Introducing Students to Business Intelligence: Acceptance and Perceptions of OLAP Software

Abstract

This research concerns a practical on-line analytic processing (OLAP) project given to 2nd year information systems major students. They were required to analyse two sets of sales data with two different OLAP software tools, and report both on their findings and on their experiences of working with the two products. Students then completed a validated instrument with questions about each OLAP tool, and data was analysed to assess whether proposed relationships in an adapted technology acceptance model (TAM) were supported. For each OLAP product the cognitive instrumental factors of result demonstrability, output quality, job relevance and perceived ease of use were found to be positively related to perceived usefulness. This supported local and international studies of business users. Facilitating conditions affected perceived ease of use, but anxiety played no significant role. Qualitative student experiences and perceptions are briefly commented on, and suggestions made about future OLAP projects.

An extension of the technology acceptance model for business intelligence systems: project management maturity perspective

“…Hart et al [37] have researched acceptance and perceptions of the OLAP software among college students. Hart et al [8] have also investigated the role of cognitive and other factors in the PU of the OLAP. Sharoupim [39] has also focused on the perception of OLAP usefulness, taking into account the impact of culture and human elements.…”

“…Current research on the BISs adoption is scarce, and one of the rare examples is a study conducted by Hou [5], which focuses on the adoption of BIS at the employee level. Other examples focus on parts of the BISs, such as data mining, and the online-analytical processing (OLAP) [6,7,8]. However, the research on the BISs adoption, as perceived by the chief information officer (CIO) has not been conducted, although CIO plays one of the most important roles in the decision making on the information system (IS) adoption [9,10].…”