SMU Teaching Bank: Case study of a multiyear development project utilizing student resources

• Main Authors: MEGARGEL, Alan, FAN, Terence P. C., SHANKARARAMAN, Venky
• Format: text
• Language: English
• Published: Institutional Knowledge at Singapore Management University 2019
• Subjects: student resources; multiyear development projects; postgrad; undergrad; pre-university; project experience; guided research; internship; core team; information systems; teaching; banking; classroom labs; Computer Sciences; Higher Education
• Online Access: https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/sis_research/4799; https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/context/sis_research/article/5802/viewcontent/SMU_Teaching_Bank___Final___20191011.pdf
• Institution: Singapore Management University

A domain refers to a business sector such as banking, healthcare, insurance, manufacturing etc. For an IS student, it is imperative that the domain knowledge includes a comprehension and understanding of business processes, technology and data related to the chosen domain. For example, when learning the retail banking domain, an IS student must have an understanding of the transactions concerned with retail banking such as fund transfers and loan repayments. The student must also gain a strong foothold in transaction fulfilment processes, the various application services that are used, the data that is transferred, etc. Teaching domain knowledge is very difficult, especially when there is no way to put them into practice. One solution to this is through building simulations of the domain where students can perform transactions relevant to the domain. This paper describes a simulated digital bank, “SMU tBank”, its architecture, its usage in teaching students, and how it was built using student resources across undergraduate and postgraduate student projects. The paper provides insights on how to structure and deliver useful multi-year pedagogy and possibly other IT projects through effective utilization of only student resources, so that other schools may learn from our experience and further adopt and improve on this model.