College of Information
Science
and Technology
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Visit our home page at www.ist.unomaha.edu
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IS&T students learn while
serving Omaha community
James
Peters knows the value of the work he, Piyush Shah and other students at the
College of Information Science & Technology (IS&T) did for the City
of Omaha when they designed and developed the Web-based information systems
that give citizens access to the Mayor's Hotline via the Internet.
That's because he's used the Internet hotline himself—to
report graffiti along the Keystone Trail.
"It works very well,"
Peters says (pictured above at left with Shah, center, and Dufner). "The City
responds quickly."
Making it easier for Omahans to report and track
comments and complaints made electronically to the Mayor's Hotline is just
one example of the service learning projects undertaken by the students of
Dr. Donna Dufner, associate professor of Information Systems and Quantitative
Analysis (ISQA) at IS&T.
The service learning aspect
of Dufner's classes unites bright, eager students with clients throughout the
city whose needs vary from basic computer training to the development and
implementation of complex integrated systems.
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• IS&T interns, Gallup partner on
high-tech visualization lab
• Wolcott article tops journal's download list
• AIM Institute names UNO student intern of the year
• AMCIS conference held at Qwest
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These projects frequently generate
other opportunities, such as jobs or internships, because the clients are so
satisfied with the products that they want to hire the students.
"It's quality work from start to finish, something these
clients would have to pay a consultant $1,000 a day to develop," Dufner says.
In addition to the satisfaction that accompanies a
successful project, the students receive a Presidential Service Award,
including a pin and a letter from President Bush.
Dufner is a veteran of the corporate world, having worked
15 years in the information technology industry for AT&T, Chemical Bank
Corp., ARDIS (a joint venture of IBM and Motorola), Bell Atlantic Nynex, the
City of Omaha, and Douglas County, Neb.
A native of Greensburg, Pa., she holds an MS in computer
and information science from the New Jersey Institute of Technology, an MBA
from the University of Chicago, and a Ph.D. in computer and information science
management from Rutgers. She is a certified Project Management Professional.
She decided to make the switch to teaching after receiving
her PhD in 1996. "It was a good decision, because the students love the fact I
have real industry experience."
Before joining UNO in 2000, Dufner taught for three years
at the University of Illinois, where in 1998 she was named a University Scholar
for excellence in teaching and research, the highest honor awarded by the
university.
"I loved the University of Illinois," she says. "My main
incentive to come to UNO was that the job involved working in the community
through service learning projects. I need that. I need more than just the
classroom teaching."
Her areas of expertise are telecommunications and
information systems design, development and implementation. Her professional
and research interests include project management, public sector information
technology, virtual "collaboratories" and asynchronous learning networks.
In training students to one day work with big-budget
information and telecommunications systems, they also must learn how to deal
with clients and project managers, those who are stakeholders in the in the
outcome. Not all clients are as high profile as the City of Omaha. Some, such
as those who are the subject of this fall's service learning projects in south
Omaha, are small business owners and entrepreneurs.
"Some of it amounts to teaching basic word processing
skills and publishing skills, things they can apply to their new businesses,"
Dufner says. "For many of our clients this fall, we're basically opening the
door to communications."
Many of the clients are Spanish-speaking and must learn
through an interpreter, Dufner says. "This is a marvelous way for them to learn
about a part of the community they are not familiar with. Some of our students
are from small towns and have had very limited exposure to the many ethnic
groups we have in Omaha.
"The students are very excited about these projects. They
are looking forward to the cross-cultural experience, as well as the learning
experience."
Students involved in the fall course come mainly from
IS&T, with more than half from the UNO Honors program. "So we're sending
the very best we have to offer out into the community," Dufner says.
The benefits are many.
"The students are able to serve the community, and in the
process they learn what service means and how to integrate it into their
lives," Dufner says. "I think that through service learning projects, we're
turning out more well-rounded people, in terms of their contributions to
society."
Dufner says she was very involved in community service
projects when she worked in the corporate world. "I just brought it with me
when I started teaching."
She continues to develop her own sense of community, both
through her students' work and through programs in Omaha, such as her
participation in the 2004-2005 Leadership Omaha program.
Sponsored by the Greater Omaha Chamber of Commerce
Foundation, Leadership Omaha is a community leadership training program designed
to motivate individuals to develop a sense of community trusteeship, encourage
participants to assume leadership roles in community affairs, develop
participant awareness of the Omaha community, and provide opportunities for
communication between emerging and established leadership.
The work with the Mayor's Hotline was the result of
pro-bono work Dufner had done for the mayor's office. She had worked as the
project manager for a public information system for the juvenile justice
system, one that would link several sources of information into one, providing
a more complete background about offenders.
Making the Mayor's Hotline available via the Internet
allows citizens to easily report complaints and track the progress of their
report. It provides a tracking number that is used to ensure no complaint goes
unattended.
Peters, 25, earned his master's degree in management
information systems (MIS) from UNO in May. He says the Mayor's Hotline project
provided real-time practical training and an opportunity to represent the
university. "It was a good experience."
Shah, a 25-year-old from Bombay, India, who earned his
master's degree in MIS from UNO in 2004, says the service learning project was
personally rewarding. A federal grant paid for Peter's and Shah's time and
tuition costs.
"I learned a lot, starting with how to talk to and deal
with the users," Shah says. "The whole project involved a lot of presentations
which definitely improved my skills in communication, technology, project
management and scheduling. And, I was able to help develop an excellent product
that benefits the City of Omaha and the Omaha citizens."
Through
serving learning projects like this, Dufner says, success is shared by
students, clients and the community.
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Fulkerson finds his dreams in the
classroom
About 10 years ago, Robert Fulkerson was working at a
telecommunications company when some friends approached him about starting an
Internet Service Provider.
Trouble was, the time commitment for a new business would
conflict with his job. That's when a friend told him there was a teaching
position open at UNO.
"I thought, 'Hey, if I got a job
as a teacher I'd have all this free time to start up a multimillion-dollar
business,'" Fulkerson recalls.
He got the UNO job, and it didn't take long for reality to
slap him hard in the face. "After working 70 hours a week for a year at both
jobs, I realized teaching was not the dream job I thought of."
Today, he's still at UNO, working as a full-time
instructor in the College of Information Science & Technology.
It isn't that he abandoned his dreams. He simply replaced
them with new ones.
"Teaching ended up being what I love more than what I
thought I was going to love," he says.
Fulkerson is more than a teacher. He's a popular teacher, a wise, witty and
imaginative one whom students remember long after they receive their final
grade. In 1999 he was nominated for the Excellence in Teaching Award, and he
received the Alumni Outstanding Teaching Award.
Fulkerson, 34, is an Omaha native and a 1989 graduate of
Millard South. He attended Creighton University and received his bachelor's
degree in computer science. He's says he's ABT (All But Thesis) away from
receiving his master's in computer science, also from Creighton.
He is a good teacher for many reasons, not the least of
which is that he remembers what it's like to be a college student. "I started
teaching at 24 years old. I was just a few years older than most of my
students. I realized then that I shouldn't ever forget what it was like to be a
student. If I do, I'll lose them."
He describes himself as "student-centric."
"I focus on the class. If I stand in front of them and
say, 'This is how you do a loop,' that's boring. They might as well bring
pillows and blankets to class. I want them to be engaged."
Core students in information technology classes, he
explains, are computer science and management information systems (MIS) majors.
But the classes also draw from other disciplines, including geography, geology,
math and education.
"With that diverse an audience, which is exactly what a
class is, an audience, I've got to make it entertaining as well as informative
or they won't even attempt to go beyond what's on the page."
People ask how he can teach an introductory class semester
after semester.
"It's because every year, there are one or two students
who dazzle me. They wrap their brain around something a little differently, and
they come up with a solution that's way out of the box. That's when I say,
'Yes!' That's what I was looking for—someone to look at programming
differently.
"I tell them right from the start, 'Don't expect it all to
be fun and games. But it will be as interesting as you want to make it.' The
challenge is mine as well. Not that I can win over everybody. But those who
come into my class that are on the edge or are already interested in the
material, hopefully I can fuel their fires even more."
He enjoys teaching at UNO and the progressive nature of
the Peter Kiewit Institute.
"A lot of the students in our discipline today just want
to go out and make money. They don't have to come to UNO for that; they can go
to a two-year college or get certified in various skills. We've got to make
them want to come to UNO, to show them that they need to come to UNO for a
complete information technology education. Our primary job as educators is to
provide the theory behind the applications they'll see in the workforce.
"PKI offers many unique opportunities with internships,
business partnerships and cutting-edge classes. With classes in Web development
and information security, for example, we're offering more practical, hands-on
classes that help make UNO a hybrid of a traditional four-year college and a
training or certification program. Students leave PKI with useful, real-world
skills supported by the theory of computation."
Sometimes it involves changing the way computer scientists
think about their discipline.
"Computer science as a whole has to adapt to the fact that
this is not biology. It's not physics. Most of our students don't go on to make
grand discoveries that change the world. They've already set a career goal for
themselves. They come here to get it started."
He says his methods aren't unique.
"I treat my classroom so it's not like I'm on this side of
the desk and they're on that side. I look at my role more like a collaboration
in their education."
It serves to enhance the experience for both teacher and
student.
"In my Internet programming class, especially, the
students are constantly suggesting new things to cover or discuss, and that
gets me excited. I feed off their excitement in the classroom."
PKI students have phenomenal abilities, Fulkerson says.
"The students coming in today are simply amazing. They're
so smart it's scary. I think they have raised the bar, which means we teachers
have to step it up a notch. They push you to be a better teacher."
Fulkerson met his wife, Kris, in junior high and began
dating when both wrote for the school newspaper at Millard South. "I tried to
date all her friends first," he recalls, chuckling. "I sent them flowers, wrote
them poems, took them to plays—and got dumped. All the time, she's wondering,
'What's wrong with these girls? Can't they see what a wonderful guy he is?'
They were married in 1994. "She was not the last choice,"
Fulkerson says. "She was the best choice."
The Fulkersons have two daughters, Katie, 2, and Becca,
six months. Kris Fulkerson teaches English at Metropolitan Community College
and writes essays. Fulkerson writes essays, short stories and poetry, "although
I'm not a great poet by any measure."
His Web site (http://www.morpo.com/robert/)
includes reviews he's written about the music concerts he's attended. He also
writes movie reviews, which leads us to his current dream. "What I would like
to write, what everyone would like to write, is a movie. I have two script
ideas in my head. I just have to put them on paper."
It's not a new dream, he says. "My goal was that by the
time I was 35 I would have made a movie and have it shown somewhere, even if it
was on a wall in a garage."
That's not likely by his 35th birthday in December. But,
perhaps, some day soon, he'll write the script that will become the next
big-screen blockbuster.
Then
he'll have all that free time left over for teaching.
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IS&T interns, Gallup partner on
high-tech visualization lab
A high-tech visualization lab on the Gallup University
riverfront campus teams UNO student interns with Gallup employees to
revolutionize the way data is presented.
The 2,000-square-foot facility features the latest in
hardware and software visualization methods and technologies. It brings
together 10 Gallup employees and 10 UNO interns.
"The purpose is to create innovative tools to visualize
data with an emphasis on design, aesthetics and state-of-the-art software
technology" says Dr. Gerald Wagner (pictured), a distinguished research fellow
at the Peter Kiewit Institute, College of Information Science & Technology
(IS&T) at UNO.
It means scholarships and employment opportunities for UNO
students and innovative new software products geared to satisfy Gallup clients.
Philip Ruhlman, chief information officer of the Gallup
Organization, says the process reverses how Gallup has traditionally worked
with its clients. "Rather than begin by collecting the data for a client, we
will start with determining how the client ultimately wants to see the data and
then work backwards."
Gallup clients visit the Omaha campus for two-day
retreats, during which they work with the teams to specify how they want their
data to look.
"We want this to be a fantastic two-day experience for
them," Ruhlman says. "They will be a part of something so spectacular and
creative they never would have dreamed it could happen."
Gallup for more than two years has utilized UNO interns,
selected from among the students of One Innovation Place (One IP), a program
started by Wagner at the College of IS&T. One IP recruits and prepares the
best and brightest students and puts them to work as interns for some of the
area's largest and most prestigious companies.
The UNO interns and Gallup employees work in five teams.
Each team works with a Gallup client to create new ways of presenting data.
Wagner mentors and guides the interns.
Additionally, 30 students are involved in Visual
Storytelling and Data Visualization, a course facilitated by Wagner in the
Gallup facility. Nine speakers who are
the Who's Who in the field each will give two-hour lectures on nine Fridays
during the fall semester. Gallup is financially making this course possible.
Also, more than $15,000 in awards has been pledged from
various businesses to recognize the most outstanding final student
projects. "We want to give the entire
Omaha a community an opportunity to meet and listen to these leaders," Wagner
says. "Therefore, we will have one-hour seminars for the business, government,
military, and academic community from 7:30 to 8:30 a.m. on the same days. These
will also be at Gallup and there is no fee for attending."
The idea for the visualization lab sprang from a meeting
between Wagner, who is a member of the Gallup Senior Scientist program, and
Ruhlman, whose background includes significant theater work.
"Dr. Wagner and I share the concept of taking
very gifted artists, whether their gift is art or music or dance, and who also
have a gift for technology, and bringing the two together in an incredible
marriage," Ruhlman says. "Utilizing that combination of gifts will yield
success for the students and our clients."
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Article Ranks at Top of Journal's
Most-Downloaded List
An article by Dr. Peter Wolcott of the Department of
Information Systems & Quantitative Analysis (ISQA) of the College of
Information Science & Technology ranks No. 1 on the top 10 list of
most-downloaded articles in the electronic Journal of the Association for
Information Systems.
The article, "A Framework for Assessing the Global
Diffusion of the Internet," registered 7,960 downloads as of Aug. 1.
The Journal of the Association for Information Systems
(JAIS), the flagship research journal of the Association for Information
Systems, publishes the highest quality scholarship in the field of information
systems.
JAIS
covers all aspects of information systems and information technology. The
journal publishes rigorously developed and forward looking conceptual and
empirical articles.
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AIM Institute Names UNO Student Intern of the
Year
Mark Nyugen, a junior in computer science studying at
University of Nebraska's Peter Kiewit Institute, was named College Intern of
the Year by the AIM Institute, a membership organization that supports and
promotes business development related to information technology.
As an intern with the Gallup Organization in Omaha, Nyugen
has been involved in three major projects and many smaller projects.
"He has impressed Gallup's senior database analysts with
his speed and ability," says Dr. Robert Sweeney, president and CEO of the Aim
Institute and the presenter of the award. "He has made many contributions at
Gallup."
Nyugen,
who is from Grand Island, received an engraved recognition award, an engraved
pen and a portfolio.
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AMCIS conference held at Qwest
More than 1,050 participants from 400 universities and 40
countries met at Qwest Center Omaha in August for the 11th annual Americas
Conference on Information Systems (AMCIS).
Sponsored by the Association for Information Systems
(AIS), AMCIS is a gathering of information systems academics and
research-oriented practitioners in North America, Central America and South
America.
Conference chairpersons were Dr. Deepak Khazanchi and Dr.
Ilze Zigurs, professors in the department of Information Systems and
Quantitative Analysis (ISQA) at UNO's College of Information Science &
Technology (IS&T). (Pictured: NU
Vice Provost Donal Burns, UNO chancellor Nancy Belck, an unidentified
conference delegate and conference volunteer Jamie L. Griffiths gathered at the
Henry Doorly Zoo for a social eventing).
The pair was instrumental in bringing the conference to
Omaha.
"This was the first time that an AMCIS conference was held
in the 'heartland' - the very center of the United States, with a record level
of corporate sponsorship, including Union Pacific, Mutual of Omaha, First
National Bank and the Peter Kiewit Institute," says Dr. David Hinton, IS&T
dean.
Two internationally renowned leaders in their fields gave
keynote addresses. Linda Sanford, IBM's senior vice president for Enterprise On
Demand Transformation and Information Technology, spoke Aug. 12. Dr. Roger Schell, co-founder and president
of Aesec Corporation, a new company focused on verifiably secure platforms for
e-business, addressed the conference Aug. 13.
Other
noteworthy aspects of the conference:
• A record number (48) of doctoral consortium
participants met at the Arbor Day Farm Lied Lodge and Conference Center and for
the first time a sponsor (Union Pacific) underwrote their costs. Dr. Varun
Grover of Clemson University and Dr. Rajiv Sabherwal of the University of
Missouri-St Louis chaired the doctoral consortium.
• Also at the Lied Lodge, the first-ever MIS junior
faculty camp was held off-site for the first time, with 19 junior faculty
participating from the same number of universities. The MIS camp was chaired by
Dr. Lynda Applegate of the Harvard Business School and Dr. Blake Ives of the
University of Houston.
• Dr. Winnie Callahan, executive director of the Peter
Kiewit Institute (PKI), led a panel session that included Todd Fishback
(DoCenter), Dick Shoemaker (Pinpoint), and Steve Webb (Lockheed Martin). The
session, New Models for Academic and Industry Partnerships, focused on PKI.
The opening night reception was held at Omaha's Henry
Doorly Zoo. Other local sponsors included PKI, the University of Nebraska
Medical Center, Creighton University, UNO, the AIM Institute and the O!
Campaign.
Khazanchi shared one of many positive comments received
from delegates: "There was a general consensus that this year's meeting was
very well managed," said Dr. Dinesh Batra of Florida International University.
"We would like to thank you for your efforts in making the conference and
meeting memorable and useful."
The Association of Information Systems (AIS) is the
premier global organization for academics specializing in information systems,
with nearly 5,000 members representing nearly 50 countries from North America,
Europe, Asia, Africa and Australia.
AIS sponsors two major conferences, AMCIS and the
International Conference on Information Systems (ICIS). Next year's AMCIS
conference will be in Acapulco, Mexico.
AMCIS also provides the opportunity for information
systems faculty to meet and review the latest offerings from major vendors,
publishers and suppliers. The large number of attendees in a dedicated field is
a strong draw for major players in the information systems academic
marketplace.
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