Newsletter of the Management Information Systems Area |
Summer 2011 |
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Welcome to the Summer 2011 issue of the MIS area newsletter! We’ve had plenty of exciting things happening in the MIS area during the last four months. In May 2011, the area graduated its first batch of BS in MIS students. 34 obtained their BS in MIS degrees and 59 graduated with MS ITM degrees. After several years, the MIS programs have once again been ranked by the US News and World Report. We have been strengthening our offerings related to enterprise systems, in cooperation with SAP. We have launched new industry outreach activities that are taking the area’s relationship with the local industry to the next level of partnership. The growing visibility and recognition of MIS programs is also evident in our students achieving tremendous success in the job market. The faculty has continued its stellar record in research productivity and several faculty members are recognized for their accomplishments. Moving forward, recognizing the challenges faced by MIS programs on different fronts, MIS@UT Dallas is organizing the first MIS program chairs’ conference in October 2011 to develop innovative approaches for recruiting, educating and placing students in the dynamic, changing technology world. We hope to see you at the conference. Recent Happenings
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U.S. News & World Report Ranked the Information Systems Programs No. 18 Nationwide 
and Enterprise Systems Curriculum |
| Michael Savoie |
A new initiative that expands our corporate outreach activities has been launched. In the "An Afternoon With…" series, professionals, whose careers intersect with the technology sector, meet with students, faculty and the public to discuss technology trends and applications in such fields as healthcare, not-for-profits and finance. These two-hour forums include both a presentation and time for questions from the audience. Dr. Michael J. Savoie, director of the Center for Information Technology and Management, leads the discussions. The event is free and takes place on The University of Texas at Dallas campus in the School of Management’s Davidson Auditorium. The speakers during Spring 2011 were Jeff Walker of Hewlett Packard, Mike Gfeller of Medical Center of Plano, and Anita Foster of American Red Cross. For more information, please see the CITM homepage at http://citm.utdallas.edu.
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| Mark Thouin |
Ranging from gaming to personal-productivity apps to keep you on track, mobile communication applications blossomed recently at The School of Management iPhone® Application Summer Camp for high school students.
During the early June day camp, 23 students learned the basics of mobile-application software, developed their ideas and turned their creative visions into iPhone® apps. Most students hailed from the Dallas area; however, some came from as far as Wichita Falls and Waco to get a taste of app development and life on a university campus.
In its second year, the camp was designed not only to teach students about mobile communications applications but also to expose them to information-technology (IT) careers, introduce them to programs at The School of Management and keep their minds mentally engaged—a concern that many parents have for their kids during the summer months, says Dr. Mark Thouin, camp director and director of the school’s Management Information Systems.
“Since we offer the camp at the beginning of the summer, it gives the kids something they can start at camp and then work on for the rest of the summer,” Dr. Thouin says.
“The other take-away for students is exposure to development software applications that can help them figure out if they like it, and hopefully they have a better understanding of the many career opportunities in IT,” he says.
Students were divided into two groups to present their creations before a panel of judges on the last day of camp. Victor Zhou won first place for Infection, a game allowing players to act as a virus to infect as may cells as possible. The first-place winner in the second group was Austin Jantrakul who devised Tilt It, a game with a maze and marble similar to the board game made of wood.
Other winners were:
Group 1
2nd place -- Dylan Ebert for Escape, a maze-type game
3rd place -- Logan Whitley for Searchaway, a search-engine aggregator displaying the results of Google, Wikipedia and other search engines on a single screen
Group 2
2nd place -- Carey Janecka for iLister, a personal-productivity app for keeping track of to-dos and other lists
3rd place -- Alex Hopson for Hash Stacks, a game-based application
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| Jeff Word |
The ASUG (Americas’ SAP Users’ Group) held its summer conference on Friday, June 24th at the School of Management. UT Dallas plans to host future ASUG meetings to strengthen its relationship with SAP professionals. The chapter meeting was one of the largest to date with more than 212 members from 86 corporations in attendance. The conference hosted by Jeff Word of SAP Americas, who is also a member of the Industry Advisory Board of the MIS area at UT Dallas, was the keynote speaker addressing significant changes in the SAP HANA architecture platform. These changes to the SAP architecture platform will likely have a dramatic impact on the IT industry as a whole in the coming years. Six educational tracks ran throughout the conference including Business Intelligence, Business Analytics, SAP ECC Enterprise Resource Planning, Human Capital Management, Supply Chain Management, and Productivity Tools. The conference was supported by a number of SAP associated vendors including Syclo, Open Text, Worksoft, Innowera, Assima, Global Software Incorporated, Akili, Runbook, and Realtech. Blake Whitaker of Bell Helicopter and Heather Davis of Optimal Solutions planned the conference as officers of the local DFW ASUG chapter. Enterprise Systems professor Judd Bradbury expressed deep gratitude for how well the local chapter is run. The DFW ASUG chapter is one of the best run chapters of the international SUG organization. We are always thrilled to partner with the local ASUG chapter on these events. The results show how committed the volunteer leadership is to its own success. The knowledge and relationship dividends are several fold every time the chapter meets. We are looking forward to the next great collaboration.
Forthcoming Conference
MIS Department Chairs' Conference, October 19-21
The UT Dallas School of Management is founding an academic conference this October to chart a new course for Management Information Systems education. We are pulling together the best minds in the country to inaugurate this long-term mission. Four department chairpersons from the University of Arizona, Indiana University, the University of Maryland and the University of Minnesota will collaborate with us in leading this mission. The mission of the MIS Department Chairs' Conference is to develop innovative approaches for recruiting, educating and placing students in the dynamic, changing technology world. Please see MIS Department Chairs' Conference for details.
Student Spotlight
UT Dallas Management Information Systems Students Finding Extraordinary Success in the Job Market
UT Dallas MIS students are finding enormous success in the job market as evidenced by the growing number of students that have been finding internships and jobs and the growing number of companies that return every semester to hire more UT Dallas students. During the 2010-2011 academic year alone, more than 150 offers were made to UT Dallas students for semester-long internships. Many of these internships converted to full-time positions when the student graduated. The list of companies includes several household names such as:
and technology leaders such as:
For a more complete list of these companies, see link.
Congratulations to all students who landed an internship or a job.
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| Shreya Rao |
Shreya Rao graduated summa cum laude from UT Dallas in May 2011 with a double major in Business Administration and MIS.
Q: Where did you do your internship?
I interned at CITI, in the Global Consumer Technology - eBusiness Division.
Q: Briefly describe your job duties and responsibilities.
As an intern, my responsibilities were to:
- Create and maintain a project tracking dashboard, train project managers on how to use it, and analyze it for bottlenecks
- Determine the communication method for program status and deliver daily project status updates
- Develop a project newsletter
Q: How did you like the location where you worked?
There are 2 locations in Texas, and both are nice. There are many company offices in the area, so the environment is very friendly and lively.
Q: How did you find the opportunity?
I found this opportunity using Career Works. A CITI representative came to the UT Dallas campus for interviews, and I was one of three students selected for the internship.
Q: What was your first day like?
It was a good experience. I got an introduction to the company and my specific roles and responsibilities, and was also introduced to some other colleagues.
Q: What were your day-to-day responsibilities?
See above.
Q: What was the most important factor for being successful in your job?
I think getting your work done was the most important thing for me. Especially as an intern, when you are working for a set number of weeks, completing your tasks on time--while ensuring that you are producing quality work--and contributing as much as you can, are crucial.
Q: What did you enjoy most about your internship/job?
The most interesting aspect of my internship was getting to know how a company operates behind-the-scenes. As a student, you are rarely exposed to this side of a company; all we see is the end result, or what is on the outside. Getting to work in the back office and seeing all the hard work that goes into creating an end-product was very interesting.
Q: Tell me a bit about your boss or co-workers.
My manager did not work in Texas, but this hardly made a difference; I spoke to him almost daily. He was very encouraging, always making sure that I was doing something that interested me and if I needed any help. In addition, I had an on-site supervisor who was very friendly and helpful.
Q: What are some things you enjoy doing in your time away from work?
My interests include travel, art, and music. I traveled to Italy last year and will be visiting a few other places in Europe this year. Travel is something I love, and I intend to continue to travel whenever I can.
NOTE: Shreya has joined CITI as a full-time employee after her graduation. We wish her the best.
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| Jiahui Mo |
Jiahui Mo, a second year doctoral student, won best paper award at the 5th China Summer Workshop on Information Management (CSWIM 2011) for the paper titled "Winning Crowdsourcing Contests: A Micro-Structural Analysis of Multi-Relational Networks." The paper was coauthored by professors Eric Zheng and Xianjun Geng. CSWIM is a leading workshop that promotes lively exchange and collaborations among IS scholars in China and other countries.
Faculty Achievments
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| Vijay Mookerjee |
Prof. Vijay Mookerjee, Charles & Nancy Davidson Chair, has been named Senior Editor of Information Systems Research, a journal published by INFORMS (Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences). The journal is one of the publications used in The UTD Top 100 Business School Research Rankings™ website.
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| Varghese Jacob |
Prof. Varghese Jacob, Ashbel Smith Professor and Senior Associate Dean, gave a keynote speech titled "MIS Research over the Years -- Rolling Stone or Leading Edge" at the 5th China Summer Workshop on Information Management (CSWIM 2011).
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| Indranil Bardhan and Eric Zheng |
Dr. Zhiqiang (Eric) Zheng and Dr. Indranil Bardhan have been awarded a grant to study patients’ readmission patterns. If a patient re-enters the hospital within 30 days for the same reason, the Obama administration has a new policy in effect that the hospital for the previous admission will not be reimbursed by insurance. Obviously, many factors can complicate a patient’s readmission. The two professors are examining patient demographic, clinical as well as hospital specific factors that drive readmission rates. The project is funded by UT Southwestern Medical School in collaboration with the Dallas-Fort Worth Hospital Council.
The goal of the research grant is to develop predictive models for patient readmissions for treatment of congestive heart failure among patients in North Texas. The work was presented at the INFORMS Healthcare 2011 conference in Montreal.
Dr. Bardhan has recently worked with the Department of Clinical Sciences at the UT Southwestern Medical School to develop a pharmacological database for outcome-based clinical research that was supported by a National Institutes of Health research grant. He is currently developing a new graduate course on “Information and Knowledge Management in Healthcare” to be offered in Spring 2012 which will provide students with hands-on experience on electronic medical record systems.
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| Sumit Majumdar |
Prof. Sumit Majumdar is in the process of publishing his book titled "India's Late, Late Industrial Revolution: The Democratization of Entrepreneurship." It will be published by Cambridge University Press. In one of the sections of the book, he has looked at the Indian IT industry and argued in the book for certain fundamental transitions in their activity structure. This will involve a radical shift away from their current focus on body shopping, and production of commodity services by means of commoditized human capital, and to producing value-enhanced items, such as software that can be embedded in various products, so that the information technology sector in India, as elsewhere, can be industrialized.
Alumni Highlight
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| Nimish Patil |
Nimish Patil graduated with a Bachelor of Engineering degree from India in Electronics Engineering. As an MBA student, he worked as an intern for CVS Caremark and Mercedes-Benz Financial Services. He completed his Master of Business Administration in Fall 2010 with a concentration in Information Systems and is a PMP (Project Management Professional). He talks about his current job:
Q: Where do you work and what is the name of the company?
I work for McKesson Corporation in Carrollton, TX.
Q: Briefly describe your job duties and responsibilities.
My job duties and responsibilities include gathering precise business requirements from the department’s customers on strategic and non-strategic projects and analyzing current business processes and systems to identify opportunities and areas for improvement.
Q: How do you like the location where you work?
The location is very ideal as I do not have to commute a lot from home and I never had to relocate as well.
Q: How did you find the opportunity?
I found this opportunity from the University's Career Center website as well as through various job portals on the Internet.
Q: What was your first day like?
My first day was very relaxed as I had to wait till I got access to various systems and production / testing environments at the organization. Most of my day and the rest of the week were spent getting familiarized with the team and processes.
Q: What are your day-to-day responsibilities?
My day-to-day responsibilities involve conducting the work as per the job duties and responsibilities mentioned above and following process and procedures to solve complex business and technical problems while getting involved with the appropriate resources at the organization.
Q: What's the most important factor for being successful in your job?
The most important factor for being successful in my job is to practice essential skills such as active listening, effective team work and collaboration, leadership and keeping an open mind to learn new things every day.
Q: What do you enjoy most about your internship/job?
The thing I most enjoy about my job is that I get to learn and contribute new things every day while working on projects and also find my team members doing the same.
Q: Tell me a bit about your boss or co-workers.
I believe my boss is very inspiring and always keeps the team motivated to pursue excellence in our projects. We have an open channel of communication wherein the team members are appreciated for their contributions and can discuss about their project challenges with anyone.
Q: What are some things you enjoy doing in your time away from work?
When I am not at work, I find myself jogging in the park and working out, watching movies and sports as well as reading books and articles.
Corporate Outreach
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| Judd Bradbury |
The Information Systems Industry Advisory Board, made up of UT Dallas alumni and members of the professional community, expanded this spring to include new members from several industries including retail, consumer packaging, management consulting, and healthcare. This will further enhance the mix of companies making up the board. Feedback from the board members will be used to continuously improve the undergraduate programs. The Director of Corporate Outreach for the MIS area, Judd Bradbury, has been spearheading this effort. The board held the last meeting in April 2011. A proposal to launch MIS Honors Program and curriculum issues were discussed. Board member John Weston of Microsoft presented Microsoft’s vision for Cloud Computing.
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| Lou Thompson |
The UT Dallas SAP Users Group, advised by Dr. Lou Thompson, has been buzzing with various activities recently. In addition to holding monthly meetings that allow the students to interact with SAP professionals, SAP Users Group launched two new activities in partnership with SAP University Alliance. Students from SAP Users Group participated in the first SAP Dashboard session organized by SAP University Alliance. UT Dallas was one of the pilot schools for this concept. Participating students learned Dashboard software over several days and participated in a competition at the end of the program. A new initiative, SAP Playground, was also launched recently. This is a student-driven activity in which students teach other students about SAP tools. So far, two Playground sessions that covered topics such as SAP configuration and SAP Business Intelligence have been held. Participating students were very appreciative of these sessions.
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| SAP Playground |
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