A literature review was a very new experience to me but at the same time once I did my research and realized what was needed to do complete it, it wasn’t actually that hard or so I thought. Getting my idea’s down on paper is easy but trying to explain how each source will support my thesis was rather hard for me for some reason. Every time I started writing I found myself getting of topic of supporting my paper through my sources and reviewing them for their content.  

I felt my knowledge and understanding of my topic was pretty good going into the review but I found a few loop holes in my research that I quickly fixed from sources that I looked up and moved forward from there. I hope to use this process of research and review for future class to help me one understand y topic and two provide insight to what is lacking in my research and where I need more supporting information. Being that this is my last blog post for this class I would like to thank everyone who took the time to read these and thank you to the professor for taking the time to teach us these required skills.

Sincerely, Dan Highfill

Academic integrity, thats something that is in the back of many peoples mind but when we dig deeper we also have the issue of intellectual property and copy write issues as well. The its hard line to understand the difference between just doing researching about a topic and writing a paper and if you're actually stealing another persons ideas and research. Many times you do this without even thinking, just think, you're doing research for a paper and you read something about your topic on a book but then decide you don't want to use the book for your paper. Later on well writing your paper you use a phrase from that book, or a spastic but don't even remember it coming from the book. At this point you committed plagiarisms without even thinking about it and I believe that's why its essential to bookmark or record sources that you used to research for your topic even if you don't plan on using the material. Just in case something like this comes up you can remember where the source was and reference the topic without running into a integrity issue. I feel this is a topic I didn't think about much as a student going through high school but as time goes on I see the importance of it.

Good evening class,

                For the week 4 assignment I came out thinking that I wouldn’t be able to find an article that would support my research choice of IT management or rather something that in the end I could find useful. I was rather surprised that I actually found several that supported my research topic. I went with a paper that was directed at the International Standard and the benefits.  I felt that this article would help support my topic and offer the creditability that I will need to support certain aspects of the paper. The article I choose was titled “To Govern IT or Not to Govern IT”. It summarizes the benefits of having a solid management group within the IT department and how to adapt either a behavioral management or process management IT department. In the end I have high hopes for this article being a solid benefit for my research topic and in the end offer the creditability that it needs.

Hello all,

                The topic for my paper is still going to be IT management skills and development. For this week trying to find a book/e-book was rather a simple task compared to last week. When I started my search I had a good idea what I wanted to find in a book and went from there. I used the phrases “Information Technology” and then on the other required words I used “Skills and Development” this search brought a few books that wasn’t relevant to my subject but the rest were pretty spot on. I had to sift through a few of them and then I found the book “Methods of IT project management”. This book was what I was looking for in the idea of individual skills and development for my research. Its written by two professors and seems to be creditable information. So overall I didn't have much of an issue finding books for my topic of choice. So you could say the Brandman Library for the first time in history didn't fail me.

Good evening Class and like the rest of you I wonder if we all had issues finding information specific for our topic or better yet trying to refine our topic to something we want to research. For my at least I settled on Management skills and development since I'm going towards a degree in organization leadership in hopes of one day helping lead a company.
   So onto the research, I started off with the Brandman Library in hopes I could find exactly what I was looking for first and then move that over to my Google domain search under .edu and .org. Well turns out after about 45 minutes to a hour I found something from Sage that had to do with management learning and education development which will help me in the area of understanding education and learning requirements for these positions.
   From there I went over to good old Google.com and started my search using the same criteria that took me o so long to find the right string of words, characters and odd phrases and I felt like I hit a gold mine on a website. Its called American Management Association and its a site dedicated to the development and education of management and leaders. I found what you could call a gold mine, but more like a couple hundred gold mines because the site has so much information that it will take time to pick through and find exactly what I want but on the flip side the information is solid and easy to find and use for my purpose.
   What I found worked best was to start broad like the instructions said and then find the key words to refine your search slowly into what exactly you were looking for and then go from there. I feel that my research topic is still rough but I'm hoping as I have more days to think on it I will hopefully either fall for it or change an aspect of it to better suite the project.

Dan Highfill

Good day class of LBSU 302.
   As you can tell from my Blog my name is Dan Highfill and like the rest of you I'm currently enrolled at Brandman University pursuing my degree in Information Technology and then heading towards a Master's in Organizational Leadership. I have been attending Brandman off and on for the past 6 years when I was on shore duty in the United States Navy. My current career aspirations is to advanced in my current job which is a field service engineer at Intel and then when I finish my degree in Organizational Leadership hopefully get something more in management. Beyond that I'm a father of 2 daughters, 8 year old Sophia and 4 year old Zoey  and my son Lucas who is 2.

   When it comes to the ACRL information Literacy Competency Standards for Higher Education and how to become a more educated in the use of information that is available to us through all the information channels is essential to not only our education but being able to make informed decisions at work and home. As the ACRL states "by helping them construct a framework for learning how to learn, colleges and universities provide the foundation for continued growth throughout their careers, as well as in their roles as informed citizens and members of communities." Its a important fact to not only our education process and research but becoming a part of society and making informed decisions with the best information available to us. I almost feel this is a course that should be taught more in high school due to the part where it says becoming informed citizens and members of communities, this is something as we go beyond high school become part of and now at the age of 29 I'm taking this course. I feel as an individual I look into information that is given to me to make the best decision possible and even going beyond that to do my own research from credited sources that aren't TMZ and Seventeen magazine. That may have been a slight poke at my wife from when I first met her but she has gotten better since meeting me.