911爆料网

Information Systems and Management Practice Center

Goals

• To provide experiential learning for our students within the business analytics and information systems program
• To engage faculty members in meaningful ways with different businesses and organizations within the Greater Tampa Bay and Sarasota-Manatee county region.
• To provide local businesses and organizations with a real solution to an issue or problem that they face within the areas associated with the program

Executive Summary

The practice center project is available across all three campuses and supervised by faculty members from all three campuses. The center gives students new skills and experiences with "real world" projects sponsored by industry partners. 911爆料网 work in groups of two performing collaborative team-based projects. Every project is supervised by at least one faculty mentor and at least one representative of the project-sponsoring industry partner. Projects typically last one semester. Based on a project's outcome or the nature of the project, an industry partner may choose to sponsor the next phase or a new project for an additional semester. Some flexibility is built into this program for situations where the project start date cannot coincide with the start of the semester, or where industry partners require students to work on multiple projects. However, the selection of projects should be based on some learning objectives. There is also some flexibility as to the location where students complete project work (at the USF campus and/or sponsoring industry partner facilities).

Benefits

Participating students gain valuable experience along with earning possible stipend and credits. These students become more competitive in the job market, and are noticed by sponsoring industry partners. Participating students also benefit from the mentoring provided by School of Information Systems and Management faculty and industry representatives supervising respective projects.

Faculty members benefit by applying their knowledge to "real world" problems, while at the same time maintaining currency in their practice skills. They also learn about industry problems, technology solutions, and issues, which they can bring to the classroom, and to their research.

The business partners benefit in several ways. First, they have the opportunity to work with top-quality business analytics and information systems students in order to create solutions to projects that benefit them, while leveraging the expertise of top faculty members. Companies are able to engage and observe students perform projects for future consideration of full-time employment, reducing the cost of recruitment.

Operations

The center is supported by private gifts as well as support from the industry partners who benefit from the services performed.

Projects are selected two months before the start of the semester in which students work on projects. Applications may come from companies or students themselves.

Participants must be USF students and are selected based on GPA, skill sets, and the availability of projects. Honors students are encouraged to apply as project work could be part of an honors thesis, subject to the terms of the non-disclosure agreements.

Partners

Information Systems and Management Practice Center Partner
$18,800 per semester

• Provides funding for two students for 20 hours per week per student (15 weeks).
• Funds faculty supervision and research throughout the semester for the students and for the partner. 
• Projects are accepted on a rolling basis. It is generally the most beneficial for companies to plan for a September-December or January-April timeline. Please allow a period of 4-6 weeks prior to starting for setup.

Contact: Anna Bahvala

Note for all Practice Center Partners
All required paperwork, including the signing of non-disclosure agreements as required by the project partners, and documents as required by USF, must be completed before the start of the semester. Also, students are employed by USF, and therefore USF manages the payroll processing for students.

Practice center partners have included

• 3M
• Bank of America
• Citigroup
• Colliers International
• FinaMetrics
• Fintech
• Grow Financial
• Jagged Peak
• JPMorgan Chase
• Kforce
• Leapdoctor
• Raymond James Financial
• SiteWit
• Time Customer Service
• Trader Planet
• US Department of Veterans Affairs
• USF Health
• Verizon