Call for Papers: Special Issue on Student Projects with Industry (SPI)

Recently many academic programs have begun to include Student Projects with Industry (SPIs) as part of their curriculum. These courses offer an initial consultative opportunity for students under faculty guidance and oversight. The experience has the potential to be very valuable for students in helping them to understand the challenges and opportunities for analytic applications in the business world, and for clients who can benefit greatly from such projects. However, for faculty members the challenges associated with such experiences include far more preparation and engagement throughout the process because designing and guiding a successful SPI program is far removed from the traditional classroom environment.

This ITE special issue focuses on best practices for creating successful SPIs, with the goal of allowing readers benefit from colleagues’ experiences, insights, and lessons learned. While each article may not cover all the aspects mentioned below, our vision is that the special edition as a whole will capture the following aspects of the SPI experience:

• Preparing Students for SPIs
  • Is there a formal course associated with the project? If so, what is the content of this course? Textbooks? Guest speaker/faculty guests? Case studies or practice projects?
  • What is the duration of SPIs? How is progress tracked?
  • How important are good project management and/or presentation skills to the success of an SPI? Do students receive training or coaching in these areas as part of the experience?
  • How is success defined for SPIs? How often and who assesses whether goals are achieved consistently across projects? How are grades assigned?
  • Does student motivation and maturity affect faculty decisions about project selection?
  • What methods are essential for placing students in a position to succeed?
• Faculty Involvement
  • What role do faculty play in the process of supporting successful SPIs?
  • Are faculty members eager to get involved in creating SPIs? If not, how can faculty be motivated to participate in SPIs?
  • What preparation is essential for putting faculty in a position to be successful?
  • Do student projects lead to publications for faculty and/or students? Who publishes with students? Are project mentors expected to publish? Where?
• Client Engagement
  • How are potential projects identified and selected? How do faculty members set appropriate expectations with clients?
  • What types and levels of investments (money, time, data, human resources, etc.) are needed from clients?
  • How do faculty, students, and clients work together to develop realistic deliverables?
  • What types of problems emerge most often, and how are they addressed?

In the 21^st Century, experiential opportunities such as SPIs are an increasingly important part of the educational process. In this context, our objectives for the special issue are:

1. To reflect the breadth of challenges associated with SPIs while also revealing ways of effectively addressing those challenges.
2. To provide insights on how best to prepare students, faculty, and clients for successful SPIs, including way in which such SPIs can be embedded into new or existing courses.
3. To provide ideas and resources (e.g., examples and templates) to assist educators who are interested in leading successful SPIs in the future.
4. To generate discussion about effective methods for successful experiential teaching of “real world” OR applications.

We anticipate articles describing the SPI experience within OR, IE, Systems, Mathematics, and business programs at all levels.

Please note that ITE is published electronically, and resources such as case studies, models, and data sets can be made available through the website.

Submission Guidelines

Papers should follow the INFORMS Transactions on Education submission guidelines (see http://www.informs.org/Pubs/ITE/Submission-Guidelines) and should include a cover letter noting that the paper is for this special issue. Additional information and past issues are available at the journal’s home page (http://ite.pubs.informs.org).

Submission Timeline

The editors encourage potential authors to contact them with ideas for papers before a full submission.

1 June 2011: Paper submission deadline.

September 2011: First round of reviews completed,
Decisions (and requests for revision,
if appropriate) delivered to authors

November 2011: Second round of reviews delivered to authors

February 2012 : Final versions of accepted papers to be submitted

May 2012: Publication

Contact Information For Special Issue Editors