You have recently been appointed as the manager of internal audit for a large private university. One of the important tasks you have been asked to undertake is a regular, periodic evaluation of the effectiveness of the major information systems used within the university.

A critical system within the university is the student records system. It was one of the first online real-time update systems developed about 15 years ago by the university's administrative information systems department. It is used frequently by many staff within the university.

During your evaluation of the system, you are perplexed by some seemingly contradictory findings. On the basis of your examination of the system, you conclude that the quality of the system is low. The system provides a reasonable response time, and it is reliable and stable. Moreover, users comment that it provides good functionality. The user interface seems very unfriendly, however, and virtually no documentation and help facilities are provided with the system. The system is also poorly integrated with other systems, and it is based on proprietary rather than open-systems technology. Given the age of the system, the maintenance costs associated with the system are also relatively high.

When you interview users to determine the quality of information provided by the system, they indicate that it is high; the information is accurate, complete, timely, relevant, and so on. When you measure users' perceptions of the usefulness of the system, they again give the system a high rating. They give only a moderate rating, however, when you measure their perceptions of how easy the system is to use. Nonetheless, you are surprised even by this rating because you would have rated ease of use to be very low based on your observations of the system.

Required: You have been asked to work with the manager of the university's administrative information systems department to determine those systems that need to be redesigned and rewritten. On the basis of the information you have collected, what do you think your recommendations will be in relation to the student records system? Can you explain some of the seemingly contradictory findings that you have obtained in relation to the system?