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 Value and Mission
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
Meet the Team
Kyle Cheek
Phone:
Email:
Project Collaboration
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 Kyle Cheek at kdcheek@uic.edu.
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.
Projects at UIC
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Industry Domain
- Healthcare
- Finance
- Consulting
- Telecom
- Legal
- Insurance
- HR/Benefits Management
- CRM
- Sales
- Business Planning
- E-commerce
- Banking
- Retail
- Supply Chain
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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
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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.
Engagement
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Business Engagement
The Center for Applied Analytics is dedicated to building long-term collaborations with Chicago businesses by providing a variety of engagement models that provide the appropriate flexibility to our business partners.
As a business partner, you will have
- Access to student resources to support projects and eventual job candidates
- Ad space at the Center for Applied Analytics events
- Access to the Center for Applied Analytics resource library
- Opportunity to work with our world renowned faculty
There are many ways to engage with the Center for Applied Analytics at UIC, such as providing learning and internship opportunities to students. We also offer a traditional consulting collaboration that provides you with an opportunity to participate and invest in research incubation. We understand that each partner may have different preferences and priorities. We respect your choice of partnership and provide an option to choose to pay for selective faculty and student research costs on top of the fixed costs involved. As a partner, along with access to top students, you can opt to provide opportunities for scholarships and fellowships and help provide brighter student futures.
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Student Engagement
The Center for Applied Analytics supports courses that offer students firsthand experience working with local companies on projects that address business and technology problems.
Advanced Systems Analysis and Design Project
This course concentrates on principles and concepts of analysis, design and development of information systems including project management. As a part of the curriculum, students get exposure in a real-time project with an external organization.Business Systems Project
This course provides a project experience in a business setting where the students get a hands-on experience in analysis, design, development and evaluation of computer-based business information systems.Applied Consulting
The Applied Consulting course is an introduction to the client-consultant engagement process typically used by consulting and professional services firms. Students who aspire to go into the consulting industry benefit from this course, as will those who intend to serve as an internal consultant or operations analyst within any organization.If you would like to participate in a student project, please fill out the form below.
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Faculty Engagement
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.
Big Data Symposium
Check back soon for information on this year’s event.
Contact Us
To sponsor a research project or Capstone project, please fill out the details and a member of the faculty will get back to you.