Penn State Intercom......March 22, 2001

Fledgling school already
producing industry leaders

By Julie A. Brink
Public Information

When the University's School of Information Sciences and Technology (IST) was still in its formative stages, Penn State asked business and industry leaders what kind of program they wanted to see to help close the technology gap.

"They came back saying, 'don't send us programmers, send us leaders,'" recalled James B. Thomas, dean of IST.

It looks as if the school is well on its way to achieving that goal. Consider this fast-paced progress:

* Enrollment is up by 332 percent from fall 1999, with 1,420 students in degree programs on 19 campuses. Another 1,100 non-degree students are taking IST classes and more students are enrolled through the World Campus in the Webmaster program. The Webmaster program has been so successful that the school is considering adding a second, more advanced certificate.

* This spring, the school will see its first full graduating class, 59 students with associate degrees.

* Groundbreaking is slated for late this summer on the new IST building, which will be a significant architectural presence on campus as well as a figurative and literal bridge between the central campus and the developing west campus. It will be completed by 2003.

* IST now is recruiting between five and 15 Ph.D. candidates for its doctoral program, which will be launched in the fall. A professional master's program, as well as a conventional master's degree will be offered in fall 2002.

* IST, in partnership with The Smeal College of Business Administration, launched the eBusiness Research Center in 1999. IST contributes research aimed at information technology's impact on people, policy and the economy while Smeal College explores financial and marketing issues. Between them, it's a complete portfolio of what drives e-business.

It is an impressive list of accomplishments for a school which just opened its doors in August 1999, armed with a mandate to address compelling societal needs in information sciences and technology. IST was developed in partnership with private industries to meet the growing demand for technology jobs as well as to deliver information solutions through its faculty and student research. So far, IST has received more than $7.2 million in financial gifts from the private sector.

"Our purpose is to build leaders for a world that is dominated by information and information technology," Thomas said. Look around a number of the campuses and you may see some of the IST students wearing T-shirts emblazoned "I am a leader in IST."

Competition is fierce for skilled technology leaders and the employment picture seems like it will be particularly bright for the first class of bachelor's degrees in 2003.

"We've already had three or four companies say that they'll hire all of them," Thomas said, adding that the outlook is excellent for the school's five-year plans. "We are going to surpass the collective expectations probably in the third year."

Students who major in IST follow a broad interdisciplinary course of study.

"An IST graduate can find a home in any organization where information technology is used," Thomas said.

Not only must an IST student understand technology, databases, computer languages and math, but he or she must comprehend how the technology affects people, economy and policy issues.

"There's a heavy dose of technology but they also have to become comfortable with oral and writing skills," Thomas said.

Foreign languages and world cultures are also part of the curriculum along with an emphasis on teamwork. Students are required to take one internship and encouraged to take as many as three. IST is coordinating its internship program in collaboration with the College of Engineering.

"They've been wonderfully helpful," Thomas said.

To foster teamwork, IST's fledgling leaders have their own Interest House in Beaver Hall, where 53 like-minded students live. The program is popular.

"We're capped only by space and looking to expand," Thomas said.

Female students participate in Women in IST (WIST) which looks at gender issues associated with information sciences, mentors new students and is planning an IST camp this summer for middle schoolers.

Students also have their own online magazine, MIST, which appears once a semester and has a core staff of a dozen. The students are in the process of moving it to a student-run server and overhauling it to make the magazine more interactive, according to editor Bryan Vitale.

Drew Hall, an IST freshman on MIST's design team, is helping take MIST to the next level.

"We do have an 'intro' animation done in Flash preceding the actual text of the page," he said. "I designed that animation, from concept to execution. I also worked with the entire design team in the layout and coding of the pages, including all dynamic content."

He said he chose IST because "because of the level of detail in the courses, and because I felt I could have a positive impact on the school as well, as the school is relatively new and the faculty are very open to changes and additions to the curriculum."

The school is strengthening its research and outreach initiatives through the IST Solutions Institute, which offers education and training solutions online at several campuses. More online courses are being developed over the next three years and Thomas said he hopes all campuses will be able to offer the courses by 2002.

The Institute also administers the Pennsylvania Governor's School for Information Technology, a five-week summer program that enables talented high school seniors to explore information technology.

David Hall, associate dean for research and graduate programs, said the strength of IST lies in its ability to use all the University's resources to integrate information, technology and the user. Research going on at the school is especially broad-based ranging from virtual reality and wearable computers to addressing issues such as information security and retrieval, cognitive modeling, multilingual and cross-cultural information access.

For instance, Lee Giles, holder of the David Reese professorship for the School of Information Sciences and Technology, is working on building search engines that will be intelligent, capable of adapting to the needs of the individual user.

Giles has developed Researchindex.org, which has indexed 300,000 research papers and more than 5 million sites. The product uses artificial intelligence to keep updating its references.

"It's exciting to be in a new school," Giles said. "They're addressing a lot of important issues in where the field is going."

That new school is moving fast to launch its graduate program, which will be interdisciplinary, Hall said. In addition to traditional pursuits such as teaching and academic research, graduates of the doctoral program will poised to accept government and private industry positions ranging from research to information dissemination and policy making. The professional master's degree program is aimed at professionals from industry and government. Participants will do part of the work on campus and part through Web-based courses.

In addition to seeing the Ph.D. program launched, faculty recruitment is an ongoing issue. Thomas estimates the school needs to recruit five to seven new faculty members a year for courses and research agendas. The school now has 72 faculty members across the Penn State system, 10 of them full time at University Park.

"By the time we move into the new building, I want it to be that whenever you think about information technology and information sciences, you'll think about Penn State," he said.

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