Individual Assignments

1. "Networking" Activities:

Learning to network, and learning to learn about new topics is an important part of any IS Professional's life. Therefore, you are going to practice that activity this semester by attending at least three external events. These might include the IS Mentoring Program, the IS Programming Club, the Career Services Etiquette Banquet, the Executive Leadership Institute's Lunch Series, ITS' High Performance Computing Day, Student Night Seminars sponsored by the Institute of Internal Auditors and the Information Systems Audit and Control Associations, the local Web Developers Chapter, Saint Louis Visual Basic Users Group, the XPSTL Group, the Wireless SIG or any other IS-related seminar by a campus based or local professional organization (if it is not in this list, be sure to get permission before you go). The base grade will be the percentage of the expected events (3) you attend. So, if you have attended one event, this grade is 33.3, two events, the grade is 66.7, etc. If you attend an additional event, you may get extra credit. A list of campus events, including those that are eligible for networking credit, is available at http://www.umsl.edu/~sauterv/analysis/event_schedule.html. To get credit for attendance, you must complete the required form and have it signed by some official of the organization or the event.

2. Term Papers

Each student must complete a term paper investigating how DSS technologies and/or Business Intelligence are used in a particular industry. These papers must discuss how DSS and/or BI are being used, how they help to improve the business, the evidence that exists to support that decision, and the difficulties that managers find in implementing the technology.

Each paper must include at least 20 external references such as journal articles, newspapers, short videos, or relevant websites. Be sure to check high-quality but non-refereed publications such as the Harvard Business Review, Wall Street Journal, Economist, etc for relevant articles. At least 10 of these references must be from refereed journals. Refereed journals assure some level of validation. The best source to find refereed journal articles is ABI-INFORM, available online to UMSL students. To find refereed articles, simply tick the box for “Scholarly journals, including peer-reviewed ” while in ABI inform.

The papers must be no longer than 15 pages plus citations. The papers must be typed (or word-processed), double-spaced, numbered, with one-inch margins on all sides. All citations must be complete references to the material.

Topics should be approved by the instructor. Final papers are due no later than Monday, April 16.

Group Assignments

Analytics Assignment :

The city of St. Louis is the 52nd largest in the nation with a population of 354,361, and its fair share of crime. The goal of this assignment is to use statistical techniques and any data sets you can find to predict where crime, specifically homicides, will occur in the city. The ability to accurately predict where crime is likely to occur allows us to deploy our limited city resources more effectively. In particular, you must predict the number and location of the number of unlawful homicides where there is intent to kill in St. Louis City for 2012.

This assignment parallels the Analytics X Competition, which is trying to predict the homicides in the city of Philadelphia.

Your main deliverable for this assignment is a presentation that describes how you approached the problem, what data you considered, and your predictions. You may use powerpoint (or equivalent), the web, or a combination for your presentation.

The presentations will all occur on February 27, and will be scheduled by lottery. Students must also turn in a URL for a discussion on February 26 so it can be linked on the current page. Web pages should be informative and attractive, and include appropriate links.

Business Intelligence Assignment:

Reconsider the question of violent crime in St Louis. Create a proposal for how Business Intelligence might be used to understand better the problem. In the proposal, discuss what decisions might be supported with BI, and suggest data that might be maintained, the kinds of dashboards, and the kinds of analytics that could be provided. The presentations will all occur on April 30, and will be scheduled by lottery. Students must turn in their URL or ppt file to Professor Sauter by April 29 so it can be linked on the current page. The should be informative and attractive.

 

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While the entire group generally will receive the same grade on group projects, I reserve the right to assign grades differentially to reflect substantially different levels of work being completed by members of the group. At the end of the semester, group members must evaluate the amount of work done by others in the group using the Group Member Evaluation Form.

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