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Today @ UM-St. Louis

Restructured: Inf Sys 1800 has been restructured into a hybrid class that combines online lessons and weekly in-person teaching at Express Scripts Hall. Check out what UMSL Daily has to say.

Life After Jeopardy: We were very fortunate to have Mr. Barry K. Mason, Vice President, Global Healthcare Payers, IBM Healthcare & Life Sciences, join us on April 25. He spoke about IBM's Natural Language Reasoning System, "Watson." You might remember last year when Watson beat the two reigning champions on Jeopardy. Well, since then, Watson has gone into health care. You can listen to Mr.Mason's talk (there is some dead time at the beginning ... be patient) and view his slides.

Congratulations!: Congratulations to Shaji Khan who successfully defended his doctoral thesis today. The title of his thesis is Organizational Responsiveness to Anti-Offshoring Institutional Pressures. Dr. Mary Lacity chaired his dissertation committee which included Dr. Natalia Mintchik, Dr. Dinesh Mirchandani, and Dr. Joseph Rottman.

Promoted!: Congratulations to Richard Navarro who was promoted to Assistant Teaching Professor. He is shown here at the celebration party with Professor Ekin Pellegrini, who was promoted to Associate Professor of Management.

Xtreme Gaming!: This weekend the IS Department hosted the Global Game Jam, an event sponsored by the International Game Developers Association. Twelve games were developed at UMSL over just 48 hours based on a common theme. The theme was "A snake biting its tail," which was held a secret till the event began. The game presentations will be held today (Sunday, January 29) in the SSB Auditorium opposite the SSB 103 computer lab from approximately 3.30 pm - 5.00 pm. Please join us.

The games developed at UMSL are:

Snake Bites: At first it seems familiar: You are a snake. You can move in four directions. eating things makes you longer. Here's the thing: you don't want to be longer. You have been there-- your coils have spanned the world, held the sun and moon in their twisting tethers. But now you long to return to normalcy, to balance. Your goal is to be the shortest snake possible. Do the unthinkable: bite your own tail, split yourself in two, and shrink down to a more manageable size. But beware! Bite off too big a chunk, and, like a hydra, it may grow a new head, come to life, and wreak havoc on your peaceful world!

Man in a Towel - Animal in a Cannon: You've been warped from your shower into the arena of the gods. Your arms are bananas. Fight for the favor of Pete or Quetzal and tip the scales of fate in your favor.

Obelisk: Not "tower defense", but "tower balance": maintain the ratio of towers to creeps, of destruction to life, for as long as you can.

Mobius: Ouroboros, the serpent that eats its tail, cannot deny its own nature. But if it succeeds in eating its own tail, it will destroy the world. You are the chosen hero, the only one who can stop Ouroboros from destroying the world. Countless monsters stand in your way, all eager to hasten the end of all things. Avoid the traps, defeat your foes and save the day! But beware. For just when you've thought you've won, you will discover the end is just the beginning. Mobius is a simple platform, in which the player's character (a centaur) is stuck in a mobius strip, and must work to save the world from an Ouroboros. Each level is modeled on an actual mobius strip, with all the dimensional weirdness that life on a mobius strip entails. Each level has unique challenges and landscape features that are revisited in different orientations as the player progresses, and the player ultimately ends up where they started, in spite of always moving right!

Lost Soul: The main character has lost his soul and must navigate temple mazes via both the living world and the spirit world to regain the pieces of it and come back whole.

Immortal Coil: Self-cannibalization becomes the only option when immortal hunger cannot be satisfied.

Together Forever: As the main character, the player explores the city to find people who have body parts that he can take and use to better himself and win the affections of his dream girl. Each body part he take gives him different abilities (such as the ability to punch, the ability to sprint, etc.), which will allow him to access different areas and progress the story. Players must be mindful of the suspicion bar at the top of the screen; as the game progresses, the suspicion bar gradually fills. If it fills completely, the player is arrested and the game ends. To lower the suspicion bar, the player must kill and steal the faces of the NPCs wandering the city without being seen by other NPCs. If the player is seen, suspicion will greatly increase.

Copperhead Jack and the Cave of Snakes: Imagine Indiana Jones loses his whip, and falls into a ruined temple full of snakes. What's an explorer to do? Beat up the snakes and use them as a whip to navigate the temple, of course!

Ra: Eternal Fire: Maintain life in your solar system by controlling Ra, the phoenix sun god, and igniting the flames of the sun. From The Ashes

OuroBallos: This is a side-scroller game where you are rolling along on a map. Objects in your path force the player to react via a variety of strategies ... through jumping or by ejecting small or large parts of the player's body. The player defeats the level by rolling to the goal.

He Who Ages: A child who lives in a timeless village stumbles upon the key to free his people, but at what cost?

The IS Programming Club will host the St. Louis site of the Global Game Jam, January 27-29, 2012. The event will begin on Friday, January 27, 2012 at 4:00 PM, and will be held in 410 in the Social Science and Business Building (SSB) on the UMSL campus. For more information, please contact Dinesh Mirchandani, advisor for the IS Programming Club.

Congratulations!: Congratulations to Vidya Iyer who successfully defended her dissertation on November 11. Vidya's dissertation was "Understanding Turnover Intentions and Behavior of Indian Information Systems Professionals: A Study of Organizational Justice, Job Satisfaction and Social Norms." Her committee was chaired jointly by Drs. Mary Lacity and Dinesh Mirchandani, and included Dr. Joseph Rottman and Dr. Fred Niederman of St. Louis University. Dr. Iyer also has an M.S. in Information Systems from Texas A&M International University, and an MBA from Indore University.

From left: Professor Joseph Rottman, Professor Mary Lacity, Vidya Iyer, Professor Dinesh Mirchandani, and Professor Fred Neiderman

 

IT has gone Xtreme Again: Many thanks to IBM for its recent contribution to Xtreme IT!, the summer academy for high school students. Xtreme IT! received an $11,500 Community Impact Grant from IBM last week, which will allow More high school students will now have an opportunity to learn about careers in information technology. Learn more from UMSL News.

UMSL alumna and IBM executive Lisa Yanker presented the UMSL's Xtreme IT! Faculty with a $11,500 gift. Pictured (from left) are: Keith Womer, Dean of the College of Business Administration; Mark Zimmerman, vice president of information technology at Schnuck Markets, Inc. and President of the IS Advisory Board; Ray Creely, UMSL alumnus and co-founder of Xtreme IT!; Vicki Sauter, professor of information systems at UMSL and co-founder of Xtreme IT!; Ashok Subramanian, Chair of the Information Systems Department; and Lisa Yanker, director of the Worldwide WebSphere Application and System z sales team at IBM.

Congratulations!: Congratulations to Dr. Dinesh Mirchandani who won the 2011 Durand Award for Research Excellence. Learn more from the UMSL News.

The Three Sides of Faculty: Faculty member Mary Lacity was featured in in UMSL's new video, "The Three Sides of Faculty." View the video and learn more about Mary and of being a faculty member.

Xtreme!: More high school students will now have an opportunity to learn about careers in information technology thanks to a generous grant from the 2011 Gateway to Innovation Conference. Learn more from UMSL News.

Congratulations!: Shaji Khan successfully passed his dissertation proposal defense on Friday, July 22 for his topic, "Organizational Conformity to Anti-Offshoring Pressures: The Context of IT Offshoring." His committee comprises Dr. Mirchandani, Dr. Mintchik, Dr. Rottman, and Dr. Lacity.

Farwell to a Friend and Colleague: It is with saddness that we report that Dr. Rajiv Sabherwal is leaving UMSL. This spring he accepted a position with the Sam B. Walton College of Business at University of Arkansas and has joined them as a Department Chair. We held a party to honor him on June 22, and show some photos from this event below. For more photos, please view our departmental Facebook page.

   

IT has gone Xtreme: Eighteen high school students from around the metropolitan St. Louis area participated in the 2011 Xtreme IT! summer academy. The students get hands on experience with some tools and see how companies are using technology to be smarter businesses. The full program is available for viewing.

 

You can read the UMSL story about the academy or see the campers in action on our Facebook Page,  

The students also built sculptures using Styrofoam and old computer parts. These sculptures are currently on view at Grace's Place; photos show them below.

Distinguished Speaker:The 2011 IS Distinguished Speaker is Dr. Varun Grover. Dr. Grover is the William S. Lee (Duke Energy) Distinguished Professor of Information Systems at Clemson University. He has published extensively in the information systems field, with over 200 publications in major refereed journals. Nine recent articles have ranked him among the top four researchers based on number of publications in the top Information Systems journals, as well as citation impact (h-index). Dr. Grover is Senior Editor (Emeritus) for MIS Quarterly, the Journal of the AIS and Database. He is currently working in the areas of IT value, system politics and process transformation and recently released his third book (with M. Lynne Markus) on process change. He is recipient of numerous awards from USC, Clemson, AIS, DSI, Anbar, PriceWaterhouse, etc. for his research and teaching and is a Fellow of the Association for Information Systems.

He will speak from 4:00 PM-5:15 PM in 003 Express Scripts Hall and his topic is "The Emerging Role of the Technology Strategist."

This talk focuses on the emerging CIO role of business technology strategist and its relationship with the three traditional IT management roles-informational, decisional, and interpersonal. Preliminary data on how the CIOs emerging role is related to reporting level and technical background will be described, as the talk explores what it takes for a CIO to fulfill this role.

Everyone is welcome to attend. For more information, please call the IS Department office at 314-516-6267.

Scholarship: Congratulations to (from the left in the photo), Rhiianon Johnson, Stacy Bueneman and Katie Voegel! Each of these students were honored by winning a SIM Scholarship which was distributed at the Gateway to Innovation Conference last week. Katie is a senior who will graduate in December, Rhiianon is a junior and Stacy is a sophomore.

A New Name: on Friday, February 25, the Computer Center Building (CCB) was officially renamed Express Scripts Hall (ESH) in recognition of the philanthropy of Express Scripts and the special working relationship between the campus and Express Scripts. During the ceremony, Chancellor Thomas George (top) spoke of the importance of the relationship. Later, Mr. George Paz, President of Express Scripts and College of Business alumnus '82, spoke of the importance of UMSL in his personal life as well as in the life of his company. Read the campus story about this event.

ISPC: The next meeting of the IS Programming Club will feature Adesh Sharma, President/CEO of WSI Social Media, speaking on Digital Marketing -- New ways to be found online. The meeting will be held March 3 at 5:30 in 103 ESH. Everyone is welcome.

Mentoring: The IS Mentoring Program will have three meetings this semester. They are:

      February 10: Interviewing and Resume Skills
      March 16: Careers in Business Intelligence
      April 12: Careers in IT Security and Forensics

All meetings are held at 5:30 pm in Grace's Place (204 ESH) and refreshments are provided. Everyone is welcome to join us!

Summer Opportunities!: Xtreme IT!, the summer academy sponsored by the IS Area and IS Advisory Board, had a booth at this year's Summer Opportunities Fair on January 29. If you missed the Fair, you can still obtain the flier and application form online.

Hot Careers: MSN released a career survey today which showed the number 1 and number 2 hottest careers are in information technology. The time is right to be in Information Systems.

Make a Gift: You may now assign your contributions directly to the IS Department by using this online contribution form. Using this form, you may give to the general IS needs, IS scholarships, the IS Mentoring Program, Grace's Place, the Advanced IS Lab, Imagine IT!, Xtreme IT! or any IS program that is of importance to you. Please help us continue to provide excellent IS education in Missouri.

Imagine IT!: The Information Systems Area, in cooperation with its partners on the IS Advisory Board sponsored the fourth annual Imagine IT! event on Friday, November 12. Selected students from Chaminade College Prep, Confluence Academy, Francis Howell High School, Rockwood Summit High Schools, and Soldan International Studies High School toured facilities at The Boeing Company, Edward Jones, Mercy Health System, or Monsanto and then visit UMSL. The group will meet again in a year to learn more about opportunities in Information Systems. In the meanwhile, they keep connected using a private Facebook Group. These future IS professionals are shown below (click to enlarge photograph).

Rural Sourcing: The topic this month for Breakfast and Business is "Field of Dreams: Outsourcing IT Work to Rural Suppliers." The speakers are our own Mary Lacity, Professor of Information Systems and Joseph Rottman. Associate Professor of Information Systems. The discussion will focus on the emerging trend of rural outsourcing, which is the practice outsourcing work to suppliers with delivery centers located in low-cost, non-urban areas. Interest in rural outsourcing in the U.S. has increased significantly as federal and state governments seek ways to create jobs and as government outsourcing contracts increasingly require that work be done onshore.

Breakfast and Business is sponsored by Express Scripts. It will meet on Thursday, November 4: 7:30 a.m. for Breakfast and Networking, 8:00 a.m. for Program, in SGA Chambers, 3rd floor Millennium Student Center.

Grace's Place: Grace's Place was featured in the October 27 issue of UMSL News. The article is available in the UMSL Newsroom.

CyberSecurity: The topic this month for Breakfast and Business is "Protection of Proprietary Information in a Global Economy." The speaker is Ruben R. Lopez, Special Agent, Federal Bureau of Investigation.Ruben Lopez, a 1983 College of Business Administration graduate, has been an FBI agent for 26 years. He has been assigned to the Houston, San Juan, and St. Louis offices of the FBI. He has conducted numerous investigations regarding counterintelligence, violent crimes, drugs, international terrorism, and liaison outreach with the private business, academic and defense industrial base sectors. The discussion will focus on protecting information in the global economy.

Breakfast and Business is sponsored by Express Scripts. It will meet on Thursday, November 4: 7:30 a.m. for Breakfast and Networking, 8:00 a.m. for Program, in SGA Chambers, 3rd floor Millennium Student Center.

College of Business in Princeton's Top 300 Business Schools: The University of Missouri-St. Louis College of Business Administration was named one of the 300 outstanding institutions featured in the 2011 edition of Princeton's annual Best Business Schools guidebook. Princeton collected the opinions of more than 19,000 students at the best AACSB-accredited MBA programs in the world and gathered statistical information on many more MBA programs in order to give readers the widest possible base of information for selecting the right business school for them. The pages describing our Business College are available.

IS Departmental Rating: The IS Department was one of five that received high national rankings recently from Academic Analytics, a company that ranks doctoral programs based on faculty scholarly productivity. The index measures the scholarly productivity of faculty based on their publications, citations, grants and honorary awards. The study included 168,068 faculty members associated with 8,849 PhD programs at 387 universities in the United States. Our faculty ranked in the top ten in its subject area along with Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia and University of Arizona in Tucson.

Congratulations: Karen Walsh was honored Friday during the IS Advisory Board meeting for her twenty years of service to the University of Missouri - St. Louis. Dean Keith Womer presented her with a pin and a gift on behalf of the University.

IS Programming Club: The second meeting of the ISPC will be held on Tuesday, September 28.

Topic: Data Warehousing

Presenter: Paul Boal, Mercy Health System

Time: 7.00 pm

Location: 107 Computer Center Building

IS Programming Club: The first meeting of the ISPC will be held on Thursday, September 16.

Topic: What is Silverlight and how does it fit into Microsoft's current strategy for developer tools?

Presenter: Kevin Grossnicklaus, President, ArchitectNow

Time: 5.30 - 7.00 pm

Location: 103 Computer Center Building

This session will explain what Silverlight is and how you can take advantage of this great platform to develop highly interactive and feature rich web applications. You'll see Silverlight development in action and see how Silverlight development gives you a development experience you are familiar with while allowing you to write applications that run on Windows, Mac, and Linux.

We will demonstrate the full suite of Silverlight 4.0 development tools available within Visual Studio.NET 2010 and Expression Blend 4.0. We will also discuss the evolution of the Silverlight platform up to the current 4th version and explain how Microsoft see's Silverlight fitting into the future of the .NET platform. As an added bonus, you will get a tour of some of the great new development and debugging capabilities of Visual Studio.NET 2010.

Kevin Grossnicklaus is the president of a St. Louis, MO based consulting firm called ArchitectNow where he trains and mentors development teams in software architecture and best practices using leading-edge technologies and methodologies. Kevin previously spent 10 years as the .NET Practice Lead and Chief Architect at SSE, another St. Louis-based technology firm, where he oversaw the design, implementation, and delivery of mission critical software applications to dozens of local and national firms. In 2000, while at SSE, Kevin became involved as an early adopter of the Microsoft .NET platform (then called the Next Generation of Web Services or NGWS) and became active in the local development community to help share his knowledge and experience with these tools and technologies with any developers willing to learn. Since then, Kevin has worked with developers throughout the world on many projects around the newest .NET technologies. In 2004, Kevin became an instructor at Washington University's Center for the Application of Information Technology (CAIT) program where he continues to teach all of the .NET related topics in both C# and VB.NET. During his time at CAIT, Kevin has helped to expand the Microsoft related curriculum through the development courses on new technologies such as LINQ, Threading, Enterprise Architecture, WPF, and WCF to name a few. Today, through ArchitectNow, Kevin is working to share his passion for and knowledge of these technologies with teams around the world.

Networking is Important!: The schedule of the IS Mentoring Program for the Fall 2010 is:

September 15: Resume Clinic

October 14: Internships

November 12: I have a job. Now what?

All meetings begin at 5:30 pm., and are held in Grace's Place (204 CCB). There is always time for questions and we always provide food!

After the presentation we will devote a short period of time to our "speed mentoring" activity. Students will be paired with mentors for a series of 3-minute sessions to ask whatever they want.

Stick around for the social hour to network with our mentors, and make those contacts.

Congratulations!: Srikanth Mudigonda successfully defended his PhD dissertation on Monday, August 23. The title of the dissertation is "The Effects of IT, Task, Workgroup, and Knowledge Factors on Workgroup Outcomes: A Longitudinal Investigation." His dissertation committee was chaired by Professor Sabherwal and included Professors Lacity, Mano, Sauter and Subramanian. Srikanth with his Committee

Srikanth with Professor Sabherwal holding the PhD clock

Scholarships: The Society for Information Management - St. Louis is again offering a scholarship for students interested in Information Systems. The announcement is available online and questions may be directed to Professor Rottman. The deadline is February 18, 2011.

IS Student named recipient of Arthur Ashe Jr. Award: Daniel Anthony, an IS junior and a member of the men's tennis team, has been named a recipient of the 2010 Arthur Ashe Jr. Sports Scholars Award. The Award was created in 1992 by the newsmagazine Black Issues In Higher Education (now known as Diverse: Issues in Higher Education) when it established the list of undergraduate students of color who exemplified the standards set by tennis great Arthur Ashe Jr. Each year the awards are presented to students who have a cumulative GPA of 3.2 or higher and are active on their college campus or in their community. Anthony, who was one of 23 men's tennis players honored, owns a cumulative GPA of 3.483 in information systems.