2:13 p.m., March 17, 2008--Sometimes, working with individuals from different academic disciplines and background is the best way for students and faculty to learn how to solve problems encountered in the day-to-day operation of businesses serving both local and international clients.
During fall semester, students and faculty from two different classes in two different colleges teamed up on a project that involved working with corporate executives in solving real world problems in the hospitality industry.
United by a common theme of system analysis and design, the cross-college, cross-discipline effort combined the resourcefulness of students from Mark Serva's emerging technologies class (MISY 340) in the Lerner College of Business and Economics, and Cihan Cobanoglu's hospitality technology course (HRIM 450) in the College of Human Services, Education and Public Policy.
Both courses involved the challenges of determining system requirements, analyzing system problems, modeling potential solutions and designing and implementing business information systems, including those of the hospitality industry.
The 23 students who participated in the project worked in five groups, made up of two or three students from each respective college and class.
Cobanoglu, associate professor of hotel, restaurant and institutional management (HRIM), said the students collaborated with executives from Marriott International, a company with about 3,000 lodging properties located in the United States and 67 countries and territories around the globe.
“The project allowed students to look at things from the perspective of another major,” Cobanoglu said. “The HRIM students supplied knowledge of the hospitality industry, while MIS students provided technical knowledge.”
Semester activities included an early September trip to Bethesda, Md., where company executives gave students a tour of Marriott International headquarters and presented company policy and future initiatives, Cobanoglu said.
“Marriott IT [information technology] executives presented student teams with five challenges,” Cobanoglu said. “In each challenge, students were asked to explore how an emerging technology (i.e. mobility, Web 2.0 and sustainability) could improve Marriott's performance in the hospitality industry.”
A Web site using Microsoft SharePoint to facilitate the exchange of ideas, documents and communication also helped teams to assign project tasks and arrange group meetings.
A second Web site, created with the assistance of John F. Hall and Janet de Vry, both of Information Technologies-User Services at UD, allowed students to post questions on a Sakai wiki for Marriott executives to answer. A conference call held midway through the semester also let students pose questions directly to Marriott executives.
Student presentations were made in late November, when Marriott executives visited the UD campus for a reception in their honor and a tour of the experimental guestroom (X-Room) at the Courtyard Newark-University of Delaware hotel designed by Cobanoglu and the Department of Hotel, Restaurant and Institutional Management.
"The opportunity to partner with such an energetic group of talented students was a rewarding and invaluable experience for Marriott,” says Karla Gill, vice president for Enterprise End-user Workplace Solutions, Marriott International. “Their enthusiasm for the project was evident in their final presentations."
“I think the class was an invaluable experience for the students,” Serva, assistant professor of accounting and MIS, said. “By interacting with an actual company, they were exposed to the context and the complexity of real business problems. These students now understand that real technology problems are unstructured and ambiguous. Solutions are not clear cut, require consideration of a company's culture and environment, and the solution depends on an individual's initial assumption.”
Participating students were equipped with handheld devices that were purchased using a 2006 Unidel grant awarded to Serva and Clinton E. White Jr.
Cobanoglu said that besides creating an environment conducive to learning, the collaboration marked an important milestone between the Lerner College and HRIM.
“I was very happy to be involved in this unique project,” Cobanoglu said. “It was unique because we not only worked with one of the best hotel companies on a real world project, but also because the class was composed of students from two different colleges at UD. This created a great synergy.”
Article by Jerry Rhodes
Photo by Duane Perrry
