On February 18, 2020 the MIS Department held it’s 20th Anniversary Alumni Happy Hour at Yards Brewery in Philadelphia.
Student portfolio
Web API – Cat Fact Generator
- Link to project: http://misdemo.temple.edu/tug91409/cat%20fact/
- I chose this API, found at https://catfact.ninja/fact, because it is perfectly useless. I love that someone took the time to create a Web API that generates cat facts, even though there is no real reason for it to exist. This API can also generate information on cat breeds if you substitute /fact with /breeds, as well as generate multiple cat facts at a time if you write /facts instead of /fact.
- Some possible applications are:
- Rescue groups could feature this API on their websites to engage users while they search for adoptable cats.
- Companies like National Geographic, Animal Planet, and kid-focused science website could feature this API to teach adults and children more about cats.
test
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Sunil Wattal explores the frontier of digital transformation
Fifteen years ago, it was possible to do strategic planning on a five-year timeline. That was before technology changed the global economic landscape. For some, this constant disruption brings frustration. But not for Sunil Wattal, Associate Professor of MIS at the Fox School. “Digital transformation—that’s the thing I love most,” he says.
Wattal’s research has appeared in prestigious journals including Management Science, MIS Quarterly and Information Systems Research. He’s interested in social computing and innovation in the tech sector. “Most of my work has been on online consumer behavior and the different phenomena in how people behave online,” he explains.
Over the course of his career, his research projects have tracked with seismic changes in trends. Some of his early research examined email marketing; it showed that consumers responded negatively when companies used their names in sales emails. Later, his attention turned to crowdfunding and ridesharing platforms.
Wattal and his colleagues were among the first to research crowdfunding back in 2013. “We looked at Spot.US, a donation-based platform to fund journalism,” says Wattal. An analysis of data from the platform showed how seeing the giving behavior of others—each donation amount was visible on the website—affected consumer behavior.
“We thought that seeing a lot of people contributing would make someone more likely to contribute,” says Wattal. To his surprise, the research found that the reverse is true. People seem to want to give where their gift has more impact, not to a project that already has plenty of funding. That study also revealed that projects that took longer to get funded got more reader engagement than ones that were funded quickly.
Another of Wattal’s notable projects revealed how the introduction of Uber in a city impacted drunk driving fatalities. “We worked with data from the California Highway Patrol as well as publicly available data from Uber,” he says. The research found that when Uber enters a city, drunk driving fatalities are reduced by 3 to 5 percent.
Today, Wattal’s research has pivoted to answer emerging questions. How do consumers react when a company uses its Facebook fan page to push them to an e-commerce platform? Preliminary findings suggest that shoppers on average may not like it, and may unsubscribe from the fan page. He’s also interested in cryptocurrency. “What are the factors that make an ICO successful? Do social media mentions play a role?” he asks.
“Whenever you digitize something, you are not only making it more convenient but you’re also creating all this data and opportunities for research,” says Wattal. “Things are getting transformed in such a way that the next few years are unimaginable.” And for him, nothing could be more exciting.
Big Data
Through this project, I was able to learn about and discuss big data. I talked about how big data is relevant to MIS 2502 and how it has been applied in practice.
Cleansing Big Data
In this project, our task was to scrape a website with notable celebrity deaths and create insights from it. To do this project, we utilized Python to scrape the Wikipedia Page, and Excel to clean and chart our data. Our project URL is http://project.mis.temple.edu/cleansingbigdata/ . I learned a lot from this project. The main thing I learned is Python. Going into the project, I had never worked with Python before, but this project gave me a great introduction to it and gave me the chance to establish a foundation in python if I ever use it in the future. I also learned more advanced excel formulas and functions. While I had strong Excel skills going into the project, I solidified and strengthened those skills through my work. Overall, this was an excellent project and a great way to wrap up my MIS coursework.
DLL Express E-Doc Application
- Include the goals, results, project URL (if applicable), and what you learned in a brief paragraph.
- The goal of this project was to create a streamlined, embedded solution for DLL’s vendor sales reps. The current process is slow and involves lots of paper, so the point of the solution was to help take DLL away from paper transactions to fully digitally-funded deals.
- The results after soft implementation saw sales reps being able to fund deals faster, freeing up time in their days to work on more important tasks.
- I learned how to use DocuSign and Excel in ways I haven’t before during the building of this solution.
- Once approved, the description is automatically displayed in a post on your e-portfolio.
Prototype for Pro Points
The goal of this project was to take a process at a previous job That I found to be inefficient and to design a new system that would improve the process. For this project I created a prototype for a new training process to be used in Walgreens stores as the current process was often the source of frustration while I worked there. This project further reinforced things that I had learned during the class about scoping a project, developing use cases, developing data masters, and creating a prototype.
RockPaperScissors Client/Server Game
- The goal was to use the tools we learned in class and make a working game through a webpage that is hosted/run on a Virtual Machine. By using our Virtual Machine (IIS Server) we were to use node.js to run a JavaScript program through a webpage we created through HTML. I added inbound/outbound port rules to allow established connections to be able to properly run the game through the webpage. I needed the web page to display the buttons properly and, when clicked, display an alert to let the user know the result of whether they won the game or not (by picking rock, paper, or scissors). The result was that I was able to successfully get the webpage and the game to work, whilst running the IIS server through my Virtual Machine. I was able to add new rules for ports and placed the HTML and JS files in their rightful locations in order to have the game work properly. I learned that this whole process is very versatile, during the course of the semester we learned both Virtual Machines (Azure), and coding (node.js), however we learned them separately. This exercise helped combine the two and show what’s possible with what we can work with. I also learned how important adding inbound/outbound port rules were, in order to allow connections to be able to run any webpages, programs, or games that you make.
- Once approved, the description is automatically displayed in a post on your e-portfolio.
Cleansing Big Data
http://project.mis.temple.edu/purifieddata/
The goal of this project was to convert unstructured data scraped from Wikipedia regarding thousands of notable deaths into a data set that is able to be used for statistical analysis. Through iterative sprints, the team and I created project documentation, assigned roles, learned a new coding language, and worked together to create a structured data set. We learned the value of teamwork and research, in addition to the value of communication among team members. We also learned how to leverage each individual’s skills to achieve our goal. This project allowed us to use our knowledge to solve a problem end-to-end through development and project management. Please check out the project website to see further information and documentation.
Marie-Christine Martin’s MIS4596 class
