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Temple “Big Data” Symposium – May 21, 2012, 12-6pm, Shusterman Hall

PaulPatBigDataSymposiumOn Monday May 21, 2012, the Institute for Business & Information Technology (IBIT) hosted a University-wide symposium on “Big Data” in cooperation with the Office of Research. The purpose of this symposium was to bring together Temple researchers across disciplines to explore inter-disciplinary synergies and collaborations on big data research. Big data refer to extremely large datasets that do not conform to traditional principles of data collection, storage, management, sharing, processing, and statistical analysis, and they impose challenges on data storing, computer processing, existing statistical data analysis approaches, and existing ways to interpret, visualize, and derive knowledge from huge quantities of data. Over 70 faculty and PhD students attended the symposium that included several presentations and panel discussions from faculty in statistics, computer science, MIS, marketing, and the school of medicine.

The purpose of this internal Temple symposium is to identify capabilities on how to deal with big data across campus, identify synergies across researchers, Centers, departments, and schools, and hopefully spawn inter-disciplinary collaborative research on big data that will pursue external funding. Notably, the U.S. government has recently unveiled a $200M effort titled “Big Data Research and Development Initiative” that aims to support new R&D initiatives associated with big data. Moreover, the symposium will explore inter-disciplinary collaborations for potentially developing graduate programs in data analytics.

12:00pm Lunch
12:45pm Opening Remarks
1:00pm Session 1: Practical Applications and Best Practices with Big Data

  • Youngjin Yoo, Robert Kulathinal, Sunil Wattal: “Designing 21st Century Organizations”
  • Munir Mandviwalla, David Schuff, Sunil Wattal: “The Campaign Media Ecosystem”
  • Yili Hong, Paul A. Pavlou: “Big Data in Online Markets for Outsourcing of IT Services”
 2:00pm Session 2: Statistical Solutions for Big Data

  • Sanat Sarkar and Nicolle Clements: “High-dimensional Multiple Testing”
  • Neeraj Bharadwaj and Yuexiao Dong: “In Search of What Counts in Big Datasets”
 2:45pm Coffee Break
 3:15pm Session 3: Technical Solutions for Big Data

  • Jie Wu and Chiu C. Tan: “CIS Big Data Research”
  • Alexander Yates: “Data Mining and Information Retrieval with Web Data”
 4:00pm Panel: “Emerging Opportunities and Challenges of Big Data”

  • Pallavi Chitturi (Center of Statistical Analysis, Statistics Department)
  • Jennifer Gordon (Department of Neuroscience, School of Medicine)
  • Keith Latham and Carmen Sapienza (Fels Institute for Cancer Research)
 5:00pm  Networking Reception

 For more information, contact: Paul A. Pavlou

AIS and IBIT to partner on creating an annual IT job index

The Association for Information Systems (AIS) is collaborating with the Institute for Business and Information Technology (IBIT) at Temple University’s Fox School of Business on an annual job index for the field of information systems. This report, which will include pay scales and career prospect information, is intended to become the first reliable indicator of the growth of the discipline and profession.

“This partnership and initiative is an important part of the overall IS branding campaign being undertaken for the association,” said AIS President Dov Te’eni. “Those of us who have been working in the field are privy to its exciting career prospects, and this index will be a useful measurement of the bright future for those entering the field as students, academics or professionals. We are excited to work with Temple University on this endeavor, whose expertise in researching and developing this report will be integral to its success.”

“The IS job market – enrollment, placement, available jobs – is today very hard to assess. We plan to address this problem by producing a systematic annual assessment of the IS labor market,” said Munir Mandviwalla, IBIT executive director and chair of Fox’s Department of Management Information Systems (MIS). Mandviwalla is part of the project team with Fox professors Paul Pavlou and Crystal Harold. “We are pleased to partner with AIS and offer our services to the IS community.”

AIS is a professional organization whose purpose is to serve as the premier global organization for academics, students and professionals specializing in information systems.

inciteXchange 2012 and FOX DESIGNweek 2012

The Center for Design and Innovation hosted inciteXchange 2012: Fabric: seams, threads and bits on February 17, 2012 and Fox DESIGNweek 2012: North Broadband on February 13-16, 2012. DESIGNWeek is an annual student competition to transform ideas into actions. The Challenge brings together students from across the University to collaborate across disciplinary lines to create innovative solutions to address some of today’s most challenging urban issues.

inciteXchange 2012 brings together a roster of international leaders in the fields of design, innovation, management and technology to exchange ideas about their work, their thoughts and observations. A series of rapid-fire short individual presentations, coordinated dialogues and moderated panel discussions combine to encourage participants to talk, share and spontaneously collaborate.