Utilizing Classroom Simulation to Convey Key Concepts in IT Portfolio Management

Managing a portfolio of IT projects is an important capability for firms and their managers. The classroom simulation described here provides students in an MBA information systems management/strategy course with the opportunity to deepen their understanding of the key concepts that should be considered in managing an IT portfolio and helps students appreciate the importance of taking a comprehensive view when building a firm’s IT portfolio. Managing an IT portfolio involves considering a number of interdependent concepts and thus is a difficult capability to learn without context. The simulation is able to provide that context by creating a complex decision making setting in the classroom. This teaching tip provides a framework of key concepts in IT portfolio management (ITPM), describes the expected student background and classroom setting, guides the instructor through the implementation of the simulation, provides evidence of learning effectiveness and suggests next steps in the simulation’s development

Congratulations! ...to the World? One Person’s Experience with Social Media

Social media has quickly garnered the attention and interaction of users of all ages from around the world.The growth in popularity of social media platforms raises important issues for individuals and organizations regarding how to interact with the relatively new technology. This teaching case describes the experience of an information systems Ph.D. graduatewhoseconfidential notification regarding her employment went public on Facebook. The case highlights four key learning objectivesrelevant for students learning about social media in the context of business:1) identifying changes that come with the advent of social media including the speed, scope, and structure of communication in a social network, 2) understandingthe variety of stakeholders who control the message in social media, 3) evaluating the positive and negative impacts of confidential information being released publicly, and 4) discussing how reactions to the scenario may differ among unique segments of the population. The case is designed as an introductory case for an undergraduate or graduate course pertaining to the topics of social media, Web 2.0, and internet-enabled technologies in business

Teaching Case: The Initial Coin Offering Marketplace: A Data Analytic Case

This case uses data analytic techniques to expose students to the context of the initial coin offering marketplace. The exercise is well-suited as a group activity in an undergraduate or graduate business analytics course in which students have been taught analytic techniques such as word cloud, descriptive statistics, basic visualizations, and decision tree analysis. The data comes from the real-world initial coin offering market, so students learn about the business aspects of the initial coin offering market and the underlying technology of blockchain. As a result, the students gain a chance to practice basic analytic techniques and leverage those techniques to learn more about the business context. This project-based case provides scripts for instructors using the free, open-source software R; however, an instructor may choose alternative analytic platforms to implement the analysis. The activity may also be made accessible for novice analytics students as a first experience in R by providing the accompanying solution scripts to the students

A Broadened Approach to Understanding IT Organizational Structure

With the increasingly influential impact of the information systems/technology (IT) organization on most firms, it is important to understand the implications of alternative structures of the IT organization. With limited exceptions, literature in this area has focused on the locus of decision rights in the IT organization. This research uses broader dimensions found in the general organization structure literature to characterize IT organizational structure. Our analysis suggests that IT organizations aimed at promoting innovation emphasize standardization and flexibility while deemphasizing specialization, IT organizations aimed at integration emphasize standardization, and IT organizations aimed at scalability through sourcing emphasize standardization while deemphasizing specialization. IT managers seeking to match their organization to the values of their firm may utilize the IT organization structure survey instrument exhibited here to do so

The FIRST+ Year Information Systems Faculty Experience

The transition from information systems (IS) doctoral student to new faculty member is usually accompanied by a sense of satisfaction. The transition takes place on the heels of a significant investment of time, energy, and financial sacrifice for most students. While landing a new faculty position is generally viewed in itself as a huge achievement, new faculty members face plenty of challenges. The FIRST+ framework we present here details the key elements of transitioning from student to faculty and serves as a basis for sharing experiences among soon-to-be graduates and junior faculty members regarding this transition. This paper presents the FIRST+ framework, a panel discussion on the topic led by this paper’s authors at the 2013 Americas Conference on Information Systems in Chicago, and subsequent analysis of AACSB data on PhD degrees conferred and new faculty hires in IS and other business disciplines. The analysis indicates that PhD graduates in all disciplines encountered a decrease in faculty job placement opportunities in 2009 and 2010, but that IS PhD graduates were especially hard hit. The good news for IS PhD graduates and challenge for faculty selection committees is that a resurgence in the job market has occurred since

Automatic Gaze Classification for Aviators: Using Multi-task Convolutional Networks as a Proxy for Flight Instructor Observation

In this work, we investigate how flight instructors observe aviator scan patterns and assign quality to an aviator\u27s gaze. We first establish the reliability of instructors to assign similar quality to an aviator\u27s scan patterns, and then investigate methods to automate this quality using machine learning. In particular, we focus on the classification of gaze for aviators in a mixed-reality flight simulation. We create and evaluate two machine learning models for classifying gaze quality of aviators: a task-agnostic model and a multi-task model. Both models use deep convolutional neural networks to classify the quality of pilot gaze patterns for 40 pilots, operators, and novices, as compared to visual inspection by three experienced flight instructors. Our multi-task model can automate the process of gaze inspection with an average accuracy of over 93.0% for three separate flight tasks. Our approach could assist existing flight instructors to provide feedback to learners, or it could open the door to more automated feedback for pilots learning to carry out different maneuvers

Using a Mark-to-Market Valuation Technique to Objectively Measure IT Portfolio Value Creation

Enterprise executives frequently face the challenge of making decisions under conditions of significant uncertainty when dealing with IT investments, IT project management and realization of intangible organizational benefits enabled by IT. A suitable methodology for accurately estimating the current financial standing of each project in a portfolio of IT projects over the full project lifecycle is useful for IT managers to understand IT value creation and manage the IT projects across the portfolio. In line with this perspective, we propose a Mark-to-Market valuation technique that enables a standardized approach across diverse IT projects that comprise the IT portfolio. Three main contributions may be drawn from this study: 1) the Mark-to-Market approach is a useful valuation technique in the context of IT projects; 2) practitioners may leverage the technique to assess project value and the performance of the IT portfolio over the lifecycle of such projects; and 3) the consistent treatment of each project allows aggregation and applications of standard portfolio management techniques to the practice of IT portfolio management

A Programmable True Random Number Generator Using Commercial Quantum Computers

Random number generators (RNG) are essential elements in many cryptographic systems. True random number generators (TRNG) rely upon sources of randomness from natural processes such as those arising from quantum mechanics phenomena. We demonstrate that a quantum computer can serve as a high-quality, weakly random source for a generalized user-defined probability mass function (PMF). Specifically, QC measurement implements the process of variate sampling according to a user-specified PMF resulting in a word comprised of electronic bits that can then be processed by an extractor function to address inaccuracies due to non-ideal quantum gate operations and other system biases. We introduce an automated and flexible method for implementing a TRNG as a programmed quantum circuit that executes on commercially-available, gate-model quantum computers. The user specifies the desired word size as the number of qubits and a definition of the desired PMF. Based upon the user specification of the PMF, our compilation tool automatically synthesizes the desired TRNG as a structural OpenQASM file containing native gate operations that are optimized to reduce the circuit's quantum depth. The resulting TRNG provides multiple bits of randomness for each execution/measurement cycle; thus, the number of random bits produced in each execution is limited only by the size of the QC. We provide experimental results to illustrate the viability of this approach.Comment: 15 pages, 7 figures, SPIE Defense + Commercial Sensing: Quantum Information Science, Sensing, and Computation X