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Today @ UM-St. Louis

Distinguished: The Area will host Dr. Carol Saunders on Thursday, October 24. She will present two seminars. Her biography and abstracts for the seminar are available here.

Xtreme IT!: The first annual Imagine IT Summer Academy was held the week of July 20. The Academy, called Xtreme IT 2008!, introduced high school students to the world of information systems and IS careers. During this week adventure, students learned to use tools with handson work and visited a number of companies in the St. Louis Metropolitan Area. The program was sponsored by the companies of the IS Advisory Board. Students were drawn from seven high schools in the Metro Area. For more information about the specific activities, you can view the Xtreme IT! website. The students are pictured below.

Computer Jobs Hit Record High:, reported in CIO Insight by Eric Chabrow on July 8, 2008 --

U.S. information technology employment is approaching an all-time high as nearly 4 million workers are now employed in IT-related jobs, according to a CIO Insight analysis of U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data. The IT unemployment rate increased one-tenth of a percentage point last quarter to reach 2.3 percent, but it is still near historic lows. In fact, at 4.7 percent, overall unemployment in the United States is more than double IT's jobless rate, writes Eric Chabrow. He says IT employment remains strong because IT performs a critical role in business productivity and the efficiencies IT creates are crucial for employers looking to cut costs. Even those looking to reduce payroll are employing IT professionals because better IT systems allow them to eliminate other positions. Furthermore, companies cannot operate without functioning IT systems, so certain business technology skills cannot be eliminated if a company wants to remain competitive. Over the past four quarters, the IT workforce has grown by 10.2 percent. Meanwhile, the number of workers employed by IT services firms, defined by the U.S. government as computer systems design and related services, rose by 56,100 over the past year, a 4.1 percent increase. Click Here to View Full Article (This summary was borrowed from ACM's Tech News, July 9, 2008.)

Summer Camp: The Information Systems Area will host the Imagine IT! Academy, July 20- 25. For more information, view the announcement.

Software! Students in the Information System Area may now get most Microsoft Software (not including Microsoft Office) for free. Check our MSDN site for details.

History Relived! Babbage's Difference Engine #2 has been built: View the video.

Distinguished: The IS Area was host to Dr. Dorothy E. Leidner, Randall W. and Sandra Ferguson Professor of Information Systems at Baylor University on April 18, 2008.

Dr. Leidner has broad international experience, having previously served as associate professor at INSEAD and as visiting professor at ITESM in Monterrey, Mexico and at the University of Caen, France. Since 2005, she has been a regular visiting professor at the University of Mannheim, Germany in the European MBA program. Dorothy received her PhD in Information Systems from the University of Texas at Austin, where she also received her MBA and BA (in Plan II). Her research has been published in a variety of journals, including MIS Quarterly, Information Systems Research, Organization Science, the Journal of Management Information Systems, and Decision Sciences. She has received best paper awards in 1993 from the Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences, in 1995 from MIS Quarterly, and in 1999 from the Academy of Management. Dorothy is currently serving as senior editor for MIS Quarterly, associate editor for Decision Sciences, and associate editor for Decision Support Systems. She is also on the board of MIS Quarterly Executive.

Well Positioned: On April 9, Greater St. Louis Works held a workshop to discuss Strategies to Strengthen Communication and Collaboration Between IT Employers and Educators. On the program was a presentation of a new visualization tool created at UMSL to demonstrate the IT business-educational relationships now in place. Of course, the presentation featured the relationships of the IS Area at UMSL. The project was a collaborative effort of S Advisory Board Ray Creely (IBM), IS Doctoral Candidate, Srikanth Mudigonda, Professor Vicki Sauter and Professor Ashok Subramanian. You can experience the visualization tool here.

Mirthful!: The IS Mentoring Program again sponsored a booth at the UMSL Mirthday celebration. As you can see from the photos below, the booth featured a common "toss" game with an uncommon theme -- Toss the Virus through the Firewall. Mentors and protégés staffed the booth during the day. Thanks to the generous contribution from Boeing, we were able to provide small computer mice, and small mouse pads as prizes. Pictured in the booth are mentor Judy Alberts (ERAC) (top) and mentor (and Boeing employee) Alan Shenberg. Thanks to all the workers and to mentor Tom O'Hanlon (IBM) for building the firewall and Alan Shenberg (Boeing) for securing the prizes.

IS Mentoring Program: Hear the Triton Talk interview about the IS Mentoring Program. Learn more about the U radio station. The interview was held on February 21.

IS Mentoring Program: The three events for the IS Mentoring Program this semester are:

Wednesday, February 13: Security and the IT Professional

Thursday, March 6: The Five Minute Interview -- Working a Career Fair

Friday, April 11: Social Networking Sites and the Job Search

All meetings begin at 5:30 pm and are held in Grace's Place, 204 CCB. Refreshments will be served and everyone is welcome to attend.

Imagine IT!: The IS Area, in cooperation with IBM, Microsoft and Monsanto, sponsored an event for high school sophomores on Friday January 25 called Imagine IT!. Forty five students from Francis Howell, Rockwood and Soldan participated in this all day event. Students spent the morning at one of the three corporations, had lunch in the Millennium Center, and spent the afternoon getting to know each other and the IS Area. We hope to offer this program again in the future.

Cerner Corporation: Cerner Corporation invites you to join them at Blueberry Hill on Wednesday, February 27 at 6:00 pm for a chance to learn more about Cerner Corporation in a casual, laid back setting. RSVP by email to Meagan Cicero.

IS Program Rankings out: The Chronicle for Higher Education has released its 2007 Faculty Scholarly Productivity Index. In the MIS discipline, University of Missouri - St. Louis ranked THIRD nationwide. See the statistics at the Chronicle's website

Scholarship Competition: The St. Louis SIM Chapter is sponsoring a St. Louis-wide scholarship competition for students interested in MIS and/or computer science. The details of the competition can be found online. They will award four $1000 scholarships; one is reserved for a woman candidate. You have some time before the deadline, but consider getting your application in early.

IS Graduates in High Demand: Over half of the top ten fastest growing jobs are IS/IT jobs. Check the list of Top 50 Fastest-Growing Occupations.

Résumé: Are you working on your resume? You might want to check these recent articles

What's Wrecking Your Résumé?

10 Ways Your Resume Irks Hiring Managers

Programming Club: The IS Programming Club is planning three meetings this semester. The tentative dates and topics are:

October 2, 224 CCB, 7.00 - 9.00 pm, Topic: DotNetNuke

November 7, 106 CCB, 7.00 - 9.00 pm, Topic: Rich Internet Applications and AJAX

November 28, 106 CCB, 7.00 - 9.00 pm, Topic: PHP

For more information, please contact Dr. Mirchandani.

Outsourcing: Professor Joseph Rottman was interviewed recently by CIO Magazine about his work in the field of outsourcing, especially with regard to his recent research trip to China. You can read the interview by clicking here.