Connect and innovate with an elite information systems program
This project is meant to summarize the teachings of MIS 2402, Web Applications Development, in a single page. For this code, I worked in JavaScript using elements like functions, loops, conditional statements, and jQuery. I enjoyed working with a relevant dataset like this and learning a bit about how other countries are handling the pandemic.
My project can be found at this link.
Last year, the MIS department began previewing several redesigned courses, and this fall the new curriculum has been officially rolled out in full. The introductory course, Digital Systems, teaches basic programming skills to all business students, regardless of major. It’s a new approach that will give Fox students a competitive edge after graduation.
“There’s been a push that MBAs should know how to code, and we’re bringing that thinking to our undergradates,” says David Schuff, Professor and Chair of the Department of Management Information Systems. “Some other business school programs start with basic computer literacy, but we’re asking, ‘What’s the next generation of tools and skills?’”
Digital Systems provides an overview of how businesses use technology in today’s economy. The first two-thirds of the course help students get a grasp of the big ideas in an active learning environment. Through hands-on, in-class assignments, students practice applying the concepts they’re learning, including programming.
“It represents a shift from a project-management focus to a product-management focus,” says Schuff.
During the final third of the course, students learn to code using JavaScript to build a digital product of their own. Their final project challenges students to make a tool that can rank potential investors in a fictional firm in terms of various functions like income, assets, and debt. “Their job is to write those functions,” says Steven Sclarow, Assistant Professor of MIS and the course coordinator.
“In the past, coding assignments taught concepts without putting the business perspective on it,” says Sclarow. “Our approach uses an overarching narrative throughout the course to help students see how it relates to them and digital product management,” he says.
The prospect can be daunting for some students, especially outside MIS, but completing the project gives them not only important new skills, but also confidence. And for MIS students, this introduction prepares them expertly for what’s to come: more advanced courses on API-based software development, user experience, and cybersecurity.
“The new Digital Systems course is the latest example of how Temple’s MIS department prepares students for the workforce,” says Bruce Fadem, chair of the IT Advisory Board and retired VP and CIO of Wyeth.
“All business students are going to encounter digital systems, no matter what job they have,” says Sclarow. And Schuff emphasizes this point: “If you’re in accounting or finance, you might have a need to do process automation. In marketing, you might need to manipulate data to do analyses. Programming is becoming an essential tool to do these things yourself.”
This semester, the MIS major introduces exciting new content to prepare students for the emerging API economy. A three-course series emphases application development and cloud software deployment, enhancing learning while building skills and confidence. “This sequence emphasizes the interconnectedness of the information. Now it’s not like three 15-week courses, it’s like a single 45-week course that goes from one semester to the next,” says professor Jeremy Shafer, who teaches both the first and third courses in the series.
The first course introduces cloud application programming and JavaScript, but it provides a more holistic view than typical JavaScript classes. This course introduces the idea that a programmer can reach into the cloud for an API and use it in the application at hand. “There’s the code you write, and then there are the resources out there in the cloud for you to bring in and leverage,” says Shafer.
The second course explores networking basics and cloud platforms. “We teach them how to build a very simple API and deploy it on the infrastructure they build,” says David Schuff, professor and chair of the MIS Department, who teaches a section of this course.
Professor Mart Doyle also teaches this second course. “But it’s in the third course that students really bring everything together,” says Doyle. “In the final course, we write an API from scratch. If you understand both halves of the process, and you can put your own API endpoint out in the cloud, there’s nothing you can’t build,” says Shafer.
One powerful shift that separates the Fox School from a typical MIS curriculum is the use of JavaScript across the sequence. “If you use a different computer language in every course, you spend a lot of instructional time just getting used to the language. By investing in one language across the three courses, we give introductory instruction once and build on it,” says Shafer.
A focus on the API economy also unifies this series. Modern businesses mix and match APIs with their own custom-coded tools to solve problems. “It’s no longer a choice between building it all from scratch or buying something out of the box,” says Schuff. Through this series, students learn the end-to-end process. “They learn the business thinking behind it,” says Schuff.
This sequence gives students a number of advantages after graduation. “Our students can have an insightful conversation about how to leverage the cloud to deploy APIs and how to design an application that scales,” says Doyle.
“Students who go through this sequence are coming away with something that will set them apart from their peers from other schools,” says Shafer. “Not everyone is being as aggressive as we are at conveying these ideas.”
The MIS Helpdesk for Coding is a resource for MIS students who are new to programming and web development. It is primarily a resource for students who are in MIS2402 and MIS2101.
If an MIS student needs assistance with the programming tasks related to those classes, they are encouraged to stop by and pay the helpdesk a visit!
The helpdesk consultants are MIS undergraduate students. They can assist with basic questions related to: HTML, CSS, Bootstrap, JavaScript, and jQuery. They can also help their peers read error messages and understand what to do about them!
MIS students who visit the helpdesk are encouraged to ask the consultants questions that are focused on a specific error or task. Broad questions (such as “Can you teach me JavaScript?”) are not appropraite for the helpdesk environment. The consultants may offer direction, advice and/or clarifying remarks, but they are not there to (re)teach material that was already presented in the classroom.
No helpdesk consultation should exceed 20 minutes.
Regarding student laptop problems and/or problems with course-related software: the helpdesk consultants will (of course) offer friendly advice regarding any specific problem. However, their role is not to install or configure software for their fellow students. Helpdesk consultants do not repair or service hardware.
The goal of this project was to demonstrate how an API can be used. In order to do so, I used Javascript to create a page that displays dinosaur species that have been discovered relatively near the user’s location using the Google Geolocation and GeoCoding API as well as the Paleobiology Database API. My page ended up doing exactly this though it could use some adjusting. The address that is displayed is not perfectly accurate to the user’s location and the area created to find dinosaurs within varies in distance, since the measures are in latitude and longitude. While it still needs work, I think the project perfectly displays my proof of concept for a program that can identify dinosaurs nearby based on a user’s location.
http://misdemo.temple.edu/tug58991/pro_points_paleo_api/
This project focused on WordPress, specifically coding on top of WordPress, to showcase the platform’s customizability. The platform allows users to customize the blocks of text easily to display html, CSS and user-written JavaScript. I showcased this using a locally-hosted version of WordPress and a small sample JavaScript code. The site also allows for theme customization and includes CSS editing to change the theme, and therefore your text site-wide. I learned the application of these techniques and they will be helpful to know when I need to work with WordPress again, or in web design at large.
Watch the video here: http://community.mis.temple.edu/kdigirolamo/project-highlights/
The nationally recognized Bachelors of Business Administration in Management Information Systems (MIS) produces digital leaders who design, architect, and manage API-driven products. These products apply APIs, cloud, cyber-security, agile, user experience, and analytics to achieve business outcomes.
The BBA in MIS is a STEM program that provides access to STEM and MIS scholarships.
In today’s digital ecosystem of software-based services, MIS students imagine, create, and deploy API-driven digital products and services to create value for consumers and businesses.
MIS students are poised to take on product management roles applying their skills to take innovative digital ideas from inception to successful use and profitability.
Learn to design, build, deploy, secure, and evaluate API-driven, cloud-based software applications that achieve business goals, meet requirements, deliver a positive user experience, and execute reliably at scale. MIS will prepare you to:
Design software applications that meet requirements and are enjoyable to use employing state-of-the-art UX techniquesMore information, including course numbers, full course descriptions, and prerequisites, is available through the Temple Bulletin.
MIS majors benefit from the innovative patent-pending PRO – professional achievement program:
MIS BBA majors get placed in the top firms in the region and nationally. Learn about careers in IS and participate in the MIS Career Fair which provides exclusive one-stop placement and internship opportunities for MIS students. The Temple University led ISJobIndex.com project provides national level data on jobs in the IS field:
The top IS jobs are:
Source: IS Job Index, http://isjobindex.com
Win prizes and gain recognition in national, and local analytics and entrepreneurial competitions.If you are a high performing motivated student – we want to recruit you – please contact Joseph Allegra at jallegra@temple.edu
