 | Level: Introductory Scott Laningham (scottla@us.ibm.com), Podcast Editor, IBM developerWorks
25 Sep 2007 Paul Cronan drives the ERP curriculum, and David Douglas is a
university professor in information systems, both at the University of
Arkansas, Walton School of Business. In this 18-minute talk, Cronan and
Douglas talk about the resurgence of mainframe computing, its effect on
academic curricula, and the massive data-mining system they are building to
share with faculty and students at other institutions.
developerWorks: I'm Scott Laningham, and this is a developerWorks
and IBM Academic Initiative podcast. Our guests this time are both from the
University of Arkansas, Walton College of Business. Dr. Paul Cronin is the
MD Matthews Chair in information systems. He drives the ERP curriculum
using SAP. Thank you for joining us today, Dr. Cronin.
Cronan: Thank you, Scott, I'm happy to be here.
developerWorks: We also have Dr. David Douglas, a university
professor in information systems. He teaches the full suite of mainframe
courses, including systems management, transaction processing, and
databases. Dr. Douglas, thank you so much for making time for this, as well.
Douglas: Thank you, Scott. It's my pleasure to be on the line.
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Guest: Paul Cronan
Paul Cronan, Ph.D., is professor of information systems at the University
of Arkansas, Walton College of Business. From 1993 to 1995, he was co-director and co-founder
of the University of Arkansas Teaching and Faculty Support Center. Cronan
serves as past president and executive committee member of the UA Teaching
Academy. He was recognized as the 1995 computer educator of the
year by the International Association for Computer Information Systems. He
is interested in the use of teaching portfolios for the improvement of
teaching, and a current project is the development of a state-of-the-art
multimedia development and distance-learning center in the college. He
teaches database systems, as well as graduate MIS and computer information
systems research courses. He is an active member of the Decision
Sciences Institute, the International Association for Computer Information
Systems, and The Association for Computing Machinery. Cronan received
the D.B.A. from Louisiana Tech University and is currently co-director of
the College of Business Administration Center for Teaching Effectiveness.
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developerWorks: Now, we certainly want to talk about the
cutting-edge things that are going on in that intersect point between your
two areas of focus at the university. But first, I wanted to ask you about
the whole issue of building relevant skills for today's and tomorrow's
technology workers ... this idea that large-scale computing and mainframe
computing hasn't seemed all that important for a lot of years, but we're
seeing a change in that brought about by the enormous computing and data
demands of the wired world. And we hear people talk about that. But even
with that, I'm wondering, is there still a big hill to climb for
universities to better be in touch with what businesses are needing from
new graduates? And if so, how have you all been addressing that at the University of Arkansas?
Cronan: This is Paul Cronan, and just kind of thinking about what
you said, what we're finding from our companies is that students need to
know quite a bit more about the whole business process from the purchase of
the raw materials through the manufacturing into the sales and then the
collection of the money once they've sold the product — the
whole business process.
And when that becomes relevant for us is that as we
transition from a PC application to a larger system like a mainframe, the
companies are expecting students to have skills that are directly
applicable to the job at hand, to solving this business problem. For
example, such things as they want the students to have had hands on
capability, hands-on experience. They want them to experience the same kind
of software that they're going to be experiencing on the job. So, real
software. The same with the data sets. Not so much any more these data sets
that are textbook-based and everything works, but rather, what would happen
if they used a real data set, something that companies are actually using
that has the same kind of problems such as integrity problems. The same
problems that they would be experiencing on the job for a company. So
that's one of the things that we've gleaned in order to overlap industry and
business, as well as our academic programs.
Douglas: Now, this is David Douglas, and I'd like to echo and agree
with what Paul has said. One of the things that we've done in order to
help us interact with corporations, which has been critical for us being
able to get the hardware, software, and data sets that we need is, we have
an enterprise computing steering committee, and we meet a few times a year.
It has really top IS people in there from the major companies. And they
help us guide what we are trying to do, and it gives us the contacts that
we need to work directly with them in terms of getting the things that we
need to accomplish the training and skills that we need for the future.
One of the parts of the question was the mainframe may not have been of emphasis in the
past, but it's beginning to resurface as a major emphasis for the future. And that
comes out in our enterprise computing steering committee meetings. And the people that
come to recruit here, almost all of the major financial companies, large retail and so
forth, still use the mainframe as one of their core systems for capturing transactions.
developerWorks: How important do you think this more involved
community involving all the parts you're talking about and the
communication back and forth, how much more important is that today than it
was even 10 or say 15 years ago? The pace of change and how that's
accelerating. It must really be impacting how important it is for you all to stay in touch.
Douglas: We could not do anywhere near what we're doing unless we
had these communications with the industry people that we have. They are
really central to our thinking, what we were trying to do, and their
support in helping us get to things that we need to do.
Cronan: Absolutely. In fact, it's changing so fast that by the
time a textbook is published, within that textbook has actually changed,
it's old. So our textbook really is a very dynamic textbook. We have to
be on top of what's going on in industry, and that's where such things as
the enterprise steering committee and communications with our companies
really makes a difference.
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Guest: David Douglas
David Douglas holds the title of University Professor in information
systems at the University of Arkansas, Walton College of Business. He was
department chair from 1985 to 1998. He served as president of the
Decision Sciences Institute -- Southwest Region for 1996-1997, the
associate program chair for the Decision Sciences Institute for the 1999 national
meeting, and secretary/treasurer for the Southwest Federation of
Administration Disciplines. His research interests include pedagogy for
distance education, e-commerce, and database management
systems/data warehousing/data mining. He received his Ph.D. in
computer modeling from the University of Arkansas in 1972.
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developerWorks: Yes, our podcast will probably be out of date by the
time we get it published, then. [LAUGHTER] I wonder if you, if this might
be a good point to ask you a bit more about your individual curriculums in
these two focus areas and how you're bringing all these things that you're
learning into play in what you teach.
Cronan: I'll go ahead and let David talk about the specifics of some
of the courses where we teach enterprise systems. I'll just briefly mention
that one of the ways in which we try to teach business process and allow
students to understand the overall business process is that we've
instituted a number of courses to learn more about the enterprise resource
planning (ERP). And with that, a student in the Walton College of Business
and students since in the university, no matter what their major, is can
actually minor, get a minor, in enterprise resource planning. So through a
series of courses, we teach them something about enterprise resource
planning and how the business process works. We use the SAP system in
order to do that and demonstrate. In the course, we show them how to
actually configure and integrate SAP in a business situation. That way, they
can learn how it works in the business and how it runs through the whole
business: accounting, finance, production and management, manufacturing.
And then, of course, in one of the upper-level courses in enterprise resource planning, we
show them how to adapt the SAP system to a particular business problem. That's just a
sample of how we might be teaching business process.
Douglas:I'll follow up on a couple points that we have. In order to
do those things that Dr. Cronin was talking about, you have to have a
foundational transaction system. And the mainframe is considered to be
the best in the world in that environment. So we teach courses where
students learn concepts on the mainframe and the capabilities to do all
those things that had to do with using the mainframe to capture
transactions to provide that foundational basis, absolutely necessary.
This includes open source, which is a big direction that IBM® is
going. We include teaching Linux® on the mainframe. We also
teach Web development on the mainframe, CICS®, and we use
DB2® on the mainframe. This fall, in our course, there's going to
be an attempt for all the students that are in the class to ... are going
to try to attempt to have them all take the certification exam for the IBM mainframe.
developerWorks: I'm wondering, you know, now with that, if you all
could talk a bit about — obviously — this very interesting
cutting-edge setup that you're working on involving some really massive
data sets on the IBM z900-based system. Could you describe kind of the
elements of that system, and then talk about some of the things that it enables people to do?
Cronan: As a part of the enterprise systems, we have the IBM z900
as basically a platform that we can use to teach everything from DB2 all
the way through to using complex system MySAP with SAP BW, the Business
Warehouse function. On the z900, we're able to utilize very large data
sets, very real data sets. We have a data set that we were able to obtain
from Sam's Club. That particular data set has over 700 million rows in
the transactions table. We have another data set from Dillard's
department stores that has something like 120 million transactions. And
David will be able to kind of give us a little bit more of how he's using
this for demonstration purposes and also assignments in the classes.
Douglas: The z900 system provides the computing platform that will
allow us to not only teach internally but make available externally the
large data sets for people that are teaching in database classes or data
warehousing, or even using the SAP Business Warehouse part for teaching
business decision-making or slicing and dicing of cubes. It also allows us
to open up and allow other universities to teach Linux on our mainframe,
as well as other products that they want to use, like DB2. And this
includes international universities. We are working to try to bring
online international universities from places like Vietnam, India, China and so forth.
Cronan: And Scott, just as an example of an application of this,
with MySAP running on a Linux system using DB2 accessing an example
database called Frozen Foods, we're able to give an MBA student
— not just our majors, but an MBA student —
real experience in actually analyzing the data in order to develop a
decision for a business problem.
developerWorks: Were there some other intersect points or examples
of what you're able to do with this that you all wanted to mention? I
didn't want to cut you off early on that.
Douglas: Well, one other example is, of course, being in the
university and a leading research university, we're able to utilize
some of this software and hardware in a research context. One example
that we're using is we've been working with faculty over at the computer
science department and generating synthetic data sets. And one of the
ideas that we've been working on in terms of a proposal is to actually
generate an ERP data set, an SAP data set, called an R3 data set. And
that data set can then be used in conjunction with auditing enterprise
resource planning systems so that an auditing firm can go in and audit
software, especially SAP software, using a synthetically generated data
set in order to test all the points that need to be tested.
developerWorks: Wow, that's fascinating. It makes me wonder: What
kind of positions and possibilities for your students is all of this
generating? I mean, are you seeing examples already of how it's opening
up new vistas for them that would not have been there before all of this?
Cronan: Having a curriculum where students work on the
mainframe and coursework for the mainframe has attracted a number of
companies to recruit at Arkansas that have not been here before. We've
always had this core of WalMart, Datatronics, Dillard's, J.B. Hunt,
Tyson's, those kind of people, that have always come. But we're
getting people to come recruit from the large financial institutions
that do not have headquarters anywhere near here. And internships, as
well. The number of internships and potential job opportunities have
increased enormously since we've had this resource.
Douglas: Not only at the undergraduate level have students
realized really an advantage — a competitive advantage
— as they go then to the market, we've found that for our
master of information systems students, the graduate students, that
there is quite a demand from our companies to provide them internship
students, that is, whereby a student would actually work for the company
while they're taking classes and learn in that work environment but
also give back in a work environment as they're earning a little bit of
extra pocket money. And then the other thing that I think has really
made a difference is not only are our majors realizing benefits, we're
finding that business majors in general — those who major in marketing,
or accounting, or finance and management — they have
found that using these resources that we have available to them, they
become even more productive and certainly even more available in the
market for all kinds of jobs.
developerWorks: Do you find that this message about the importance
of mainframe skills, do you find that it's making its way from the college
of business into the school of computer science and being embraced there?
Or is there still a lag in getting back to this idea of how important mainframe is?
Cronan: I think some of the faculty in computer science programs
across the country are recognizing that they are important aspects to
consider on the mainframe environment. IBM's recent initiative for
energy purposes to consolidate 3,900 servers into 30 mainframes
captured the attention of a number of faculty members in terms of how
much energy savings that's going to be. And not only that, but the fact
that there's so much demand for mainframe skills in the job market I
think, many faculty are beginning to recognize the importance of the environment.
Douglas: And I agree with David on that — that
computer science faculty are certainly seeing the relevance, and the
importance, and all the jobs that are available. But I think even more
important and where we are challenged is to get this same word out, these
opportunities that are available, to get the word out to the high school
students and to the high school teachers and the public in general
— that jobs are available and that mainframes really make the world tick.
developerWorks: What about the plans to make some of this available
to other universities or potentially even at the high school level?
What's going on around that in terms of getting more access to what you all are doing there?
Douglas: Well, certainly through the generosity of IBM and the
Academic Initiative, one of our goals was to stabilize the z900 system
with our data sets, and then open it up to other universities, other
students, so that a professor at City University Hong Kong can have the
same access as we have, professors at the University of Arkansas. And
the student anywhere in the world in any class can have the same access
that our students have here in the Walton College of Business.
Cronan: And that's particularly true in that we have. In
addition to what Dr. Cronin has said, we really expect to have a number
of universities utilize the z900 for their Linux courses. We expect that to grow very rapidly.
developerWorks: So along those lines, when as these things do
become available to other institutions, other universities and students,
how will they gain access to these resources?
Douglas: Well, Scott, we're trying to make it as simple as
possible for faculty members. Right now, they can go to the Walton
College Web site — waltoncollege.uark.edu —
and there's a pull-down menu called enterprise systems, and under that
pull-down they're able to request information on all of these resources
that are available to them. And I think shortly there will be a link
available to the IBM Academic Initiative.
developerWorks: This must be thrilling, for you all to be working
with this kind of stuff and the great expanse of how many people it's
impacting, whether students and/or business. It must be really exciting.
Douglas: It's extremely exciting. When we go out to visit with
our peers and to tell them about the resources we have, they are just
shocked to know about what we have. And then to find out that we're able
to share this with them at no cost, and that students everywhere have
access to this sort of data and these sorts of applications, they're real
excited to hear it. And we love going around and sharing it.
Cronan: And to continue on with that a little bit, one of the
advantages of sharing is as we develop course modules, which is another
way we intend to share and collaborate with people outside our own
campus, collaboration tends to make the courseware better and from
different perspectives. So as we continue along this path, it's really
exciting to work with other students and other faculty and the data sets
that we have to improve the materials that we'll use for teaching and research.
Douglas: This is a good time to be a professor of information
systems. It's an exciting time.
developerWorks: And to think that all this learning is going on
while looking at Sam's Club data of how many cases of macaroni and cheese
that I bought last week. [LAUGHTER]
Douglas: Exactly!
developerWorks: Dr. Paul Cronin, and Dr. David Douglas, both from
the University of Arkansas, Walton College of Business. Thank you both
so much for making time for us today.
Douglas: You're welcome. Thank you, Scott.
Cronan: Thank you, Scott.
developerWorks: Visit our developerWorks podcast page at
ibm.com/developerworks/podcast for the show notes for this interview.
You'll find links to many of the things we talked about here. Also
visit the IBM Academic Initiative at
ibm.com/university/academicinitiative. I'm Scott Laningham. Thanks for listening.
Resources
About the author | 
| | Scott Laningham, host of developerWorks podcasts, was previously editor of developerWorks newsletters. Prior to IBM, he was an award-winning reporter and director for news programming featured on Public Radio International, a freelance writer for the American Communications Foundation and CBS Radio, and a songwriter/musician. |
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