Modern organizations have to take an interdisciplinary approach to efficiently process data, information and knowledge, which, in turn, influence all functional areas of a business and sustain competitive advantage. As a result, information technology and business have become inextricably interwoven. Learning to identify and formulate the requirements of information systems and engaging in process optimization will be particularly important for graduates of economic science disciplines over the course of their career.

This course is designed to provide students with an integrated view of key concepts and tools related to modeling business processes based on the ARIS framework.

ARIS (Architecture of Integrated Information Systems) is an integration concept developed from A.-W. Scheer comprising a holistic view of business processes. In ARIS, the complexity of business processes is reduced by their decomposition in views (organizational, functional, data, control and product/service) and their description on different levels of abstraction. In this course, we will treat all views, but only at the top level of abstraction (requirements definition).

In order to bring the theory closer to the subject, concrete models will be drawn using software tools.

The focus of the course is on business process modeling and data modeling. Process modeling will be done by means of Event-Driven Process Chain (EPC) and Business Process Modeling Notation (BPMN) techniques.

Participant of this course...

• ...gain a basic understanding of the importance of models in operating practices.
  • Models as communication tools
  • Models as a basis for solving business problems

• ... are able to identify areas of application and limitation of modeling
  • Consulting projects
  • Software implementation

• ...can read and understand process and data models
  • Understanding notations
  • Using modeling tools (ARIS concept, Aris toolset)

• This is a course with continuous assessment (PI), therefore attendance is basically compulsory throughout the course.
• If there is an important reason for the absence (e.g. illness confirmed by a medical certificate), the student can miss maximally 1 out of 5 units.
• Attendance, however, is compulsory on dates of presentations and exam.
• Unexcused absence in the first half an hour of the first unit leads to the loss of place in this course!

• Lectures, oral presentations
• In-class exercises, Discussions
• Group work
• Individual work

• Mandatory attendance (PI): In order to pass this course an overall attendance of at least 80% is required.
• Class participation (5%)
• Project work (45%)
• Written exam (50%)

       Grading Scale
       1: 87,5 - 100 points (excellent)
       2: 75 - 87 points (good)
       3: 62,5 – 74,5 points (satisfactory)
       4: 50-62 points (sufficient)
       5: 0 – 49,5 points (unsatisfactory)

• Expected workload:
  2 semester hours per week = 4 ECTS Credits = 100 hours workload for each student.

• Registration is done via WU’s online course and exam information and registration system (LPIS).
  • In case of non-participation, please make sure to de-register to give the opportunity to other interested students on the waiting list to participate!
• Registered students who do not appear in the classroom in the first half an hour of the first unit (without written notice of their absence) will be signed off from this course. The next attending student on the waiting list receives the now available place.