Temple MIS

Connect and innovate with an elite information systems program

Fox School of Business

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New MIS faculty bring expertise in healthcare, social media, analytics and machine learning

Sezgin Ayabakan (Ph.D., University of Texas, Dallas), JaeHwuen Jung (Ph.D., University of Minnesota), and Konstantin Bauman (Ph.D., Moscow State University) join the MIS department as Assistant Professors in fall 2017.

Sezgin AyabakanDr. Ayabakan, who was previously an Assistant Professor at University of Baltimore and faculty fellow at the Schaefer Center for Public Policy, is researching healthcare by applying analytics to analyze very large data sets from hospitals. He will apply his analytics background and practical experience working with big data to teach the MIS department’s award winning GenEd Data Science course. 

JaeHwuen JungDr. Jung, who recently completed his dissertation, is examining the role of incentive structures in online and mobile forums using field experiments. Dr. Jung will apply his industry experience in the telecomm industry as well as research on social gaming and networks to teach Analytics to majors and minors across the Fox School.

Dr. Bauman, who was previously a research scientist at New York University, is a machine learning expert focusing on researching recommendation systems. Dr. Bauman will apply his extensive technical expertise including industry experience as a software engineer to teach programming. 

Dr. David Schuff is the new MIS Department Chair

David SchuffThe Fox School of Business is excited to welcome Dr. David Schuff as the new chair of the Department of Management Information Systems (MIS). Since joining the faculty in 2000, Schuff has played a major role in elevating the reputation of the department through his exceptional teaching, research, and leadership.

David’s service to Fox and the MIS department has been invaluable since his arrival nearly two decades ago, said Dr. M. Moshe Porat, Dean of the Fox School. His creation of the Temple Analytics Challenge, for example, demonstrates the value he places on interdisciplinary research and experiential learning activities. I am confident the department will continue flourishing under David’s leadership.

Schuff’s research interests include the application of information visualization to decision support systems, tools for self-service business intelligence, and the impact of user generated content on organizations and society. He has published over 40 journal articles, many in top research publications, such as Management Information Systems Quarterly, Decision Sciences, Decision Support Systems, and Information & Management.

In addition to teaching in the MIS department, Schuff has taught in the BBA, MBA, and Executive MBA programs at the Fox School’s campuses in Colombia and Japan; and he was the founding academic director of the Executive Doctorate of Business Administration program. His course topics include data analytics and information systems strategy, and he has won numerous awards, including the Musser Award for Excellence in Teaching, the Lindback Award for Distinguished Teaching, and the MIS department’s teaching award. (He won the latter 13 times—more times than any other faculty member.)

Dr. Schuff’s accomplishments as a founding faculty member—and especially his commitment to teaching excellence—make him extremely well qualified to take on this role, said Dr. Munir Mandviwalla, who preceded Schuff as MIS department chair. I am confident he will take the department to even higher levels. It has been a privilege serving the department since its founding in 2000. I look forward to concentrating on leading the Institute for Business and Information Technology (IBIT) to further enhance industry engagement.

Schuff’s impressive history with the Fox School gives him a unique ability to lead the MIS department into the future.

I am proud to serve as chair of the MIS department, said Schuff. Together we’ve built an amazing foundation of highly ranked undergraduate and graduate programs with a vibrant faculty of excellent teachers and top-tier researchers. It will be exciting to see where the future takes us as we create new academic programs, explore new areas of boundary-spanning research, and continue to grow as a leading department.

From Bridge Repair to Elderly Patient Care, MIS seniors debut innovative solutions in capstone projects

MIS Capstone Winners 2017After years of hard work and study, MIS seniors always have a lot to show off at the Fox School of Business Management Information Systems Capstone Project Showcase. The most recent Showcase, held at the end of April, was no exception: The 17 teams of seniors that gathered to present their final projects unveiled everything from a medical app designed to help doctors track elderly patients’ health regimens to a personalized news aggregation service to an improved search function on Temple’s course database.

The MIS Showcase is a unique opportunity for students to combine all of what they have learned in class with their own entrepreneurial skills, says Fox IT Advisory Board Chairman Bruce Fadem, who oversees the Mentoring program for IBIT. “This year’s teams showcased a wide range of exciting ideas and demonstrated the value of their education with professional business plans and excellent presentations.”

The winning team, selected by a panel of judges, designed an app that tackles the problem of evaluating the maintenance needs of bridges. “On average,” the team notes, “it takes an expert three to six weeks to properly assess a bridge’s structural needs and report these findings to the local government.” Their solution, the app they call Floating Bridges, combines 3D mapping drones, bridge-assessment algorithms and augmented reality to provide local governments with a more efficient, less expensive way to survey and prioritize problem bridges “on a yearly or even monthly basis.”

The team, which included Alexandra Iacovetti, Nicholas Rivera, Bridget Silk and Benjamin Sulaiman, won $500 for coming in first place — though the entire Capstone process has been rewarding in itself, Silk says. “We really benefited from bouncing ideas off each other,” she adds. “It was an awesome experience to end the year with.”

The Capstone projects are often cited by students as one of the highlights of the MIS experience. The opportunity to put so many skills and practices to the test (not to mention the chance to flex their creative muscles) in a competitive setting is both fun and helpful in terms of prepping for life outside of the Fox School.

“The project created an opportunity to fully develop and pitch a real, live platform that addresses a problem,” says Kate Morrison, whose team, District One Sports, created a one-stop digital resource for high school sports stats. “Going through this process end to end created more passion, teamwork and ownership than any other group project I’ve worked on, and it was a beneficial transition from the teaching/learning environment into the professional workplace.”

The full roster of projects presented at the April event included:

Solutions to Medical Non-Adherence
A digital solution for health-care providers, pharmacies and patients to insure that patients are taking their medication consistently and following correct procedures after leaving the hospital.
Team: Michael Ingram, Heather Makwinski, Joshua Michalik, Samantha Talarico
Mentor: Dale Danilewitz

Documed: Improving Patient Engagement
Real-time access for doctors to patients’ medical records to help improve diagnosis and treatment.
Team: Johnathan Holland, Jeremy A. John, Alan Kim, George Raymond
Mentor: Matt Winter

WorkFit
An application designed to motivate people to make exercise a priority, using social tools, games, geolocation and goal suggestions.
Team: John Kerin, Matthew Leaver, Sara Monahan, Thompson Nguyen
Mentor: Ben Hasan

CaParkLee
An application that measures the core body temperatures and heart rates of elderly patients, aiming to help doctors track their patients’ regimens.
Team: Leor Capunitan, Thomas Lee, Chris Park
Mentor: Jeff Hamilton

Social Academic Studying Solution
A web-based solution for connecting students who have similar courses and curriculums, aimed at enabling collaborative studying, as well as helping students manage deadlines and study hours.
Team: Evan Chiao, Kin Lee, Connor Gawlik, Mike Dennis
Mentor: Satbir Bedi

District One Sports: Simplifying High School Sports Statistics
A one-stop digital resource for reporting and viewing high school sports scores and statistics.
Team: Rob Higgins, Kate Morrison, Rhea Prabhu, Ben Shaffer
Mentor: Sondra Barbour

Airline Entertainment
A digital platform providing airline passengers with in-air and terminal entertainment and gaming options.
Team: Stephanie Cheng, Tyler Gaber, Kevin Santoni, Dario Trabucco
Mentor: Sunil Misra

Vulpine Analytics
An analytics tool to help provide employees with information and insights about the connection between their wellness and their productivity, helping them balance health habits with performance at work.
Team: Derek Gibbs, Eric Koeck, Erika Nixon, David Yastremsky
Mentor: Paul Amorello

VisRecs
A visual-recognition application that harnesses unstructured data hidden within images, videos. and gifs uploaded onto social media and/or the Internet, and helps structure it into meaningful ideas.
Team: Dominick Falco, Alex Korjeski, Alex Meyer, Louisa Carleton
Mentor: Niraj Patel

SpotaGuide
A platform that connects travelers with personalized, low-cost tour itineraries.
Team: Phil Tocci, Kevin Vong, Anthony Vu, Brian Wallace
Mentor: Bruce Fadem

Floating Bridges
An application that combines 3D mapping drones, bridge-assessment algorithms and augmented reality to give experts a cost-effective way to assess a bridge’s structural needs.
Team: Alexandra Iacovetti, Nicholas Rivera, Bridget Silk, Benjamin Sulaiman
Mentor: Joe Spagnoletti

Newsence
A system for aggregating multiple news sources and customizing them in a fashion that fits into each user’s lifestyle and preferences.
Team: William Agentowicz, Brandan Mackowsky, Eugene Tartaglione, Adama Traore
Mentor: Sukumar Narayanan

Gamer Connect
An application that allows gamers across all platforms (Xbox, Playstation and PC) to find one another and form teams based upon their respective skill levels.
Team: Andrew Fiss, Tyler Urquhart, Elijah Jamison, Kyle Domsohn
Mentor: Shariq Khan

DDesignate
A ride-sharing application in the vein of Uber/Lyft that helps users avoid driving while intoxicated, while providing a way for the user to get his or her car home safely.
Team: Rob Lesnik, Kyle Matusik, Jonathan Plugaru, Casid Sohou
Mentor: Andrew Porter

Esperanza Database Consolidation
A database-consolidation tool for merging and centralizing data from the non-profit Esperanza to allow for better and more streamlined marketing and communication efforts.
Team: Danielle Buerger, Kevin Hamilton, Leeya Ressom
Mentor: Jon Scott

BookLit
An application aimed at third-grade students within the School District of Philadelphia, focused on improving reading skills via online competition, incentives and reading comprehension quizzes. Teachers are able to track students’ improvements.
Team: Andi Agolli, Jeffrey Craskey, Mohit Patel, Urvesh Patel
Mentor: Andrea Anania

Course Search
A search function that allows Temple students to look for any class in the Temple database based on keywords/categories that pertain to class topics or subtopics.
Team: Quy Le, Kevin Diem, Darpan Patel, Michael Black
Mentor: Chris Cera

Alumnus, industry leader to steer ITACS graduate program

The Master of Science in IT AuditingKapish Vanvaria and Cyber-Security (MS-ITACS) program at Temple University’s Fox School of Business provides students with the latest practices in the field with the help of an advisory council composed of industry leaders.

The Fox School strengthened that mission with its recent appointment of Kapish Vanvaria, management consultant with Ernst & Young LLP, as the program’s advisory council chair. A Temple alumnus who studied Accounting and Management Information Systems at the Fox School, Vanvaria first established a commitment to the program when he became a member of the ITACS advisory council two years ago. In accepting the chair position, Vanvaria’s role will include leading the program’s strategic growth and curriculum development, and ensuring a strong student placement within the technology and cyber industry.

I’m passionate about education. It’s one of the few things in life that has no expiration or devaluation, and therefore is one of the best self-investments,” said Vanvaria. “With a strong agenda and vision, we can make ITACS a global program that will elevate the Fox School’s brand and allow others to see Temple as a talent factory for technology and cyber security resources for many of the leading organizations of the world.”

ITACS program director David Lanter, an Assistant Professor of Management Information Systems at the Fox School, sought an advisory council chair with significant industry background who would be able to draw from his or her personal networks and utilize corporate resources. Lanter found that in Vanvaria.

“Kapish has been an enthusiastic and valued contributor to the start of the ITACS program (in 2011) and a key player in the current successes,” said Lanter. “We are optimistic he will do as much and even more to help guide the future evolution and success of the program.”

In addition to ensuring that Fox School students have a seat at the table in the development of the program, Vanvaria said he hopes to reach out to different organizations for insight on what they are looking for in future employees.

I want to go to these companies and governmental organizations and ask, ‘Does our curriculum match what you’re looking for, and if not, what can we do?’” he said. “We already do that within the advisory council because we have good representation of startup through Fortune 50 companies, but I know we can do more. I’m looking forward to that.”

In light of all the excitement around his appointment, Vanvaria said he wants to make one thing clear: the success of the council boils down to collaboration. “In becoming the chair, this is not going to change our advisory council from the standpoint of it truly being a team sport,” he said. “The program’s success is dependent on all of us joining together to consistently elevate the brand. Two years from now, I want to look back and say, ‘We made a difference.’

MIS senior presents research at major national conference

Erick KoeckReceiving notable recognition for a research paper is not what senior Eric Koeck originally set out to do.

What started as Koeck’s summer research project turned into a presentation he delivered at the 2017 Winter American Marketing Association (AMA) Conference in Orlando. The paper, “Tweets, Retweets, and the Brand Positioning of the 2016 U.S. Presidential Candidates,” is co-authored with two professors from Temple University’s Fox School of Business – Dr. David Schuff and Dr. Susan Mudambi.

Koeck, a 22-year-old senior who majors in Management Information Systems (MIS), utilized different tools to scour the Twitter feeds of each presidential candidate. Then, he analyzed the difference between word choice and how those words affected the virality of their tweets. To do this, candidates were split into two groups: insurgent candidates (or those who never held political office with their respective political parties) and establishment candidates (those who had).

“I’m very interested in data analytics and I wanted to complete a project that would give me the opportunity to work with that,” said Koeck, a Collegeville, Pa., native. “I was forming this project when the presidential primaries were in full swing. I’m interested in politics and an active Twitter user. It lined up nicely as something into which I could really immerse myself.”

The main findings, Koeck said, showed that insurgent candidates were more likely to express both positive and negative emotion, as well as gender references, while establishment candidates were more likely to express affiliation. In addition, the traits most positively linked to retweets were negative emotion and female gender references.

Impressed organizers of the AMA conference waived Koeck’s fee, and his travel expenses to and from the conference were sponsored by Temple’s Creative Arts, Research, And Scholarship program.

The three-day event provided eye-opening exposure for Koeck.

“It was a really great experience,” he said. “I learned a lot about academia and business research. One professor from a university in Canada asked me to send her my presentation, because she was interested in her students following the election closely.”

While Koeck remains humble, his capabilities, as they pertain to research, have not gone unnoticed.

“They were both wonderful,” Koeck said of working with Mudambi and Schuff, Professor of MIS. “Dr. Schuff has been mentoring me on this project the whole way through, and Dr. Mudambi helped us integrate different marketing concepts into the paper so that it was appropriate for AMA. Dr. Schuff’s work is relevant to my interest in analytics and statistics, which made sense for our collaboration. I was really glad when he agreed to work on this with me.”

As the trio work to get the paper published in an academic journal, Koeck prepares to present the project to state legislators at Temple Undergraduate Research Day April 24.

Future opportunities for Koeck, a graduating senior, already have sprouted. Said Koeck: “Starting in September, I’ll be working for PricewaterhouseCoopers in their Advanced Risk and Compliance Analytics practice. I interned there last summer and had a good experience so I’m excited to start my career there.”

— Carine Lavache

Professors Wattal and Greenwood receive fellowships

Professors Sunil Wattal and Brad Greenwood received prestigious named research fellowships at the Fox School’s Eighteenth Annual Research Roundtable and Teaching Awards on November 9th, 2016. These fellowships are only awarded to the top researchers in the school. In addition, a number of MIS faculty and doctoral students were also honored with research and teaching awards.

Richard J. Fox Research Fellow
Dr. Brad Greenwood

Irwin Gross Senior Research Fellow
Dr. Sunil Wattal

RESEARCH AWARD HONOREES

  • Dean’s Research Honor Roll
    Dr. Paul Pavlou
    Dr. Xueming Luo
  • Top 10 “Highly Cited” Faculty Members
    Dr. Angelika Dimoka
    Dr. Xueming Luo
    Dr. Paul Pavlou
    Dr. Detmar Straub
  • High Achievements in Sponsored Projects
    Dr. Angelika Dimoka
    Dr. Paul Pavlou
  • High Achievements in SSRN
    Dr. Brad Greenwood
    Dr. Xueming Luo
    Dr. Paul Pavlou
    Dr. Sunil Wattal

Doctoral Research Competition

  • FIRST YEAR WINNERS
    First Place: Xue Guo
  • SECOND YEAR WINNERS
    First Place: Aaron Cheng
  • DISSERTATION WINNERS
    First Place: Kartik Ganju
    Honorable Mention: Sungyong Um

TEACHING AWARDS HONOREES

  • Dr. Richard Flanagan
    MS Program in ITACS Professor of the Year Award
  • Prof. Wade Mackey
    MIS Part-Time Faculty Teaching Award
  • Dr. David Schuff
    MIS Full-Time Faculty Teaching Award
  • 2016 Departmental Adjunct Teaching Award for Excellence in the Classroom
    Prof. David McGettigan

New Online Master of Science Degree Combines Marketing and Technology

MS DIMIn Spring 2015, the Fox School of Business will offer a brand new Master of Science degree in Digital Innovation in Marketing–delivering all of its classes entirely online. The program is one of only a handful of graduate degrees in the country that explores the intersection between information systems and marketing.

Students pursuing the degree will become well-versed in new marketing innovations that extend to the mobile, social, analytical, and online spheres, integrating marketing, advertising, sales, and logistics across physical and digital channels.

“The demand for people with this overlapping skill set is huge,” said Bruce Hohne, the program’s Director, whose career has led him from Rohm and Haas to hibu to teaching full-time at Temple. “The field is growing and there hasn’t been much of a source of talent generation—until now.”

By harnessing the far-reaching power of online learning, and not requiring any on-site residency, the program will be maximally accessible to students. Those enrolled will reap the benefits of an online classroom environment that is ideal for teaching and engagement.

“The learning objectives will be tied to the style of delivery,” said Hohne, as he described some of the powerful learning tools at Fox’s disposal. These will include:

Bruce Hohne
Program Director Bruce Hohne

“Learnathons,” which will foster intense, concentrated interaction by utilizing web conferencing and small group sessions; co-creative tasks and self-study, which require that instructors and students generate, share, and comment on course content interactively, but on independent schedules; meet-ups, which comprise informal online discussions; and professional development tools like e-portfolios, identity management, career development, and interactions with potential employers.

The roster of professors who have signed on to teach the new curriculum are both academic thought leaders and “real-world practitioners,” poised to train students in the most current generation of tools and techniques available today. “They will draw from professional experience that extends far beyond the classroom,” said Hohne.

Post-graduation, the career possibilities are abundant. Armed with the new Master of Science degree, graduates will be primed for an enormous variety of paths, from marketing analysis to online marketing management to data science.

The Master of Science in Digital Innovation in Marketing is presented jointly by the Department of Marketing and Supply Chain Management and the Department of Management Information Systems.

For more information on the program or enrollment please visit here.

MIS Community v3.0

FOX MIS Connect InnovateThe third major revision of the MIS Community site has been finalized and deployed. The theme of this version is an intense focus on realizing the ‘community’ people-centric vision:

  • The home page layout is logically organized around News (on the left), In-depth content (middle), and Community (the sidebar on the right). This design metaphor is applied everywhere. For example, the BBA in MIS program page includes content on the left and (relevant) community on the right. If you are a top student, you might see yourself on there!
  • Every single page on the main site has been updated and is now focused on the community vision. Related to that, the new totals widget (top right of the home page) shows the full breadth of our community and all the items are clickable – click the “activity today…” to see what is going on today!
  • The new E-portfolio wire showcases the professional interests and accomplishments of students. If a student adds a skill, job interest, updates their job status, changes their major, or submits their e-portfolio. You will see it first on the e-portfolio wire!
  • The site has been re-architected from the ground up to increase performance. You have likely seen performance improvements in the last few weeks. They include (a) a mobile responsive theme that will adjust to different devices, screen sizes, and connection speeds (try the site on your mobile device), (b) custom developed plugins by the MIS department that add community relevant features, (c) feed aggregation that allows us to continue integrating multiple sources of content through RSS but without the performance hit. This was a massive behind the scene effort and critical toward allowing us scale the site and concept.
  • Social integration, so that you can leave comments on the site or push pages to the main social platforms (e.g., Facebook). The department also has related sites on Facebook, LinkedIn, and Flickr.
  • We will be rolling out more updates in the next few weeks as well as new student e-portfolio themes. We are also starting to help other academic units at Temple catch the community wave, but the MIS community site was the first and will remain the gold standard! Stay tuned.

The MIS community site is a unique learning, collaboration, and social platform; there is no other like it. And now it is better and even closer to the community vision.

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