What Are The Areas Of Knowledge Important For End Users To Understand Information Systems?

The five areas of knowledge that are important for end users to understand Information Systems are:

Foundation concepts: End users must be familiar with the basic components and the types of Information Systems there are.  Also they need to be familiar with the general systems theory and theories of information processing (both machine and human).

Business applications:  How Information Systems are applied to business applications is more complext than it seems.  End users seek to learn about using Information Systems for solving existing problems and also should begin to use Information Systems as a way of defining problems and meeting business opportunities.  For this, end user should be familiar with the areas of user needs, office automation, transaction processing and functional areas of business, management reporting, decision support, executive support, competitive advantage and artificial intelligence.  

Information technology: End users should understand information technology more precisely.  Information technology of hardware, software, telecommunications and database management and how these elements interact under a random process of change, development and new ways of doing business.

Development processes: End users should also gain basic understanding of basic concepts of problem-solving and development.  For this purpose, they must be familiar with the systems processing, the system development life cycle and prototyping.  How managers use IS is something very vital for end-users to understand.

Management challenges: Nowadays end users are required to have knowledge in management methodologies as Information technology demands that end users make more independent decisions that support the company's overall objectives.