submit the student paper for plagiarism checking using additional methods.

The paper should be prepared and saved in a WORD format, and uploaded in the same format

using the proper submission link. Phase I should contain a cover page which includes the student’s

full name (last name first). If the student wants to include the student’s “nickname” or preferred

name, the student may do so by including that name below the student’s full name. The student

should follow his/her name with the student’s identification number assigned by the University,

along with the words “PHASE I – SPRING 2019, ITS 833, 1st Bi-Term”.

The paper should include page number on each page, should have a 1-inch margin on all sides,

should contain a table of contents cross references the question numbers set forth above with the

page number where answer to each question may be found.

Otherwise, refer to APA formatting. A very simple example is posted in the CONTENT section,

within the SEMESTER RESEARCH PROJECT folder along with the grading rubric mandated by

the University as a guideline for grading student research papers.