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Evaluation of MIS (Management Information System)

Evaluation of MIS: In this tutorial, we will learn about the Evaluation of MIS (Management Information System). By IncludeHelp Last updated : June 01, 2023

The information system is a well-structured collection of people, computer system and its components, communications network, various sources that collect, transforms, and disseminates data in an organization.

Evaluation of MIS

Evaluation of MIS is a process in which the performance of an organizational MIS is determined. According to the performance results, the organization evaluates and implements the necessary modifications in MIS. Various terms related to the evaluation of MIS are,

1. Evaluation approaches
2. Evaluation classes
3. Product-based MIS evaluation
4. Cost/benefit-based evaluation

1) Evaluation Approaches

Various approaches are used to evaluate the organizational MIS performance. The most common approaches are,

• Quality Assurance Review: The quality assurance review is also known as a technical review. It determines the technical quality performance of MIS. The quality assurance review determines the data transmission rate, main or secondary storage, and CPU capacity.
• Reliability and Accuracy: Reliability and accuracy is a key indicator of measuring the performance of an MIS. The usefulness of the resulting information is usually determined by the precision of the data, it uses some parameters to find reliability and accuracy.
• Timeliness of Information: The results of MIS must be recent. And when evaluating patterns, management must make assumptions about the organization's future, based on MIS data. A more recent on MIS, decision making always reflects on current reality and correctly predict their impact on the business. If the data collection and processing delay its availability, the MIS must take into account its potential age-related inaccuracies and present the resulting information accordingly, with probable error ranges.

The MIS development personnel or a quality assurance group performs the quality assurance review.

2) Evaluation Classes

To evaluate the performance of MIS, the following two classes are used,

• Effectiveness: The effectiveness class determines the quality of the MIS output. MIS is effective if the quality of its output is good and the process of producing output is right.
• Efficiency: The efficiency class specifies the total amount of resources required by MIS to obtain the output.
• Completeness of Information: For a specific decision, a successful MIS provides all the most important and valuable information completely. If any information is not available due to missing data, the gaps are highlighted and potential possibilities are either shown or possible implications arising from missing data are addressed.

The relationship between effectiveness and efficiency can be defined as effectiveness is a measure of the quality of an MIS output, while efficiency is a measure of the resources required to achieve the output. 

3) Product-based MIS evaluation

The product-based MIS evaluation is also known as effectiveness evaluation. Determines the effectiveness of an MIS output. For assessing the effectiveness of MIS output, a model structure may be used.

• Model Structure: A model structure is a structure that contains various information attributes such as timeliness and relevance. To determine the MIS effectiveness in an organization, we need to determine the information attributes for the MIS output.
  Some of commonly used attributes are,
  • Timeliness: Real-time information may be called information that is evaluated in a very short period.
  • Relevance: Questions such as timeliness, authority or novelty of the outcome may include significance.
  • Accuracy: The accuracy of information or measurements is their consistency, even in small details, of being accurate or correct.
  • Completeness: Completeness' refers to how comprehensive the data is.
  • Adequacy: The ability to obtain the information required for decision making in a timely and reliable manner.
  • Explicitness: The degree to which the MIS is consistent with the particular organization.
  • Exception-based: MIS should be built based on the exception-based reporting concept, which implies an irregular condition where the maximum, minimum, or predicted values differ outside the limits. Exception reporting should be given to the decision-maker at the appropriate level in such cases.

4) Cost/benefit-based evaluation

Cost-based evaluation of the MIS system determines the benefits expected from the developed system. Different approaches are used to measure the cost and evaluate the various benefits to organizations. The approaches of cost-benefit analysis are used to find out the feasible solution. The benefits to be expected from the system and expected benefits are carried out in the cost/benefit calculation of the different expected costs. The measurement of cost/benefit decides the system's cost-effectiveness.