In keeping with the theme of this month's issue, here is a short guide to the resources for students, teachers and practitioners of ORMS that can be found at INFORMS Online.
Students
Jeffrey W. Herrmann of the University of Maryland ([email protected]), associate editor for Students and Education, maintains the IOL Education and Student Affairs page. The home page contains links to a number of resources, including many of the ones listed below.
The INFORMS Career Booklet is a FAQ about careers in ORMS plus a set of brief biographies of ORMS professionals.
IOL has published Career Profiles, a collection of interviews with ORMS professionals. Stacy Dugan contributed these from 1998 through 2000. Robin Lougee-Heimer of IBM, the associate editor for Practice ([email protected]), maintains the Profiles page. Robin is actively seeking interviewers and interviewees to continue to expand the profiles page.
The Student Union is INFORMS' resource for students and recent grads in ORMS and related fields. Jeffrey Herrmann and a number of other people maintain this comprehensive collection of resources. Art Geoffrion, who remains an active contributor, initiated the project.
This page contains a wealth of resources, including: a page on teaching resources (maintained by Erhan Erkut of the University of Alberta), financial aid resources, a listing of educational programs (maintained by Brady Hunsaker of Georgia Tech), back issues of OR/MS Tomorrow, a collection of online educational resources devoted to various ORMS-related topics, and resources for personal skills (writing, speaking, networking, etc.) and professional development.
The INFORMS Student Newsletter is OR/MS Tomorrow, currently edited by Michele Pfund and Aditya Rastogi of Arizona State University. This page contains a calendar of events, articles written by students, a page for recognition of student accomplishments and awards, links to articles on the career outlook, and profiles for ORMS and related fields.
INFORMS Student Chapters are also linked from the INFORMS Student Chapter page that is maintained by Jayant Rajgopal of the University of Pittsburgh ([email protected]).
Teachers
INFORMS, together with Wayne State University and the National Security Agency, has sponsored the development of modules for use in secondary school math classes. Kenneth Chelst and Tom Edwards of Wayne State University and Ret. Col. Frank Trippi (U.S. Air Force) edit these. The modules introduce examples of real-world applications tailored for high school-level math classes.
Modules have been produced at the rate of two per year, for a total of six to date. Four of the modules cover systems of linear inequalities and linear programming with applications to product mix, workforce planning, blending and cutting stock; one covers queueing; and one covers routing and graph models. The page also includes a number of case studies that are linked from the appropriate modules as well as from the main page.
The INFORMS Forum on Education (INFORM-ED) maintains a Web site with a number of useful resources. Some of the unique ones include: a listing of conferences with sessions on education matters, including past meetings (not just INFORMS conferences) dating back to 1996; a collection of links to the OR/MS Today "Issues in Education" columns and other readings; and information about textbooks, cases and software for educational use. They also have a large collection of links to Web-based courses and collections of links to more Web-based materials. John Kros of Hawaii Pacific University maintains the INFORM-ED page.
INFORMS publishes an online-only journal devoted to education matters. The INFORMS Transactions on Education began publication in September 2000, and has published three issues to date. The ITE page also contains a list of links to education-related journals in related fields. ITE provides the opportunity to publish Java applets and possibly other dynamic content as well. PDF versions of articles are available for printing.
Practitioners
Vicki Sauter of University of Missouri-St. Louis ([email protected]) maintains the Continuing Education page. This page contains a calendar of short courses and seminars primarily designed for practitioners seeking to advance their skills. Courses are categorized by title, subject, date, location and provider. For each entry, links are provided to the course Web page and to information about registering.
URLs cited in this column:
INFORMS Education and Student Affairs: www.informs.org/Edu/
INFORMS Career Booklet: www.informs.org/Edu/Career/
IOL Career Profiles: www.informs.org/Profiles/
INFORMS Student Union: www.informs.org/student_union/
OR/MS Tomorrow: ormstomorrow.informs.org
Student Chapter Page: www.informs.org/Subdiv/students.html
INFORMS High School Modules: www.informs.org/Edu/Modules/
INFORM-ED: education.forum.informs.org
INFORMS Transactions on Education: ite.informs.org
IOL Continuing Education: www.informs.org/CE/
Matthew Saltzman is an associate professor of Mathematical Sciences at Clemson University.