Tuesday, February 28, 2012

Big Data

I am teaching a new course this fall titled Applications of Business Intelligence and am really excited about exploring this field as I prepare for the class.  Today I attended a webinar hosted by KMWorld on big data.  The presentation was facilitated by Andy Moore (publisher at KMWorld) and featured Mark Meyers (Vivisimo), Rik Tamm-Daniels (Attivo), and Kathy Lange (SAS Business Analytics Practice).

I find this field of IT particularly interesting with my research focus in knowledge management and database management.  The field of business intelligence/business analytics/data analysis all complement the knowledge management field rather nicely.  As I am just beginning to dig into this domain area, I find the language rather frustrating.  Perhaps there is true delineation between business intelligence, business analytics, data analysis, and data warehousing but they all seem to belong within the same domain area (albeit different aspects of this domain area).

The webinar presentation provided some good insight into the current state of the industry.  Organizations are certainly applying these concepts; particularly larger organizations.  However, there seems to be little evidence of mastery over this new technological and logistical challenge.  This should prove to be a developing field and will result in an exciting journey as I prepare for my new course.

Thursday, February 23, 2012

Reviewing Textbooks

This Fall semester I am going to teach a new undergraduate course in Business Intelligence.  In preparation for this new course I'm currently evaluating potential textbooks.  There are many books published for this topic but not all texts follow the same approach, scope, or level of detail I want to use to teach the course.  As a result, I need to look through several different options before I will be able to select the text(s) I want to use for the course.

In previous years this evaluation process required me to request an evaluation copy of each text from each of the publishers.  The publishers would then pay to ship the book out to me.  I would then wait until the textbook arrived before I could evaluate if it would be a good fit for my course.  Approximately 80% of the time I found the textbook did not align with what I was looking for and this resulted in wasted time for me and added effort and expense for the publisher.

This year, I am using CourseSmart.  This new service works with many publishers to offer electronic copies of the textbooks.  I'm able to almost immediately access the textbooks I want to consider.  I'm able to page through the e-book to see if the textbook will meet my needs.  This new service is saving me a considerable amount of time and it also saves the publishers the hassle and expense of sending out textbooks that may not be adopted.

I am now able to narrow down my textbook options to a select few options and then request evaluation copies of these books.  I still feel the need to hold the book to get a better understanding of the content but perhaps, once I feel more comfortable reading from my computer or iPad screen I will be able to complete the entire evaluation through CourseSmart.  Until then, I'm very happy with this way of conducting the initial search.

Tuesday, February 21, 2012

PIM Methods

Last week I participated as a guest in a Knowledge Management course.  During my week in the course the class was studying personal knowledge management and our discussions were focused on this topic.  Participating in this discussion allowed me to reflect on my past approaches to personal knowledge management; especially as our discussions inevitably lead to personal information management.

Since I have always been a stickler for organization, I soon embraced personal information strategies as I entered the workforce.  Perhaps this started with my TrapperKeeper in grade school.  Once in the workplace I began using software like Sidekick but adopted the Franklin Planner after attending a professional time management seminar on the Covey method.  After sticking with the Franklin Planner for many years I moved back into technology once the Palm was released where I used the Palm III (and later the Palm V) with my Outlook software.  From there I tried the PocketPC, Lotus Organizer, Ecco Pro, and the BlueSky planning calendar.  Now I find myself armed with a iPhone with access to my email, calendar, contacts, and Remember the Milk task list.

My PIM tools over the years have changed and so has my approach to my personal information management.  After years of following the Covey planning method of my Franklin Planner, I read Getting Things Done and discovered a more dynamic way to task management.  I also found that Remember the Milk as a closer match to this GTD method than Covey's planning system method.

One thing we learned this week in the Knowledge Management course is that personal knowledge management and personal information management are exactly that; personal.  Each individual has their own working style and this style may also be influenced by the position and the organizational culture.  Tools that work for me may not work for others.  Experimenting and discovery is the key to finding a successful PIM or PKM method.

Thursday, February 16, 2012

Assessment Levels

I came across an article yesterday discussing multiple levels of curricular assessment.  While curricular assessment may not be the most exciting topic to read, this article did introduce me to a new perspective on applying assessments to my graduate curriculum.  Additionally, given our college is up for review by our regional accrediting agency this fall, this is a timely topic for me.

In this article the author applied the Kirkpatrick framework of training program assessment to curriculum assessment in higher education.  Using this approach, there are four levels of assessment:
  1. Level 1 - Reaction: Measuring the level of satisfaction with a course or program
  2. Level 2 - Learning: Measuring the change in the student's attitudes, knowledge or skills
  3. Level 3 - Behavior: Measuring modifications to the performance behaviors of the student
  4. Level 4 - Results: Measuring the performance increases due to application of the skills acquired in the class or academic program
Most program assessment plans do not address all four levels of assessment and perhaps apply Level 1 and Level 2 assessments.  This results in assessments that do not evaluate all dimensions of the outcomes.  The author acknowledge the increased level of effort required for the higher level assessments.  Perhaps this is why not all levels are commonly assessed.

Wednesday, February 8, 2012

Adopting Google+

A couple of years ago, my college adopted the Google suite of applications and email to replace our legacy email system.  As part of this adoption our system administrator is able to grant us access to many of the Google products.  Last month, we gained access to Google+.

Some time last year, before the college rolled-out Google+, I created my own personal Google+ account to see what all of the fuss was about.  After setting up my account I didn't really see how I could justify spending time within this new social application.  Now that I have access to Google+ through the college I thought I would create an account and, perhaps, a new use for this service would emerge.

After a couple of weeks with the new Google+ account, I added several friends, family, and colleagues to my circles and followed (is that the right term?; it seems like I'm a stalker) a few prominent IT personalities to view their streams.  Since setting this up I posted a message, +1 a few postings, and noticed myself begin added to the circles of other people.  However, nothing earth shattering has occurred yet.  I don't know what I'm expecting but I hope there will be more to Google+ than this.

I'm hopeful Google+ will serve as a way to stay connected to my colleagues, alumni, and friends.  I like the idea of circles since the separation of my professional life and academic life was one of the reasons I stayed away from Facebook.  I hope Google+ offers more interaction and relevance than offered by LinkedIn but I'm not sure where this will go.  I think the adoption rate and participation rate of Google+ will be the strongest indicators of how much benefit this will serve.

Monday, February 6, 2012

Learning Journal

Over the summer semester I teach a research and writing class for graduate students preparing for their final thesis.  In this course the students are reintroduced to scholarly writing, research, and the APA formatting guidelines.  The final deliverable for this course is a project proposal for their thesis.

About halfway through the course the students spend about four weeks researching their topics and writing an annotated bibliography of their sources.  This exercise is assigned to help the students place their research in the context of their thesis project and to encourage them to conduct a majority of their literature research in the preparation of their proposal.

Over the past few years I noticed many students were putting off the research until the end of the four weeks.  This resulted in a hastily constructed collection of unrelated sources that were intended to satisfy the need for the bibliography assignment more than the development of their research proposal.  This year I wanted to incentivize the students to begin the research earlier in the class and to report their progress during the four-week window of research.

I am looking to ask the students to contribute to their own learning journal throughout the class where the students are each required to reflect on their findings from the literature and their progress toward the project proposal.  My hope is this journal will make their progress more transparent to the student and myself and to keep the students focused on the development of the proposal.  Hopefully, I can implement this journal assignment in a manner that provides value to the student while allowing me to better understand their progress, concerns, and new discoveries.

Friday, February 3, 2012

Evernote and the Paperless Home Office

For many years I have been saving the user manuals that come with many of the products I purchase.  I have a file cabinet in the basement containing all of these manuals but these manuals are taking up some space.  Holding on to these manuals has been useful (how much oil does my lawn mower engine need?) but I don't refer to them frequently.  I decided that I no longer want to house this collection of paper in my basement.  So rather than throwing these out, I decided to move the manuals to my Evernote account.

I am able to add a PDF as a separate Evernote note for each manual.  The good news is that many of these manuals are published as a PDF on the manufacturer's website.  A simple Google search for "X user manual" (where X is the product I'm looking fore) allows me to quickly find the URL of the product manual.  I am slowing adding these manuals to my Evernnote account and recycling the paper copies once I add the PDF copy.

I found another benefit to moving these manuals to Evernote.  Not only do I save physical space in my basement, I am also able to view these manuals anywhere.  Since Evernote syncs with my iPad and iPhone I can search for these manuals on my devices as well as my computer.

I'm going to keep looking for ways to free up space by moving my paper copies to Evernote.

Wednesday, February 1, 2012

iPad for Magazines

Last month, several of the IT magazines ceased publishing paper copies of their publications and moved to digital only copies.  I now have the ability to read these publications and others on my iPad and have been doing so for a few months now.  There are both positive and negative factors in this reading experience.

First, the positive.  The most obvious benefit is the ability to carry around all of my magazines with me on the iPad I already have in my bag.  This also enables me to hold onto older issues without additional physical weight or space (until I run out of storage space on my iPad).  I also like the option some of the publishers provide where I can select a a magazine view or a text view of each article.  However, one of the biggest benefits is the ability to search the content either within an issue or across issues.

Next, the negative.  I still miss the feel of paper but not the physical space it takes up.  I am also limited in my ability to simply give the magazine to a student or colleague when I'm finished with it.  The biggest drawback I have experienced so far is the lack of visibility of the magazine in my workflow.  In the old days (last year) I would have a stack of publications I'm reading through and when I get a new publication I add it to the pile.  Now with the digital only versions, they are not visible in my pile and I have to remember to go to my iPad and find the magazine.

There are both benefits and challenges to this new delivery method for the publishers.  I don't have any real complaints but this is something that may take awhile to get used to.  Will it continue or is the "magazine" concept becoming old fashioned?

Skills to Look for in Project Managers

Today I read a brief article describing the eight skills to look for when hiring an IT project manager. The headlines caught my attention...