Circle College is a private college established in 2015, with the main campus located in Changloon, Kedah. In several years, Circle College expanded, eventually opening campuses in Jitra, Alor Setar, Sungai Petani and Kulim. Circle College offers various courses in Business Management, Accounting and Finance. The five campuses throughout Malaysia offers a range of pre-university to undergraduate programs certified by reputable higher education institutions in Malaysia that are in collaboration with Circle College. Students in Circle College are exposed to a national atmosphere as students from all across the nation enrol in the college.

Circle College current information system includes manual procedures supported by independent non-networked PCs in each branch. Communications between branches relies entirely on the exchange of hard-copy documents. Recently, Circle College has been experiencing higher rates of operational problems and accounting errors. It is believed that these stem from their outdated way of networking and computing systems. As a result, management is considering implementing a new fully integrated accounting information system, which will automate their information processing such as student enrolment, student's fees receipts, payroll processing and cash disbursement procedures.

Given the current problem, the management has set up a committee to develop a new information system. The committee consists of people such as top management, IT staff, IT consultant from the service provider.As an accountant of the Circle College, you are appointed as part of the committee. The committee will conduct activities phase by phase which consists of system planning, system analysis, system design, and system implementation. For the initial process, you are responsible to conduct some research on the related concepts of accounting information system (AIS) concerning Circle College. In achieving this, you will need to refer to the General Model of AIS and the Information Model that are illustrated in the diagrams below.

General Model for AIS.

The General Model for AIS consists of seven main components in AIS including end users, data sources, data collection data processing, database management, information generation and feedback. Each component has a different characteristics and accomplishes different functions in the financial reporting process.

Figure 1: General Model for Accounting Information System (Hall, 2012)

Information Flow Model

A four-level pyramid model of different types of Information Systems based on the different levels of hierarchy in an organization.

Figure 2: Information Flow Model (Hall, 2012)

REQUIRED

(a)Based on Figure 1, discuss each of thecomponents by applying your answer inthe context of Circle College. You may explore other sources such as related websites for additional information. Please list the relevant references to support the discussion for this questions.

(14 Marks)

(b)Based on Figure 2,

i.Describe THREE (3)types of information flow that are related to the Circle College.

(6 Marks)

ii.Suggest by drawing the Information Flow Model for Circle College and give appropriate examples for each of the labels in the diagram.

(7Marks)

(c)As an accountant, describe your possible roles in the system development project committee.Elaborate your answer.

(8Marks)

(d)In light of the ongoing Covid-19 outbreak, the government has recently imposed the Conditional Movement Control Order (CMCO), which prevents from a gathering of people and limits human physical contact only for doing the necessities, therefore no physical face-to-face classes can be held at Circle College. As there is no information about when these restrictions will be lifted, you are concern about the sustainability of Circle College in the future. You realize that there is an urgent need for Circle College to digitalized business operation and management systems to suit the needs of the current situation.

Suggest FIVE (5)possible solutions (using the concept of e-business, cloud computing or shared services) to improve the efficiency of Circle College's operation in the current situation by focusing on teaching and learning method, the sharing of the learning resources and the exchange of information amongst all stakeholders. Please list the relevant references to support the discussion for this questions.