The University of Delaware, "the second most wired campus in the nation" according to Yahoo! Internet Life magazine, is a major player in the Delaware Information Technology Initiative, a campaign to make the state a magnet for information technology (IT) businesses.

The University has in place the academic infrastructure to support computer/information technology minors with many majors, certificate programs in the latest info-tech areas, instruction in the hottest management information system software available, business IT internships and IT-oriented recruiting strategies, with more to come.

The initiative began two years ago when a group of business leaders approached Gov. Thomas Carper about the growing shortage of high-tech workers. He asked them to form a committee to look into the problem and that committee became the Delaware Information Technology Initiative Task Force.

Sixty individuals from government, business, industry and education were recruited and went to work examining Delaware's IT human resource needs.

The task force report showed that Delaware had the same gaps in its skilled IT work force as the rest of the nation. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics projects a 60 percent increase in the demand for workers skilled in business and commercial use of information technology.

The task force reported that many of the state's major employers are already experiencing IT professional shortages, and it is only going to get worse, making recruiting difficult, expensive and potentially dulling Delaware companies' competitive edge.

While fulfilling its initial mission of assessing and resolving the problem of IT worker shortages, the task force concluded that in solving the worker problem, the state could become a real player in attracting IT businesses.

With that in mind, the Delaware Information Technology Initiative (DITI) was born.

UD Provost Mel Schiavelli sits on its advisory board, along with William DeLauder, president of Delaware State University, and Orlando George, president of Delaware Technology & Community College (Del Tech). The board also includes senior executives of Anderson Consulting, AstraZeneca Pharmaceuticals, CSC, Computer Aid Inc., Conectiv, DuPont, First USA & Wingspan.com, Hercules, J.P. Morgan and MBNA, as well as representatives of the state economic development office, state Chamber of Commerce, state Treasury and the Business and Public Education Council.

Scott Reynolds, vice president of information technology for J.P. Morgan, coordinates the initiative's efforts and oversees the implementation of task force recommendations.

Two of these recommendations focus on creating an image campaign that will convince IT professionals and companies to come to or stay in Delaware. There are a number of web sites that serve as portals to that effort, two of them at UD. (See related story on page 4.)

But, three of the five recommendations are directly related to education.

The task force concluded that Delaware has the educational facilities to train a skilled workforce, then retain it with professional and life style incentives.

The task force urged that the state's curriculum be revamped to better reflect the skills required by IT-intensive businesses; that an effort be made to improve educators' and students' knowledge of IT business practices and careers; and that scholarships and internships be used to attract students from other disciplines to information technology.

UD, along with DelTech and Delaware State University, will play a major role in accomplishing those three goals.

At UD, the heaviest emphasis will be on business students and professionals taking College of Business and Economics and continuing education courses, but many areas, including admissions, financial aid, the colleges of Arts and Science and Engineering also are involved.

Two years ago, when the IT initiative came into focus, the Delaware legislature approved recurring resources to UD, with the majority being allocated to the business college to intensify its IT component. With new and existing resources, the college has hired nine new faculty members and additional staff, upgraded its IT infrastructure and has developed new curricula.

Clinton (Skip) White, business and economics, chairs the faculty committee that oversees the implementation of the initiative in the college. White explained that after meeting with representatives of some of the state's major industries a strategy was developed.

"I networked with people in industry and formed an information technology advisory board for the college," he said. Board members included representatives of J.P. Morgan, Astra Zeneca, Anderson Consulting, Computer Sciences Corp., BankOne and DeLoitte Consulting.

White said the board was a "seed group," giving the college insight into real life business as well as advising and reaffirming that the college was headed in the right direction with its current programs.

Those programs include two IT minors, one in management information systems (MIS) and the other in computer and information systems (CIS).

The MIS minor trains students in problem-solving techniques by teaching them how to match and integrate information technology with their company's needs. For students majoring in accounting, marketing, management, finance, economics, computer and information sciences and engineering, the MIS minor gives them in-depth knowledge of business computing systems and software for their disciplines and show them how to integrate information technology with workplace practices to produce a more efficient, effective product. In the future, the MIS minor will be available to more majors.

The CIS minor is more specific to computer science and focuses on business-oriented programming languages and system design in a constantly evolving technological environment.

A business student with a CIS minor is developing skills that make her or him especially suited to work for a business, institution or organization that relies heavily on computer technology.

For example, an accounting student carrying a CIS minor could get a job with a bank whose accounting system is written in a language he or she has studied. If changes have to be made to accounting software, that person will understand enough about accounting and programming concepts to help in the process.

The college also offers students in other colleges a business fundamentals certificate program that includes a technology component. A student majoring in urban affairs can learn good business procedures and the right information technology for a nonprofit organization.

State funding has helped the college upgrade its hardware and software and install the most widely used total business-management system software in the world. SAP, made by a German software company, is sort of an industry version of 2001's HAL. It can completely run a company from accounting to inventory to human resources to customer service.

"It's the way all business is going. It integrates everything going on in a company," White said.

The college is part of SAP's University Alliance, a group of more than 50 teaching institutions to which the German company has donated and provided support for its immense software package.

It was Delaware IT Initiative funding that allowed the college to hire Gloria Diodato as project director in the MIS program last April. Diodato's job is to stay connected to the business community, constantly developing projects and internships for MIS students, keeping curriculum updated and identifying hands-on learning opportunities.

Diodato coordinates MIS senior projects in which seniors must solve a "real world" business problem. Seniors form teams, acting as professional consultants to companies that have a situation they don't have time to resolve. The teams meet with representatives of the companies and begin working on solutions. The concept is similar to the senior design project in the College of Engineering.

"With everything in place," White said, "our grads are further along the information technology learning curve. Many of our graduates become IT consultants recruited right out of school by businesses we have been working with and that have created information technology departments."

While the business college is UD's primary player in the Delaware Information Technology Initiative, other colleges and departments are becoming more and more involved.

The Division of Continuing Education saw the IT explosion coming and has been expanding its computer technology courses accordingly. It has enhanced its web master and computer application certificate programs, added courses for those who want to take Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer exams, offers a host of courses in the most widely used business application software and has added an e-commerce certificate program.

Richard Fisher, continuing education, hired Peter Edwards to create the e-commerce program just as Edwards was retiring from DuPont where he spent 30 years as a software engineer, developing packages for various DuPont, business applications and most recently for e-commerce.

Edwards, working with Karen Stein in consumer studies, designed the program.

"Consumer studies matched the curriculum to the needs of the community so the program is solid in content and its pedagogy," Edwards said.

Stein said they created an e-commerce program that focuses on the consumer. "What has really been ignored is the e-age consumer and how they differ from people who don't buy online.

They are more educated buyers who want more choices. The e-age consumer needs to be understood for e-businesses to know how to attract and keep them," she said.

Edwards said the e-commerce program teaches how to develop an online presence for an existing business or how to create a strictly Internet company.

There will be courses on how changes in technology and government regulations affect e-commerce, how to sharpen judgment when choosing an e-business model and how to select technology and managing risk.

The program is designed for anyone who will be affected by the rush to Internet.

A key element in the IT initiative is to attract more students to the study of information technology whether as a career choice or as a tool that can make them more effective in their chosen careers.

Some of that must start in elementary and high school, so, as part of the IT initiative, Frederic Siegel, associate provost for enrollment services, invited Reynolds to attend meetings that UD hosts every year for high school guidance counselors.

"We have two luncheons a year for guidance counselors, one in Kent and Sussex counties and one in New Castle County to give them an idea of what courses UD will be looking for," Siegel said.

Reynolds spoke at both luncheons telling counselors about the need for IT-trained persons and why a strong background in IT can help assure their futures.

"Our job as admissions officers is to recruit the best students, and information technology skills are highly desirable. Students who are strong in the basics and have those skills will be stronger applicants," Siegel said.

Reynolds and the task force are working with state legislators on a proposal to the Delaware legislature that would make available an IT loan/scholarship fund that would pay for four years of college.

For each year a student lives and works in Delaware after graduation, some portion of that loan would be forgiven. Reynolds said they haven't worked out the details yet, but that could come by the beginning of next year.

In the meantime, in addition to what UD is already doing to support the initiative, the University will participate in what the task force calls, a world-class IT learning center for students and professionals. Delaware State University is taking the lead in the development and housing of the center, but UD and Del Tech also will be involved in the education component.

–Barbara Garrison

Web sites designed to show students IT opportunities

Just type in a URL, hit ENTER and a world of opportunity in information technology (IT) opens to young people–compliments of the Delaware Information Technology Initiative.

The initiative is a partnership among Delaware's public, private and educational sectors to attract IT businesses to the state by making it a nationally recognized center of information technology and business expertise. One aspect of the multi-faceted effort involves bringing youth to IT and to Delaware, and keeping them there.

To accommodate that, several web sites have been developed to entice students into IT courses, jobs and lifestyles.

The state site, [http://www. ithinkDelaware.com/], opens with pictures of happy, active young people accentuating thoughts like, "There's no place finer than Delaware to make a play for a killer IT career," and giving out factoids like "Check it: a $500k home in California costs less than $200K here. What to do with the extra $?" There are links to jobs, fun things to do in Delaware and even the DIT Deathmatch server as a tension reliever for stressed out students.

The University's College of Business and Economics has it's own IT jobs help site [http://www.be.udel.edu/ITI/] with links to information about degree programs in business/IT.

UD Career Services offers a link to ithinkDelaware on its home page at [http://www. udel.edu/CSC/], as well as links to an enormous amount of career-oriented information for students and prospective employers.

–Barbara Garrison