Center for Applied Analytics

The Center for Applied Analytics enables collaboration with business communities, government, and not-for-profit agencies seeking innovative use of analytics. The Center for Applied Analytics' focus is to aid its partners in rapidly adopting new and emerging applications of analytics and decision-making to drive efficiencies and differentiation.

Our Vision

To be the recognized leader in promoting the adoption and effective use of advanced analytics

Our Mission

  • To promote advancements in the knowledge of the analysis and management of business information assets
  • To serve as an expert resource in the interplay of emerging analytic methods and technologies for partners in Chicago, nationally and globally
  • To promote excellence in the management and practice of analytics and information management with the practitioner and executive communities
  • To promote the educational and professional development of UIC’s MIS and Business Analytics students

Engagement Heading link

To participate, contact Fatemeh Sarayloo, Clinic​al Assistant Professor

Background

One way that Analytical competitors gain an advantage over their competition is through the early adoption of new innovations in analytic methods. The Center for Applied Analytics (CAA) provides a bridge from the leading edge of academic research to organizations seeking to stay a step ahead of an increasingly crowded field of analytic innovators. Through underwritten partnerships, CAA works with organizations to develop cutting edge data analytic solutions within a cost-based pricing structure.

Approach

CAA projects combine expert faculty leadership with the support of graduate students pursuing masters and doctoral level studies in business analytics. Our faculty have expertise in a wide range of research areas and students are exposed to a robust set of analytical tools. The combination of expertise and support is customized to each engagement.

Industries and Solutions

UIC’s urban presence and diverse student body give the team an advantage in fulfilling its mission of serving the city and its students. The following represent a few of the industries that have sponsored recent projects:

  • Financial Services
  • Healthcare
  • Insurance
  • Nonprofit – Education
  • Professional Services
  • Retail
  • Technology

Solutions are not constrained by any particular topic, but rather are centered around solving a business problem where data can be harnessed to develop analytic solutions and/or recommendations. Recent projects have included:

  • Improving billing accuracy in order to minimize revenue leakage
  • Predicting equipment failures to optimize maintenance cycles
  • Building recommender models in support of product sales
  • Assessing donor/customer lifetime value
  • Optimizing inventory management through demand forecasting
  • Evaluating not-for-profit program efficacy

Criteria

Sponsor Project
Capacity to engage in project definition and oversight Defined objective and deliverables

Structure

Underwritten projects are led by CAA but may involve various faculty and students for support. UIC routinely signs Non-Disclosure Agreements to protect proprietary interests of the sponsors and is compliant with all Department of Labor regulations. Pricing details are available on request. For more information to be selected as a sponsoring organization, please email Fatemeh Sarayloo.

Background

Enterprises are increasingly investing in the skilled labor and technology to compete on analytics. Organizations that create vast quantities of data through transactional, operational, web, and other sources use analytics to find valuable insights into customer behavior, market trends, and new operational efficiencies. Data analytics is now indispensable to high performing organizations that measure the impact of their investments and seek to improve the associated yields.

Approach

Graduate students pursuing a Master of Science in Business Analytics at UIC are paired up with sponsoring organizations to attain experiential, project-based learning in exchange for the team’s analytical expertise. UIC’s program, ranked in the Top 50 in world university rankings, emphasizes industry experience, exposure and collaboration across a variety of analytics projects. The students are already equipped with core skills, such as advanced database management, data mining, machine learning, and project management, and are actively coached by UIC faculty in classroom and peer learning environments.

Industries and Solutions

UIC’s urban presence and diverse student body give the team an advantage in fulfilling its mission of serving the city and its students. The following represent a few of the industries that have sponsored recent Capstone projects:

  • Financial Services
  • Healthcare
  • Insurance
  • Nonprofit – Education
  • Professional Services
  • Retail
  • Technology
  • Transportation

Sample solutions are not constrained by any particular topic, but rather are centered around solving a business problem where data can be harnessed to develop analytic solutions and / or recommendations. Representative projects have included:

  • Improving billing accuracy in order to minimize revenue leakage
  • Predicting equipment failures to optimize maintenance cycles
  • Building recommender models in support of product sales
  • Assessing donor/customer lifetime value
  • Optimizing inventory management through demand forecasting
  • Evaluate not-for-profit program efficacy

Criteria

Sponsor Project
  • Ability to guide students
  • Time to review progress (as is customary during the course of a project) and provide feedback
  • Defined objective and deliverables
  • Underlying data exists and can be accessed by students
  • Time bound effort (~4 months)

Structure

Project teams of approximately 3 – 4 students receive course credit and are dedicated each Fall (August through December) or Spring (January through April) at no cost to the sponsoring client. UIC routinely signs Non-Disclosure Agreements to protect proprietary interests of the sponsors and is compliant with all Department of Labor regulations. For more information to be selected as a sponsoring organization, please email Kyle Cheek or call (312) 355-0246.

UIC Business faculty are an integral part of the Center for Applied Analytics. The Center for Applied Analytics fosters a close relationship with Chicago business and Government community providing the faculty with a range of opportunities for collaborative and grant-funded research and courses offering external projects with Chicago business community.

The faculty in our department of information and decision sciences is consistently learning and evolving by attending specialty workshops and speaking at prestigious forums and seminars. They are widely recognized for leading research and practical problems in topics pertaining to information management and data science. They routinely share their research at academic and industry seminars. The Center for Applied Analytics is an important partner to the faculty to help foster critical support and build relationships with Chicago area businesses and government organizations.

Projects at UIC Heading link

  • Industry Domain

    • Healthcare
    • Finance
    • Consulting
    • Telecom
    • Legal
    • Insurance
    • HR/Benefits Management
    • CRM
    • Sales
    • Business Planning
    • E-commerce
    • Banking
    • Retail
    • Supply Chain

  • Project Deliverables

    • Risk Management Solutions
    • Report Automation
    • Revenue Forecasting
    • Document Classification
    • Customer Engagement
    • Health Management Solutions

     

    Projects span the range of difficulty levels with sponsors who are well established in analytics as well as new to analytics

  • Analytics Solutions Used

    • Data Visualization
    • Predictive Modelling
    • Machine Learning
    • Unsupervised Learning
    • Text Analytics
    • Experimental Design
    • Social Network Analysis

     

    Faculty and students work together to build creative solutions to problem statements of a variety of businesses. For more details, visit here.

Project Collaboration Heading link

Call for Projects
We seek support from companies that can offer our students an opportunity to work on a MIS project (IDS 406/IDS507) or a more generic business problem (MBA590). Similar to an internship, but without any financial payments or contractual obligations, we require only a commitment of approximately 1-2 hours per week from one or more individuals in the organization to serve as mentors for the student team (3-4 students per team).

To participate, contact Fatemeh Sarayloo, Clinic​al Assistant Professor

Project Courses

IDS 406 is the capstone course for Information and Decision Sciences undergraduate majors, and runs for the 16-week duration of the spring or fall semester. The projects for this course focus on technology solution designs and implementations. Initially, the course instructors meet with the sponsoring organization to develop high-level expectations for their project. The student teams are then responsible for finalizing the scope of work and a work plan for their projects in conjunction with their mentors. At this first meeting, the teams will arrange for weekly or other as-necessary meetings with the organization in order to gather requirements and information for their projects. Depending on the specific requirements of the project, the students may need to be assigned some work space and resources at the organizational premises. The students also meet weekly in class with their instructor to report project status. The instructor closely interacts with the mentor to assess the progress made by the student teams and whether expectations are being met.

IDS 507 is the capstone course for Masters in MIS students. It also runs for the 16-week duration of the spring or fall semester, and focuses on technology solution designs and implementations as well as systems and data analyses.

MBA 590 is an elective course for the MBA and Masters in MIS programs. It runs for the last half of the fall and spring semesters. For the fall 2015 semester, it will run from October 19 through December 11. This course focuses on business issues such as strategy and modelling, process reviews, marketing program review and planning, and financial analysis and planning; although generally these projects also involve technology components such as business intelligence, software evaluation and selection, and mobile enablement planning.

Student Profiles

The undergraduate students in IDS 406 are seniors who are nearing the completion of their studies and have had courses in databases and programming.

The graduate students in IDS 507 are from the MS-MIS/MBA programs. They have completed business foundation courses and have had formal training in business and system analysis, databases, application development, enterprise applications (J2EE) and other MIS courses. Other coursework in the program includes business data mining, IT audit, operations and supply chain management, and corporate IT strategy. Many of the students have previous work experience in varied business and IT-related roles.

Big Data Symposium Heading link

Check back soon for information on this year’s event.

Leadership Heading link

Contact Us Heading link

To sponsor a research project or Capstone project, please fill out the details and a member of the faculty will get back to you.

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