Predicting and Improving Academic Success and Student Retention: An Action Research

This participatory action research aims to demonstrate how information systems scholars, practitioners, and administrators of higher education collaborate to develop, implement, and evaluate effective predictive models and in turn create and adopt policies and procedures that improve student academic success and retention in a business college. This research takes a novel perspective by focusing on predicting student success and retention, informed by activity theory as the fundamental theoretical framework to understand the interactions among various stakeholders in the communities

Microsoft Office SharePoint Server (MOSS) at Peerless Technologies

Peerless Technologies is an award-winning 8(a), small disadvantaged business (SDB) located in Fairborn, Ohio, whose primary focus is on government defense contracts. It has customers ranging from the Department of Defense, Department of Energy, Department of Homeland Security and others in the government sector. Peerless currently has approximately 60 employees. More than half of these employees work at various locations while the remaining employees work at Peerless’ corporate headquarters in Fairborn, Ohio

Practicing Learner-Centered Teaching: Pedagogical Design and Assessment of a Second Life Project

Guided by the principles of learner-centered teaching methodology, a Second Life project is designed to engage students in active learning of virtual commerce through hands-on experiences and teamwork in a virtual environment. More importantly, an assessment framework is proposed to evaluate the learning objectives and learning process of the Second Life project. The assessment framework is composed of a variety of items, such as reflection essays, chat transcripts, peer evaluations, and a post project survey that measures the learning motive, attitudes, level of difficulty, and the time used to complete the project. The Second Life project was implemented in an MBA-IS course in which thirty-two students were randomly assigned to eight teams. In Second Life, each team managed an avatar and completed a series of business-related activities. The assessment outcomes indicated that students were able to apply what they learned in class into the virtual environment through their exploration and interaction. Students were motivated to learn in the Second Life project and felt that the engaging experiences helped with their learning. On average, students developed a positive attitude toward Second Life and felt that the application was not difficult to use. Lessons learned, recommendations for design issues, and implications for educators are also discussed

Recycling E-Waste: a Solution through Third Party Recycler

With 50 million metric tons of e‐waste disposed worldwide each year, e-waste recycling has become an increasingly important issue globally. The U.S. alone generated a total of 3.01 million tons of e-waste in 2007, of which only 13.6% was recycled. Improper disposal of e-waste poses an immediate and prominent threat to environmental and public health. Many electronic vendors have initiated either the Expended Producer Responsibility or the Producer Stewardship and launched manufacturer-sponsored recycling programs. Many of these programs, however, are in trouble because of the fee generated for recycling, thereby blocking the road for effective actions. In this paper, we propose a third party recycler model as an alternative solution to e-waste recycling. The third party recycler works as the intermediary between consumers (source of e-waste) and electronic vendors (recipient of recycled items) to recycle disposed electronics properly. The proposed information system is composed of five modules and supports the business operations and functionalities of the third party recycler. We hope the third party recycler structure will be adopted globally in the near future

Order and Creativity in Virtual Worlds

Economies are driven by dynamic creativity, but too much creativity, especially if it is predatory, can destroy an economy. This tradeoff has been known for centuries to political philosophers who have analyzed physical space, but has not been addressed in virtual space. Like physical economies, virtual economies face the tradeoff of encouraging freedom to experiment, while discouraging experiments that drive people away. Physical societies solve this problem both through encouraging competition and giving government the unique power to punish destructive activities. In virtual societies, this tradeoff has yet to be adequately assessed. Guided by the economic modeling of order and creativity, in this paper we discuss two types of behavior, constructive and destructive, to provide some guidelines, with references to experiences in physical economies, for establishing limitations on the freedom of action of virtual-economy participants

Retooling for Success: A Case Study of VoIP Implementation to Improve Customer Service at a Midwestern Financial Services Office

This article presents a case study of the acquisition of a Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) system to replace an outdated telephone system at a Midwestern financial services company. In the Midwest retail office of ABC Financial Services, the old Private Branch Exchange (PBX) phone system was incapable of handling customer inquiries during the busy tax return season. The inefficient systems exposed the organization to missed and delayed calls, which lead to a considerable number of customer complaints and lost revenue. Guided by the systematic approach of technology retooling, computer engineers followed the steps of problem diagnosis, analysis of competing solutions, implementation, and assessment of the VoIP system as the replacement telecommunications platform. System performance and evaluation data were collected during and after system implementation. Assessment of the new VoIP system demonstrated improved availability, speed, and reliability of the information provided to customers. New functionalities, such as customer inquiry of the database, provided through the VoIP system pushed the self-service adoption to a record high level. The system implementation also fosters an updated IT plan that will help this organization chart its business strategy for future years

No Difference? A Study On Learning Process And Outcome Among Online, Hybrid, And Face-To-Face Courses

Many researchers and educators have questioned whether online course management technologies make a significant impact on student learning process and outcomes. Guided by the Seven Principles framework of student learning, our study examined the impacts of three instructional methods including face-to-face (F2F), hybrid (Web-enhanced), and online courses on the learning process and outcomes. Data were collected at a major mid-western university and 1233 valid responses were analyzed in AMOS. We found that there was no significant difference among F2F, hybrid, and online instructional methods in learning outcomes. However, both high expectation of faculty and accommodation for diversity influenced learning outcomes significantly. In addition, faculty contact had a significant impact on outcomes but only in hybrid courses

Exploring a Third-Party e-Waste Recycling System under the Extended Producer Responsibility Framework in China

The rapid advance of information technologies has produced a large amount of waste of electronic and electrical equipment (WEEE). WEEE or e- waste, refers to old, end-of-life (EoL) or discarded electronic appliances. The world produces 20 to 50 million metric tons of e-waste annually (Electronics Take-back Coalition 2009), of which China alone contributes 2 million tons. Each year at least 6 million washing machines, 7 million TV sets, 10 million PCs and 70 million mobile phones are discarded and the number increases at the rate of more than 10 per cent each year (Hung 2007), according to the report from the resource and environment comprehensive utilization department of the State Development and Reform Commission (SDRC 2006). Discarded electronic products contain a stew of toxic metals and chemicals such as lead, mercury, cadmium, chromium and polychlorinated biphenyls (Scott 2007) and cause great harm to the environment. Recycling and reusing e-waste are thus becoming an increasingly important global issue

IT Asset Disposition Services: A Green Solution for the Enterprise

Enterprise IT asset disposition is one important contributing dimension to green IT initiatives adopted by organizations. ITasset disposition services aim to maximize the value of the IT asset investment of enterprises over its entire lifecycle whileguaranteeing data security and protecting against environmental liability. The purpose of this paper is to introduce thepractice of IT asset disposition services in the United States, and more specifically, the processes used to accomplish thethree key objectives in IT asset disposition: 1) data security and protection, 2) environmental responsibility and compliance,and 3) asset value recovery. Regulatory compliance of companies and the role of information systems in IT asset dispositionare discussed and a few future directions of research are proposed

Carbon Footprint and Accounting and Environmental Management Systems: A Conceptual Overview

For the purpose of sustainability accounting and reporting, organizations need to manage their carbon footprint, energy use, and other operations with an environmental impact. Green information systems and environmental management information systems thus become necessary for monitoring and controlling activities and procedures regarding environmental concerns. Unfortunately, the lack of knowledge and practices has become the hurdle of adoption to many organizations. In the IS research community, scholars have not yet given full attention to carbon management and reporting and environmental management information systems, despite our increasing efforts in working on green information systems issues. In this poster session we aim to introduce the concepts of carbon footprint, carbon accounting, and environmental management information systems by discussing their characteristics, usage, standardization, and governance issues. We provide an overview of a collection of green and sustainable information systems and share thoughts on directions for conducting IS research on these topics