UDMessenger

Volume 12, Number 4, 2004


Tools of the trade offer solutions

A bookstore that wanted to set up an online database to control their inventory efficiently. A museum that needed specialized software to use in its fund-raising campaigns. A moving company that was seeking to design an effective web site.

All these businesses got help solving their problems from students in the Alfred Lerner College of Business and Economics' management information system (MIS) program. Those students take capstone courses, "Technological Problem Solving" and "Problem-Solving Project Management," to learn firsthand how to use technology to solve a host of practical business problems.

The problems are real, and they come from real businesses. The college solicits the business community to find companies with problems that students can solve with technology.

Students, working in teams of four to six, meet with the business representatives and devise a proposal to solve their problems.

The projects have proved successful for the businesses involved and especially for students, who gain both a better understanding of the principles they've learned in their previous MIS courses and a résumé item that shows they have real-world skills, says Diane Wright, MIS project coordinator in the Lerner College.

"The goal of our MIS courses is not just to teach technology, but to teach its use in business situations," she says.