{"title":"A model for a data visualization and exploration course","authors":"Ali Ardalan","doi":"10.1111/dsji.70009","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/dsji.70009","url":null,"abstract":"<p>In response to a large backlog of demand for data analytics expertise, universities are adding analytics courses and/or programs. Data visualization and exploration are among the pillars of the analytics curriculum and should be included in analytics programs. This article presents the philosophy, structure, and content of a data visualization and exploration course for senior undergraduate and master's level students. It presents the learning objectives, detailed criteria for selecting the reading materials, and visualization software for this course. In addition, this article shares lists of required and optional articles that were selected by an extensive review of literature in the field of data visualization and exploration. Analysis of assessments by the instructor and the independent assessment of student capstone projects by two reviewers showed that students learned the materials well and properly applied the knowledge they gained in this course to completing the capstone project. Student comments indicate that the course was well designed, that they enjoyed the course content, and that they found working with the visualization software beneficial.</p>","PeriodicalId":46210,"journal":{"name":"Decision Sciences-Journal of Innovative Education","volume":"23 3","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.8,"publicationDate":"2025-06-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144213901","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Ozgur Kabadurmus, Karsten Powell, Timothy S. Vaughan
{"title":"Applying quality control to daily habits: A new method for teaching quality control","authors":"Ozgur Kabadurmus, Karsten Powell, Timothy S. Vaughan","doi":"10.1111/dsji.70008","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/dsji.70008","url":null,"abstract":"<p>This teaching brief presents a new experiential exercise for teaching statistical process control (SPC) within a quality management course. This novel approach involves a semester-long personal quality control project, where students apply SPC methodology to their daily habits, using data collected from their smart devices. Surveys conducted at the end of the semester show that students felt more confident using quality control concepts both personally and professionally. The survey results also suggest that students believe the exercise helped them to better understand their own daily habits and aided their ability to apply quality management methodologies through greater engagement with the concepts. This innovative teaching method both enhances students’ theoretical understanding and prepares them for effective problem-solving in industry settings.</p>","PeriodicalId":46210,"journal":{"name":"Decision Sciences-Journal of Innovative Education","volume":"23 3","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.8,"publicationDate":"2025-05-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/dsji.70008","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144171334","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"A technological, data-oriented design journey for teaching and learning business intelligence and analytics projects","authors":"Jongsawas Chongwatpol","doi":"10.1111/dsji.70007","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/dsji.70007","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Design thinking and design-oriented information systems share commonalities in applying specific toolsets to develop product and system designs that address strategic, managerial, and operational problems. How can design thinking be embedded as an innovative and creative learning process to facilitate decision-making in business intelligence and analytics within a classroom environment, particularly during the proof-of-concept stage? This study aims to expand these implications both academically and practically by presenting a technological, data-oriented design process for integrating design thinking into business intelligence (BI) and business analytics (BA) curriculums. The proposed data-oriented design approach highlights five areas that serve as the building blocks of the BI and BA strategy: problem, data, analytics, technology, and user spaces. The case study of a retail supermarket provides guidelines on how alternative designs that emerge during the problem formulation stage of the design thinking approach are transformed into prototypes in the proof-of-concept stage and are subsequently tested and implemented to demonstrate their proof-of-value and proof-of-use in the retail industry. This study also outlines six key learning experiences—categorized as objectives, assessment, space, activities, artifacts, and culture—for teachers, students, IS scholars, CIOs, CDOs, and other top management to create a design-oriented organizational structure.</p>","PeriodicalId":46210,"journal":{"name":"Decision Sciences-Journal of Innovative Education","volume":"23 3","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.8,"publicationDate":"2025-05-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144135745","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Effectiveness of teaching Excel and Access using actual and simulated platforms – A comparative study","authors":"Esmail Mohebbi","doi":"10.1111/dsji.70002","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/dsji.70002","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Microsoft Excel and Access are widely used in introductory courses designed to teach the fundamentals of spreadsheet and relational database modeling skills in various disciplines. To achieve the targeted learning outcomes, instructors of these courses strive to provide students with guided, frequent, and incrementally fruitful practice with the software. Instructors often can facilitate such practice using the actual software or by employing a virtually simulated version of the software integrated into a learning management system. This article presents the results of a study that compared the effectiveness of using actual versus simulated Excel and Access environments as alternative or complementary instructional platforms in an introductory undergraduate course in information systems. The underlying study distinguished between instructor-led guidance using the actual software and autonomous self-paced instructions provided in the simulated environment while using multiple objective and subjective learning assessment tools. The mixed impacts of these scenarios promote a hybrid learning approach that uses both strategies to most effectively enhance students’ competency in Excel and Access.</p>","PeriodicalId":46210,"journal":{"name":"Decision Sciences-Journal of Innovative Education","volume":"23 2","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.8,"publicationDate":"2025-02-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143489899","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Are your students “Wired That Way?”: Integrating personality types into the administration of group projects","authors":"Lorraine L. Taylor, Madeleine A. Butler","doi":"10.1111/dsji.70001","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/dsji.70001","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Compared to more complex personality assessments, Wired That Way by Marita Littauer, presents four personality types that students find easy to understand and internalize: Popular Sanguine, Powerful Choleric, Perfect Melancholy, and Peaceful Phlegmatic. Students’ awareness of their own and their peers’ classification in this comprehensive personality plan can be useful in the administration of group projects and other classroom activities. The understanding and application of the innate strengths and weaknesses of each personality type in a group setting provides tools and language that enable students to navigate challenges. This Teaching Brief presents the benefits and process of incorporating Wired That Way into the administration of group projects. Recommendations are based on analyzing the outcomes of a group project over 6 years for 402 students in 125 groups in 18 sections of an upper-division undergraduate Business Administration course in Tourism and Hospitality Management. Analysis results demonstrate that the personality makeup of individuals in a group can influence project component grades, most notably how the personalities in each group influence creativity, group cohesion, and overall project performance.</p>","PeriodicalId":46210,"journal":{"name":"Decision Sciences-Journal of Innovative Education","volume":"23 2","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.8,"publicationDate":"2025-02-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143455748","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Bots and insights: Combining perspectives of analytics and software development in systems analysis and design projects","authors":"Madhav Sharma, Roger McHaney","doi":"10.1111/dsji.70005","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/dsji.70005","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Many management information systems (MIS) faculty have adopted a project-oriented approach in their systems analysis and design courses. In these courses, students use a software development methodology to create a web or mobile application project, which can be based on a predefined case or developed for an external stakeholder. Because most information systems programs emphasize cybersecurity, analytics, and artificial intelligence (AI), traditional systems analysis and design courses for web applications may seem one-dimensional in comparison. To address this limitation, we developed and implemented a project based on Merrill's Pebble-in-the-Pond instructional design. In this project, students were required to build an application with two key components: a chatbot and a dashboard, both integrated with the same database. These components cater to multiple user groups, allowing us to combine perspectives from analytics and AI within a single project. Drawing from our experience and feedback from students, we have compiled a set of recommendations for successfully implementing such a project.</p>","PeriodicalId":46210,"journal":{"name":"Decision Sciences-Journal of Innovative Education","volume":"23 2","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.8,"publicationDate":"2025-02-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143439021","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Biljana Mileva Boshkoska, Sagnika Sen, Pavle Boškoski
{"title":"Designing graduate business curricula by utilizing a market-driven skills extraction approach","authors":"Biljana Mileva Boshkoska, Sagnika Sen, Pavle Boškoski","doi":"10.1111/dsji.70003","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/dsji.70003","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Traditionally, academic institutions have relied on interviews with industry representatives and alumni surveys to gauge market demand, an approach that often results in dated and limited information. In this article, we show that using real-time data from job postings in professional sites provides more direct, rich, and timely insights regarding the current demand and skill requirements. We propose a novel machine-learning based framework for detecting the skillsets for positions requiring Master of Business and Administration (MBA). Utilizing LinkedIn job-posting data in the US state of Pennsylvania, our analysis reveals 20 distinct functional areas. While some of these functional areas (e.g., people management) are predictable, others (e.g., supply chain project management) were not anticipated to be high in demand in the given market. Our results also identify the most sought-after skillsets (e.g., resource allocation). Most importantly, we observe that the top skillsets span multiple functional areas. Taken together, our results can help business school program directors update and customize curricula to meet market demand.</p>","PeriodicalId":46210,"journal":{"name":"Decision Sciences-Journal of Innovative Education","volume":"23 2","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.8,"publicationDate":"2025-02-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143439019","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The business analytics skills employers are looking for","authors":"John Levendis, Nuwan Indika","doi":"10.1111/dsji.70004","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/dsji.70004","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Business analytics is a fast-growing field that requires a combination of technical, analytical, and communication skills. This article aims to identify the most sought after skills for business analytics jobs based on a content analysis of over 2600 online job postings. The results show that the top skills include analytics, communication, visualization, data science, business requirements, and problem-solving. The article also discusses the implications of these findings for curriculum design and career development. Aside from the standard battery of statistics classes, we argue that every analytics curriculum should contain components teaching statistical communication, visualization, databases, and programming as well as include a capstone project.</p>","PeriodicalId":46210,"journal":{"name":"Decision Sciences-Journal of Innovative Education","volume":"23 2","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.8,"publicationDate":"2025-02-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143439020","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"An AI gold rush as a transformation for learning and pedagogy experiences","authors":"Pedro M. Reyes, Ashish Gupta","doi":"10.1111/dsji.70000","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/dsji.70000","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":46210,"journal":{"name":"Decision Sciences-Journal of Innovative Education","volume":"23 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.8,"publicationDate":"2025-01-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143119592","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Identifying New Frontiers of Learning and Pedagogy","authors":"Pedro M. Reyes, Ashish Gupta","doi":"10.1111/dsji.12330","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1111/dsji.12330","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":46210,"journal":{"name":"Decision Sciences-Journal of Innovative Education","volume":"22 4","pages":"216-217"},"PeriodicalIF":0.8,"publicationDate":"2024-11-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142641292","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}