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Munir Mandviwalla receives grant from SIM to develop social media strategic framework

Munir MandviwallaThe Society for Information Management (SIM) Advanced Practices Council (APC) has awarded Dr. Munir Mandviwalla, a $25,000 grant (to follow a previous $5,000 grant) to develop “The social layer opportunity: A strategic framework to identify and manage the social media portfolio.”

SIM is an international professional association with about 3500 members and SIM APC Member firms include PepsiCo, MRIS, Air Products and Chemicals, UMass Memorial Healthcare, Pfizer, Dean Foods, Allstate, NASA, Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Ford Foundation, Aviall, Armstrong World Industries, Leviton, Boehringer-Ingelheim, International Monetary Fund, AstraZeneca, Penske, Roche Diagnostics, Freddie Mac, Talisman Energy, Aon, and others.

Professor Pavlou proposes new directions for research on information privacy

Paul PavlouProfessor Paul Pavlou assesses the state of research on information privacy and applies an integrative perspective to propose new research directions in a forthcoming article. The new directions include improving the tools to implement privacy, creating measures of privacy that incorporate multiple levels of thinking and analysis, and identifying strategies and concepts that influence willingness to share information.

The article proposes a multi-disciplinary approach to future research that goes beyond definitions and individual beliefs and addresses important outcomes such as business value, information assurance and risk, standards, and how privacy influences and changes marketing and transactional relationships between firms and customers.

The article titled “State of the Information Systems Literature on Information Privacy: Where Are We Now and Where Should We Go” has been accepted for publication in Management Information Systems Quarterly (MISQ).

Professor Pavlou questions the role of trust and risk in online marketplaces

Paul PavlouProfessor Paul Pavlou in a forthcoming study challenges the prevalent assumption that trust and risk are always influential on transaction decisions, and that there is always a need to build trust and reduce risk irrespective of context. The study specifies the boundaries of trust and risk on transaction activity in the context of the two largest online marketplaces, Amazon and eBay.

The study shows that the effects of trust and risk are actually only important in a rather narrow window where the institutional structures are moderately effective, while the effects of trust and risk are insignificant for both very effective or very ineffective institutional structures. This quadratic (“Inverted-U”) pattern suggests that the literature may have over-emphasized the role of trust and risk and ignored the role of the marketplace’s institutional context.

From a practical sense, by ignoring the trade-off in the design of institutional structures to optimize the effects of trust and risk, the results suggest that online marketplaces may have over-invested in institutional structures to build trust and reduce risk.

By specifying the boundaries of trust and risk, this study aims at sensitizing managers about the trade-offs in the design of institutional structures in online marketplaces.

The article (co-authored with David Gefen) titled “The Boundaries of Trust and Risk: The Quadratic Moderating Role of Institutional Structures” has been accepted for publication in Information Systems Research (ISR).

Get jobs and internships by managing your digital identity and the new portfolio concept

FoxMIS e-portfolioA quick Google and Facebook search is all it takes to learn a lot about a person or a firm. Branding was always important for large firms but now each individual and every firm is a ‘brand’ – and that brand or digital identity will directly impact your career and job search. Students are particularly vulnerable to ‘branding’ (both positive and negative) because you come to college with at least a ‘Facebook’ brand. The MIS Community site offers a number of new tools that you can use to take charge of your brand and participate in the overall community.

E-portfolios

An e-portfolio, also known as an electronic resume, is a collection of documents about your individual skill sets and body of work. You can use an e-portfolio to actively control and manage your digital identity and reputation so that you can get the best job and internship. The e-portfolio is intended to be more formal than a Facebook page but more creative and open than a LinkedIn page. E-portfolios are a required assignment in MIS 2101 starting in fall 2011 and as part of that we are now ready to roll out version 2 of the e-portfolio concept:

  • New custom design student e-portfolio themes with detailed instructions and templates and a list of common mistakes. Are you still using the old student theme from last year?
  • New workshops and tutorials (stay tuned for announcements)
  • A redesigned e-portfolio site through which students can easily submit e-portfolios’ for listing (for prospective employers)
  • A new search engine for employers to locate students. The search engine uses profile fields to show status, interest, type of job, skills and other relevant criteria. To show up in this search engine, you must submit your e-portfolio for listing per the above. If you have already listed your e-portfolio see below on how you can update your status and profile.Fox MIS eportfolio simple

Profile fields

Fox MIS Community Site Profile FieldsProfile fields are a key element of social media sites such as Facebook and LinkedIn – this is how people find you, learn your status, and how the software automatically suggests new contacts. Profile fields can serve a career placement function when they are used with e-portfolios to quickly find people based on employment status, looking for a job or not, looking for full-time or part-time jobs, experience, type of job interest (e.g., developer vs. analyst), and skills and interests (e.g., auditing, cyber-security, social media, etc.). Profiles about each person are also relevant to us as members of the extended MIS community – the above information is what binds us together professionally and is different from what we would normally use to identify people at the Facebook (if we limit it to friends and family) and LinkedIn (if we limit it to established career networking) levels.

The FoxMIS community site profile fields are now fully enabled and set up. You can set your profile by logging in to the site, clicking on ‘My Account’ at the top of the screen and then selecting ‘Profile’ and ‘Edit Profile.’ On the resulting screen, click on ‘Professional Details’ to set your profile. There you will see two parts that you need to update—base and professional details. You can ignore all the fields that are not relevant to you. What is exciting is that once you have for example, selected a particular skill or interest, you can later click on that item and see all the people who are interested in that area. That moves us closer to being a real community!

Analytics

Analytics provides the tools to evaluate the results of designing digital identities and a feedback loop back into search engine optimization (SEO) and reputation management. The MIS Community site is setup to use Google Analytics which will allow you to see the ‘hits’ you are generating on your e-portfolio and the demographics of where those hits are coming from. You will learn how to use Google Analytics in MIS 2101. If you have already taken MIS 2101, please contact one of your professors who can provide you with the information on how to setup Google Analytics.

Coming soon – Portfolio requirement and an achievement and point system

In a completely flat world, how do you gain recognition? What can we do to further support the best students? We are working on implementing a portfolio requirement (initially only for the MIS major) that is based on a point system modeled on the ‘achievement and status’ metaphor used by gaming sites and like everything else we do – it will be on the MIS community site, completely open, and flat.

A portfolio requirement means that the student completes a series of tasks and activities outside of regular class work as part of their graduation requirement. Potential portfolio requirements include both micro and macro level tasks such as:

  • An internship, project-based internship, or service learning
  • An e-portfolio including online resume and online projects
  • Updated profile fields on the MIS community site
  • Completing workshops offered by the Center for Student Professional Development (CSPD)
  • Posting comments across class sites
  • Participation in activities of the Association for Information Systems (AIS)
  • A final project that is eligible for awards and seed money funding

Students will be required to achieve point levels through online, off-line, departmental, AIS, and school wide activities before they can progress through the curriculum and the points will be maintained and highlighted online. We will be soliciting input from students (through AIS) to finalize the list above.

Professor Youngjin Yoo receives major grant to establish Urban Apps Studio

Youngjin YooCenter for Design + InnovationThe Center for Design + Innovation, led by Professor Youngjin Yoo, and the Institute for Innovation and Entrepreunership has received a $500,000 grant from the U.S. Economic Development Administration (EDA)  to establish the Urban Apps & Maps Studio. In collaboration with Temple University’s Computer & Information Sciences, Electrical Engineering, Geography and Urban Studies, and Tyler School of Arts, Urban Apps & Maps will become a platform for urban digital entrepreneurship.

Over the next five years, the Interdisciplinary team of faculty members of the Urban Apps & Maps will work with graduate student fellows, undergraduate student fellows and high school fellows to teach how to build apps to address urgent human needs in urban environments and launch new businesses based on those apps. Urban Apps & Maps studio will work closely with Code for America. The ultimate goal is establish a vibrant urban ecosystem for digital entrepreneurship in North Philadelphia.

Read the full story here.

New MS prepares students for careers in protecting information systems

 MS IT auditing

The Fox School’s Department of Management Information Systems is pleased to announce that admissions for spring and fall 2012 are now open for a new Master of Science program – MS in Information Technology Auditing and Cyber-Security (MS ITACS). The new MS will prepare students for careers  in protecting and evaluating organizational information systems. IT auditing offers one of the fastest growing and highest paying jobs in the market.

The MS ITACS will produce entry-level IT auditors who have the skills and knowledge needed to pass the Information Systems Audit and Control Association’s (ISACA) Certified Information System Auditor exam. 

For more information view the Fox School’s announcement or the recent article in the Bucks County Courier Times.

To apply and learn more, visit http://community.mis.temple.edu/MSITACS.

New opportunities for internship and work experience in MIS

The Fox School’s Institute for Business and Information Technology is pleased to announce a program for industry to engage with students. The program termed “industry experience” provides students with new options to gain ‘experiential’ – on the job learning. The highly customizable and flexible program provides employers with access to student employees. The IBIT industry experience consists of three different types of internships:

  • Traditional internships in which students are employed on site, have a fixed schedule, and a general supervisor and mentor.
  • Project-based internships in which students interact with the firm on a project basis, follow a flexible schedule, work on-site and off-site, and have a project-based supervisor.
  • Service learning internships in which students work on a community-service project that is of interest to the employees of the firm.

Students receive academic credit and will register for a class that is graded as part of the industry experience. The instructor will provide the overall structure for the experience, the employer is responsible for supervising the student.  For more information, please visit:
http://ibit.temple.edu/industryexperience/

Fox MIS alumnus Niraj Patel donates $50K for scholarship fund

Niraj PatelFox School of Business alumnus Niraj Patel recently donated $50,000 to create a scholarship fund for outstanding students in Management Information Systems (MIS). Two $5,000 scholarships will be awarded annually.

Patel has been an avid supporter of the MIS Department since its founding and sits on the department’s Advisory Board. “The Fox MIS program is one of the most innovative and exciting in the nation, especially with the new BBA in MIS,” Patel said. “I am very pleased to support the entrepreneurial and hardworking students at Temple Fox MIS.”

Since graduating from Fox in 1990 with a degree in MIS and finance, Patel has built a distinguished career. He serves as president of ISGN, a partner of Witmer LLC and managing director of the Musser Group. As a multi-national border expert, he has a strong client base in India and has completed large-scale projects bridging nations.

Previously, Patel served as a founding member and executive vice president/chief information officer for GMAC Commercial Mortgage. There, he increased loan originations from $2 billion to $29.9 billion.

Patel, an award-winning innovator, is viewed as one of the leading technologists of his generation. He serves on numerous boards and panels, speaks at industry conferences and has been quoted by The Wall Street Journal and numerous commercial real estate, finance and technology publications

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