News: Students travel to compete

Students and faculty from the Department of Information Systems distinguished themselves this month by attracting the attention of a major media outlet, winning awards and qualifying to test their mettle in competitions.

Students and faculty from the Department of Information Systems distinguished themselves this month by attracting the attention of a major media outlet, winning awards and qualifying to test their metal in competitions.

Student teams compete

Two student teams will be showcasing what they’ve learned at two separate competitions this spring. One team is going to the National MIS Case Competition — CoMIS — in Minneapolis, March 25 through 28. According to the CoMIS website, teams of three undergraduates from top business schools “will have 24 hours to read the case and develop their solution. Teams will then present their recommendations to the CoMIS judging panel in a 20 minute presentation, 10 minutes Q&A format on Saturday morning. The top team from each group will present in the final round on Saturday afternoon.” Winners will be announced at the Saturday evening banquet. Representing the Department of Information Systems are: Laura Gagliano, a member of last year’s team, Ioannis Kaneris, Manoj Panikkar and Emily Pariott, who is serving as an alternate and is expected to return next year to help lead. A second team will be competing in the Association for Information Systems student chapter competition, to be held at the AIS Student Chapter Leadership Conference at the University of Alabama on April 9-11, 2015. Last year the W. P. Carey School hosted this conference. This year’s competition includes the QVC Analytics Challenge, which challenges students to create data visualizations with real-world data sets from companies such as Merck & Co. Inc, QVC, NBC Universal and Lockheed Martin to solve a real-world problem. Students competing at the AIS conference include Felicia Utami, Corey Rizzi-Wise and Chad Tialino.

New faculty member receives dissertation award

Assistant Professor Yili (Kevin) Hong is the winner of the 2014 ACM SIGMIS Doctoral Dissertation Award, which was presented at the International Conference on Information Systems annual meeting in New Zealand. Hong’s dissertation, “Understanding Global Frictions, Auction Design and Consumer Surplus in Online Labor Markets for IT Services” was nominated for the award by his dissertation chairman, Paul A. Pavlou, at the Fox School of Business at Temple University, where Hong completed his Ph.D. last year. A summary of his dissertation follows: “Ubiquitous access to the Internet and supporting technologies gave birth to online labor markets, which enables the matching of employers (buyers) and service providers from anywhere in the world. Firms now are able to greatly expand their workforce and bring a large arsenal of labor to bear on IT jobs, such as software or web development using Internet-enabled procurement platforms such as Freelancer. My dissertation comprehensively studies this Internet-enabled phenomenon from the perspectives of these three entities (employers, providers and the marketplace) in global online markets with three related essays that provide a deeper understanding of global frictions, auction design and consumer surplus.” Hong, who joined the Department of Information Systems last fall, also the runner up for the INFORMS ISS Nunamaker—Chen Dissertation Award. KnowIT featured his research in December: How forums and photos sell goods online.

Springing ahead on careers

More than 300 students turned out for the 2015 Information Systems Spring Career Mixer on February 2. W. P. Carey students attending the fall and spring mixers are the undergraduates working toward the Bachelor of Science in Computer Information Systems and the Bachelor of Science in Business Data Analytics, and graduate students pursuing the Master of Science in Information Systems, Master of Science in Business Analytics and the MBA with a concentration in information management. The mixer is a must-attend event for more than 40 companies, who use the gathering as an opportunity to meet students that may be candidates for internships and hiring. The Fall Career Mixer will be on September 28, 2015 at the Memorial Union. For answers to questions or to register, companies may contact Karen Stark, Karen.D.Stark@asu.edu student services coordinator.

Featured in the media

Research by Professor Raghu Santanam and doctoral candidate Gun Woong Lee was featured in Forbes Magazine. The research explores how developers can score a win in the saturated mobile apps market.

DISC plans a busy spring

The Department of Information Systems Club (DISC), which includes business data analytics majors as well as computer information systems, has re-engineered its Thursday weekly meetings, offering visiting companies an opportunity to engage with students via technology-themed games as well as presentations. This spring, DISC members are also continuing to teach technology classes at the Tempe Public Library, and on Fridays they visit companies for site tours. In March they will elect new officers to serve during the 2015-2016 academic year.

If your company would like to engage with this talented group, contact Vi TranLe, the club’s vice president of corporate relations, at vpcrasudisc@gmail.com.