12Dec 2017 EXAMINING STUDENT RETENTION WITH DATA ANALYTICS. Charles E. Downing. Dean's Distinguished Professor, Presidential Teaching Professor, Operations Management and Information Systems Department. College of Business, Northern Illinois University.

This article examines the performance of three categories of companies: companies which use no electronic supply chain integration at all, companies which use non-Web based electronic supply chain integration, and companies which use Web-based electronic supply chain integration. Performance is examined using the following dimensions: process cost, operational efficiency, customer satisfaction, coordination, cooperation, and commitment between partners, and overall performance. Results show that companies using Web-based electronic supply chain integration experience lower cost, higher operational efficiency, a more cooperative partner relationship, and superior overall performance as compared to companies using no electronic supply chain integration. Companies using non-Web based electronic supply chain integration exhibit higher customer satisfaction, coordination, cooperation, and commitment with partners, and overall performance as compared to companies using no electronic supply chain integration. And finally, companies using non-Web based electronic supply chain integration have a lower volume of complaints and better coordination between partners than companies using Web-based electronic supply chain integration.

As information systems and data storage capacity become increasingly sophisticated, an important ethical question for organizations is "What can/will/should be done with the personal information that has been and can be collected?" Individuals' privacy is certainly important, but so is less costly and more targeted business processes. As this conflict intensifies, consumers, managers and policy makers are left wondering: What privacy principles are important to guide organizations in self-regulation? For example, do consumers view the five rights originally stated in the European Data Protection Directive as important? Comprehensive? Is there a product discount point where consumers would forsake these principles? This project explored these questions using a survey of student consumers, first in 2006 and again in 2014. Results show that the consumers believe that not only are the five rights enumerated in the European Data Protection Directive appropriate, but they are also comprehensive. Consumers also would require a steep product discount to forsake these rights. These views have not changed significantly over time.

What determines a market leader when business models and technologies can be easily imitated? This work examines this question within the context of the market for free, consumer-oriented Web portals. Factors considered include the length of time a service has been offered, the brand-related make effects of various leading players, and product features that create virtual communities and other switching costs. This analysis demonstrates that there are strong make-related premiums This chapter appears in the book, Web Portals: The New Gateways to Internet Information and Services, edited by Arthur Tatnall. Copyright © 2005, Idea Group Inc. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of Idea Group Inc. is prohibited. 701 E. Chocolate Avenue, Suite 200, Hershey PA 17033-1240, USA Tel: 717/533-8845; Fax 717/533-8661; URL-http://www.idea-group.com IDEA GROUP PUBLISHING Portal Combat Revisited 41 Copyright © 2005, Idea Group Inc. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of Idea Group Inc. is prohibited. among leading portal players, suggesting that brand value may be a critically important asset for industry players. The study also offers qualified support for the first-mover hypothesis and the benefits of chat and gaming features and notes a lack of significant benefit from leadership in various technology-based service innovations.

The rising costs of higher education, along with the learning styles and needs of modern students, are changing the instructional landscape. Students of today do less and less well in the “lecture only” format, and staffing this format with live faculty is extremely expensive. MOOCs and other technology-heavy options are low cost but quite impersonal. Blended instruction has promise, with the ultimate goal of cost-efficient student engagement. This paper reports on a major course transformation to achieve student engagement in a large, formerly lecture-only course. The resulting blended-learning course features clickers, web-based operationalization of students helping students, media-rich interactive online materials, event credit, and newly added student-produced video tutorials. Results show that the addition of the student-produced video tutorials increased the student engagement in the course.

In many respects, the decision making capability/promise of information technology has gone unfulfilled. In fact, many organizations have not advanced much past spreadsheets when it comes to computerized decision making assistance. This research attempts to examine why this is the case, and looks to the future by asking the questions “What’s the next spreadsheet? Is there a next killer app for intelligent systems/DSS?” Fifty-eight business professionals were surveyed to assist in answering these questions. Results suggest that while the spreadsheet is still by far the most used intelligent system, continuing improvements in the ease of use of information technology are helping to allow some organizations to begin to easily test and use newer DSS technologies. As additional organizations then begin to understand the purpose and usefulness of these newer technologies, their long term impact could be substantial. Statistical results suggest that Knowledge Management and GDSS technologies have the best chance in the near term to equal the impact of spreadsheets.

What determines a market leader when business models and technologies can be easily imitated? This work examines this question within the context of the market for free, consumer-oriented Web portals. Factors considered include the length of time a service has been offered, the brand-related make effects of various leading players, and product features that create virtual communities and other switching costs. This analysis demonstrates that there are strong make-related premiums among leading portal players, suggesting that brand value may be a critically important asset for industry players. The study also offers qualified support for the first-mover hypothesis and the benefits of chat and gaming features and notes a lack of significant benefit from leadership in various technology-based service innovations.

A course enhancement is described as a way to help alleviate educational problems in content understanding, need for multiple explanations, and lack of extra assistance. The method operationalizes students helping each other, and receiving credit for it. The method uses a web-based information system and the process works as follows: Mary helps Joe with a difficult course concept. As compensation, Joe logs in to the information system and registers the fact that Mary has helped him. He also gives Mary a “helpfulness” rating and comments on the help he received. Ratings translate into course points (for Mary and others), and students who accumulate enough points received Bronze, Silver, or Gold “Helper Status”. Students who reach Gold status get letters of recommendation from the professor upon request. A survey study conducted in classes using this Helper System versus one not using it suggests that such a system can help with the problems of content understanding, need for multiple explanations, and lack of extra assistance.

In the increasingly competitive environment of electronic commerce, companies are paying careful attention to Web site design and function to attract and retain both traffic and customers. One key factor that has been shown to increase both is Web site usability. This paper presents and tests a Web site usability research framework derived from prior literature. Fourteen Fortune 500 retail Web sites are examined by 261 potential customers and rated on aspects of usability. Results show that Content and Ease of Use are givens with regard to usability, but Identity, Download Delay, Trust Assurance, Made-for-the-medium, Responsiveness and Emotion can all be differentiators.

1. INTRODUCTION Increasingly, people go online for communication, interaction, searching, and buying products or services. Recent statistics indicate the number of Internet users worldwide reached over 1.80 billion as of December 31, 2009 (Internet Usage Statistics, 2010). This represents a global penetration rate of 26.6% which means over one fourth of the total world population is composed of Internet and Web users. One of the critical challenges facing businesses today is to develop a website that is usable, as usability has been shown to correlate with site usage. Two key components of usability are Ease of Use and Emotion (affective reactions invoked by a Web site), and thus companies continually seek more effective ways to make professional and appealing sites which are easy to navigate (Downing and Liu, 2010). Innovative menus are receiving much attention in this area. A menu is a key part of any dynamic website that features more than one page. It allows users to navigate a website quickly and easily and allows them to get where they want to go. The menu tends to be the fundamental interaction component and contributes to the important aspect of stickiness, or usage for a website design (Nielsen, 2000). A good menu design makes a huge difference in terms of whether or not users could effectively navigate and achieve a visually appealing effect of consistent look and feel when they come to visit a website (Baxley, 2003). Since the menu has become an integrated component within almost all professionally designed websites, and innovative menus mesh strongly with both the Ease of Use and Emotion aspects of site usability, the ability to create professional and innovative web menus is a highly prized skill for both students and seasoned developers. This teaching tip describes a no-code way to design either a vertical or horizontal fly-out menu as one visually appealing example in the classroom. It allows students with little or no programming experience the ability to create a functional and appealing web menu. This is the motivation for the teaching tip which follows. 2. THE HANDS-ON ENVIRONMENT The lesson described in this paper was based on a semester-long undergraduate level Web design course taught in the spring of 2009 at a large, Midwestern university. All students enrolled in this course were MIS majors. The lead author of this paper was the course instructor. One of the learning objectives in this course was requiring students to explore Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) to control the appearance of Web pages. CSS is a collection of rules of how a Web page should be formatted (Duckett, 2008). It is widely understood by all major browsers and overcomes the problem of mixed data and presentation in a Web page by allowing all formatting information, i.e., the rules, to be stored in a separate external CSS file. This helps create an easily accessible and maintainable website since the page content and the formatting rules are separated (Accessibility Features of CSS, 1999). The problem of using HTML markup tags for formatting and presentation is that markup tags are embedded into the content which means that visual significance of the content could only be processed the way determined by the designer. Moreover, using HTML markup tags to specify formatting details is not a good long-term solution because documents become big, cumbersome, and impossible to maintain. CSS, on the other hand, was designed to allow precise control--outside of markup--of character spacing, text alignment, object position on the page, audio and speech output, font characteristics, etc. By separating style from markup, a web designer can simplify and make web contents more accessible at the same time. In fact, accessibility is an important part of website usability since a website is not usable unless it's accessible (Krug, 2006). Students learned at the end of this course to use different rules of CSS to control the appearance of every element in their websites so that their Web design looked more accessible, appealing and interesting. …

Introduction The 1980s saw the advent of the personal computer, and the days of "Data Processing" departments solely dictating the timeline of office productivity solutions were gone. The 1990s saw the advent of enterprise resource planning (ERP) software packages, and organizations enthusiastically (even if sometimes slowly and painfully) moved from the silo mentality of departmental and unit-based information systems solutions to enterprise-wide information solutions. Today, companies are increasingly realizing that the progression from departmental to enterprise information systems has a logical next step: inter-organizational or supply chain solutions. While many pioneering companies have linked to their customers and suppliers for years, the improving reliability and security of the Web presents new opportunities for all organizations. Companies are increasingly moving to the Web or considering moving to the Web to conduct business transactions, connecting themselves with suppliers and customers. Much of the recent research on electronic data interchange and information technology (IT) in the supply chain has focused on using the Web to conduct business-to-business (B2B) commerce across the supply chain, thus improving the older electronic data interchange ("EDI") model. The B2B market has grown steadily over the last several years. As an increasing portion of companies migrate to the Web it becomes important for both academics and practitioners to understand the benefits and pitfalls of such a migration. Numerous studies enumerate the benefits of electronic supply chain integration and B2B, and these benefits fall into the following categories: Reduction of process cost, improved operational efficiency, improved customer satisfaction, improved coordination, cooperation, and commitment between EDI partners, and improved overall process performance. However, a study has not been done which compares the process performance benefits of all three possible groups: Companies or processes (hereafter simply "companies") using no electronic supply chain integration (verbal and/or paper orders, invoices, etc.), companies using non-Web-based Supply Chain Integration (traditional EDI, using private or leased lines), and companies using Web-based supply chain integration. A notable exception occurred in a 2002 study, but this study was done on only 18 companies, a very small sample size. Also, many current studies claim that companies are misdiagnosing the advantages of B2B over existing ways of doing business. The absence of a three group comparison, along with a possible misdiagnosis of advantages, calls for further examination. Thus, this research will attempt to determine differences in the performance of companies using no electronic supply chain integration, companies using non-Web-based supply chain integration, and companies using Web-based supply chain integration.

This study compares usability ratings of Web sites, based on academic research, to actual usage data, from Nielsen Online. This is accomplished by consulting academic usability research, and using those guidelines to rate eight retail Web sites on usability. Then, this study uses "real world" data, the usage data from Nielsen Online, to longitudinally validate the academic findings. Results show that, over time, the calculated usability ratings move in the same direction and in the same magnitude as the usage data.

This article examines the performance of three categories of companies: companies which use no electronic supply chain integration at all, companies which use non-Web based electronic supply chain integration, and companies which use Web-based electronic supply chain integration. Performance is examined using the following dimensions: process cost, operational efficiency, customer satisfaction, coordination, cooperation, and commitment between partners, and overall performance. Results show that companies using Web-based electronic supply chain integration experience lower cost, higher operational efficiency, a more cooperative partner relationship, and superior overall performance as compared to companies using no electronic supply chain integration. Companies using non-Web based electronic supply chain integration exhibit higher customer satisfaction, coordination, cooperation, and commitment with partners, and overall performance as compared to companies using no electronic supply chain integration. And finally, companies using non-Web based electronic supply chain integration have a lower volume of complaints and better coordination between partners than companies using Web-based electronic supply chain integration.

This article examines the performance of three categories of companies: companies which use no electronic supply chain integration at all, companies which use non-Web based electronic supply chain integration, and companies which use Web-based electronic supply chain integration. Performance is examined using the following dimensions: process cost, operational efficiency, customer satisfaction, coordination, cooperation, and commitment between partners, and overall performance. Results show that companies using Web-based electronic supply chain integration experience lower cost, higher operational efficiency, a more cooperative partner relationship, and superior overall performance as compared to companies using no electronic supply chain integration. Companies using non-Web based electronic supply chain integration exhibit higher customer satisfaction, coordination, cooperation, and commitment with partners, and overall performance as compared to companies using no electronic supply chain integration. And finally, companies using non-Web based electronic supply chain integration have a lower volume of complaints and better coordination between partners than companies using Web-based electronic supply chain integration.

Developing a better understanding of the impact of uncertainty on process performance has been recognized as an important research opportunity in service design (Hill, et al., 2002). Within this general research stream, our study focuses on the question of what managers can do to most effectively address operational uncertainty and mitigate its negative effects. To begin to address this question, we report on an exploratory study using a sample of professionals in the financial-services industry who acted as informants on 108 financial-services processes. These professionals were sampled from a population of graduates of a university in the northeastern region of the United States who were employed in the financial-services industry. Based on these processes, we empirically examine the relationship between responses to operational uncertainty and process performance after controlling for customer mix, other uncertainty sources, and process type characteristics. Our findings suggest that process improvement-an uncertainty reduction approach related to the internal functioning of the process-as well as several uncertainty coping approaches are associated with better performing processes. However, uncertainty reduction approaches related to customer involvement with, and demands on, the process are not associated with better performing processes. We discuss the implications of our findings for determining what actions managers can take to reduce the negative performance effects of operational uncertainty and how managers can decide which of these actions to take. We conclude with a discussion of the limitations of our study.

User resistance, confusion, or numerous other user satisfaction issues can often limit participation in electronic service delivery systems. This project seeks to provide guidance to managers in the business-to-employee (B2E) segment, by empirically examining user reactions to both traditional, human-staffed service offerings and electronic, automated service offerings. Five components of user satisfaction which have been established in the literature were measured both before and after an automated electronic service was installed to replace a human-staffed customer service centre. The field site was a large national financial services company, and two sets of 500 surveys were mailed to users of the system. Results indicate that the longer the period of usage of a service prior to automation, the more satisfied the user is with the automation. However, both the age of the user, and the user's previous experience with similar types of automation had no effect on satisfaction.