Fall 1999

Just over a year ago, the College of Business and Economics launched a technology initiative, leading the University's participation in a statewide campaign to make Delaware a nationally recognized center of information technology and business expertise. Today, the College's plan is moving ahead on schedule and meeting with resounding success.

"What we are doing is truly a partnership of the University community--faculty, administration and students--with the state and businesses," says Scott Jones, associate dean of the College. "It involves hiring new faculty and staff, developing new curricula, upgrading infrastructure and having an ongoing relationship with government and business to stay on top of the latest developments."

During the past year, the College hired seven new faculty members who bring expertise in the latest technology trends and techniques to the classroom. New support staff are helping with upgrades to the computing infrastructure. An ongoing training program for current faculty includes seminars on topics such as using technology in the classroom, publishing web pages and putting course material online.

"Our faculty are becoming expert at integrating technology into the classroom," says Jones. "For example, instead of just lecturing on a topic, they can store related material on a computer and present it in the classrooms using our new projection technology. Course material, including audio and video clips, can be put on the web, where students can access it at any time, from anywhere. Students and faculty can also communicate electronically by exchanging e-mail or engaging in online chat sessions."

Of course, none of this interaction would be possible without a robust computer infrastructure. "The University is highly thought of in terms of its 'wiredness,'" explains Skip White, area head of Management Information Systems. "The College is continually upgrading its equipment and software. With the funding provided through the statewide initiative, we have been able to create a more sophisticated computing environment and add some technology innovations." These include adding Internet access and state-of-the-art projection capabilities to classrooms, as well as expanding the computer lab with more file servers, personal computers and the latest business software.

"We've also set up several 'cyber cafes' within our building--areas similar to lounges, where students can plug in their laptops and connect to the network," adds White.

One of the most significant additions to the College's technology repertoire was the installation of SAP's enterprise resource planning software. "SAP is a large, complex piece of software used throughout the business world today. It integrates many functions that previously required independent software packages--for example, general ledger, payroll and manufacturing. By allowing users to share data across an organization, it dramatically improves their decision-making capability."

The College has joined SAP's University Alliance and began using the software this past February. Explains White, "I teach an IT auditing course. In the past, I simply lectured about the way security and control work in large organizational software. Now, I can show the students how these concepts are applied in the SAP environment, and they can get online and create user IDs and controls to actually see the security function in operation."

Students are creatively involved with technology in projects that extend beyond the classroom. Most recently, graduate students in the MBA program took on the task of redoing the program's web site. "The entire site was redesigned and executed by students," says Jones. "The students had the experience of serving on a project team with a real deliverable that allowed them to use the latest application server technology. In addition, they provided a valuable application that benefits students, faculty and alumni. Some of the innovations they added to the site include job-search capability and database-driven news posting."

The technology initiative has allowed the College to increase the enrollment and expand the offerings in the popular Management Information Systems (MIS) minor. Project Director Gloria Diodato joined the College in April to work with the business community developing projects and internships for students. She is also helping to focus the curriculum, expand the MIS capstone courses and identify hands-on learning opportunities through focused internships for other B&E students.

"The MIS minor exposes business students to the most important technologies," says Diodato. "Our goal is to provide a practical understanding of the technologies that will support them in their careers. For example, if their organization uses C++ or Java, they will know something about what it is and how it works."

A critical part of the MIS minor is the final project undertaken during a student's senior year. "My role is to identify business problems that a company doesn't have the time or resources to explore," explains Diodato. "Our students tackle the problem as a professional consultant would, providing a fresh but highly disciplined approach. We try to use technology to solve the business problem, which may involve analyzing systems, recommending control processes or even locating a new site for a business. For the students, there is the real-life opportunity to see the results of a project, including the consequences of action or inaction. The businesses benefit from recommendations made by these students, many of whom will be working for the powerhouse consulting firms. We've found that once a company has the students come in, they want to participate in the program again."

In a survey of the classes of '96 through '98, students resoundingly applauded the project experience, emphasizing the positive impact on their careers. Their recommendation: Continue to add more technology. The numbers seem to bear them out. Says Diodato, "The average starting salary of the 50 students who graduated with the MIS minor this year is over 20 percent higher than the average salary for all graduates of the College. Clearly, these students are highly valued by businesses."

The College hopes eventually to extend the benefits of the MIS program to students in non-business majors by offering courses that combine business fundamentals with technology. And, of course, emerging technologies and issues such as biotechnology and intellectual property are carefully examined in updating curricula across the entire College.

"Value-added" is a popular term in businesses today. How does the technology initiative add value to the education of the College's graduates? "Many programs today are computer-science-oriented, devoted to building networks and programming," concludes White. "In the College of Business and Economics, we think of information technology as a tool that is applicable in every area of the business world. We believe that the combination of a traditional business discipline with substantial knowledge of IT is one of the strengths of our program. With the support of the state and local business through the technology initiative, we have the freedom to innovate and think in ever-larger terms."