New major teaches students the design and uses of information systems.
By Jay Wrolstad
We can’t get enough information these days, and we can’t get it fast enough. The Information Age’s digital revolution, sparked by the Internet and its explosive growth, has taken computing to a level unimagined a generation ago as the steady stream of ones and zeroes flowing through vast networks has become a torrent that has forever altered the way we work and live.
As a result, those putting together the systems to handle the proliferation of digital information technologies face challenges that go well beyond writing computer programs to include issues relating to how goods are produced and sold, potential restrictions on what we are allowed to see and hear, and how people use the machines that are windows to the digital realm when they sit down and start tapping on the keyboard or moving the mouse.
Students in the College of Engineering are taking a closer look at these concerns through courses offered in the new Information Science, Systems and Technology (ISST) major, which combines the traditional study of how computer programs are designed with the ways they are used.
“We know how to make computers do their jobs well, but most people do not use them to do too much more than perform basic functions such as handle e-mail and conduct web searches,” says David Shmoys, professor in the School of Operations Research and Industrial Engineering and co-director of the ISST undergraduate major. “That’s what students find exciting; they have a sense that they will be on the cutting edge as information science evolves.”
The new major evolved from a desire among students to create programs of study that branched out from the two traditional majors, computer science and operations research and industrial engineering, Shmoys explains. “It became clear that faculty in both CS and ORIE wanted to design a new major, and it made more sense to create a single, coherent major rather than two new programs.”
What emerged from those discussions was an ISST major with two options, one in management science (ISST-MS) and one in information science (ISST-IS), which are administered separately by ORIE and CS, respectively. “There was an effort to align course requirements, and what made it all click was we sat down and compared what we wanted to require of the students,” says Shmoys, who directs the ISST-MS component.
Some of those requirements are core programming and probability and statistics courses, to establish a sound engineering foundation; but while CS majors study computer architecture, programming languages, operating systems, compiler design, and algorithms, those in ISST focus on how people use information systems as well as how to build them.
“If you are driving a car you don’t have to understand everything about the mechanics of the vehicle. You need to know what capabilities are available to you as the driver, and how they control the car,” says Claire Cardie, professor in the Department of Computer Science who directs the ISST-IS program. “This major is more about the points in information system design where computing meets people, rather than focusing on the hardware and operating systems.”
That examination of both human and machine means that ISST students take courses not required of most of their peers in the college. There is a basic economics course that is not among the mandated offerings in either ORIE or CS, but is part of the ISST curriculum because it helps shape a broader view of the impacts of information science, says Shmoys.
Another example is an applied databases course that examines database techniques with a focus on the web and e-commerce. It is an ISST requirement, while CS majors can take it as an elective. “Often the courses are shared,” Cardie says. “Some of the ISST required courses are electives in CS and OR, and vice versa.”
subjects studied extend to an examination of information in context, she notes, with discussions of copyright and intellectual property law, as well as the impacts of information science and technology on culture and the media. Other courses focus strictly on human-computer interaction.
“The question is, what are the right mechanisms for making that interaction as functional as possible?” Shmoys says. “And what kinds of information can you extract from that relationship?” Cardie suggests that the applications are wide ranging, for example, creating computer games that are easier and more fun to play or improving search technology by studying how people look at a web page or scroll through the query results.
Given this background, some innovative ISST research projects have been launched that will provide valuable experience for future information science specialists. Some students are creating natural language processing techniques to expedite the painstaking process of passing new laws. As Cardie explains, Congress proposes a law, such as new stipulations for safety regulations. As part of this process, the public can submit comments on the proposed regulations.
“Those comments can currently be submitted via a web portal, but agencies are required by law to respond to all substantive issues raised in the comments and, for many rule makings, there can be thousands of submissions. Our program would enable indexing and extracting information from a database of these public documents,” she says. “In this project students had to study the legal side of rule making in addition to the information systems side.”
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| ISST majors learn to apply technology to solve business problems. In this 3D visualization based on eye-tracking data, higher peaks indicate regions that draw viewers’ attention on a web page at Amazon.com. |
Another group of students is studying Internet search specialist Google, turning their attention to where the eye focuses when a person retrieves query results, or where the person clicks on that page. Based on this feedback, the project’s goal is to develop algorithms that can do better searches. “It’s a case of paying attention to the human-computer interaction to get feedback for computer science engineers,” says Cardie.
On the management science side, there is an Amazon.com project tying together information systems and operations research issues that address the massive amount of data handled by the online retailing giant. “The company has about 40 million items to track, so students have to think about when an order comes in, how do you manage the information so you know from which warehouse the product should be shipped?” Shmoys says. “This connects with traditional OR, but the area of supply chain management relies extensively on the role that information systems play to make business decisions.”
It is the challenging, thought-provoking nature of such research and the broad array of topics covered by ISST that has students giving the nascent major rave reviews. Many had their sights set on careers as programmers, but found computer science too confining.
The first group of five students graduated with an information science major in 2005, followed by another 20 this year. Shmoys projects that growth to continue at a steady pace, noting that students can minor in information science as well. Different variants of the degree are offered in the colleges of Arts and Sciences and Agriculture and Life Sciences. Those majors are less technical in orientation than the Engineering version, focusing more on the social context of information systems and on human-computer interaction.
“The students want this major, because information technology affects so many people today,” says David Williamson, director of undergraduate studies for the information science major. “It’s still a small and friendly major at this point, and most of the students know each other and their professors pretty well.”
students like the web design and programming course, he says, because those are things they are familiar with before arriving on campus, but now are able to take them a step further. “More students are becoming interested in information technology issues, such as how technology interacts with the economy, or law,” says Williamson, who teaches a course on computer programming and web design. “Information is valuable, but is also very easy to distribute, so how can people protect their intellectual property?”
Colin Zhao sums up his interest in ISST succinctly, saying, “This is a major for the future. There is a demand for people who can program, but more companies today are looking for people who can apply technology to business processes and issues that affect society at large. With a background in information science, it’s possible to understand how we can use technology to solve problems.”
Zhao, a recent ISST-IS graduate, cites a strategic information systems course offered at Cornell’s hotel school as particularly compelling in that it demonstrated how to apply information technology (IT) tools to a business setting. “You have to think about how IT meshes with organizational goals, and how to use it to gain a competitive advantage,” he says. “This is thinking about technology in a new way; it has no intrinsic value—you need to examine the best set of tools for a particular situation.”
He also says that examining how information technology has evolved over time is critical in understanding future impacts on society. “We talked about the legal ramifications of Google plans to scan all of the world’s books and make them available online, and how that impacts intellectual property rights,” he says. “It’s good to have all of that information readily available, but there may be some adverse impacts on copyrights.”
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| The first group of five students graduated with an information science major in 2005, followed by another 20 in 2006 (right). Shmoys projects that growth to continue at a steady pace. |
Junior Matt Leftwich has a similar view of ISST career potential, contending that most employers today want people who have a grasp of both technology and business rather than more specific knowledge about one or the other. “In one course we took a look at the digital music industry and the impact on that industry from people who use new technologies, such as file sharing, to get their music. Another course involved building a web site backed by a database. What’s interesting is that one course is technical in nature, and the other is studying how technology is used. Both are important, but not usually combined in one major like they are in ISST.”
And, Leftwich says, because it is a new major, the instructors are particularly interested in student feedback, gauging their impressions of the courses. “As it evolves, the professors want input to determine what works and what doesn’t. Both sides are learning from each other,” says Leftwich, who is in the ISST-MS program.
Sahib Dhindsa says he made the switch from CS in large part because he was intrigued by learning more about law, psychology, economics, and accounting as well as web design and computer software.
“In the web design and programming course, we got to work with scripting languages and other technologies to create dynamic web sites,” he says. “And in the information systems and analysis class, we developed a business plan, examining the creation of a new product while determining if it would be a profitable venture.”
Dhindsa, a sophomore ISST-MS major, will put that knowledge to good use when he reports for work at the RiskMetrics Group, a financial services firm, in the fall as a participant in the Engineering Cooperative Education Program. “It really fits my interests, working on data mining technologies and using programming skills to evaluate the value and risk of certain investments.”
Krystal Wang, ISST offers less theory and more practical information than CS. “I think there is more job security with this since there is a greater need for project management skills,” she says.
Wang has her sights set on a job in the investment banking field or with an IT firm seeking people with engineering expertise. To prepare, she is looking into some business classes to complement the ISST-IS curriculum before her graduation next year.
Zhao, who will continue his information science studies while pursuing a master’s degree in engineering at Stanford University, says, “In the future, there will be a place for programmers, but it will be important to have a purpose in mind for that programming knowledge.”
Shmoys suggests that this favorable response among undergrads stems in part from the fact that information science as a discipline is closer to the natural and physical sciences than computer science. “How do you come up with a model and extract an underlying principle that shows how the web may be characterized?” he says. “We can develop a hypothesis regarding a structure, but we can’t control what the web will look like even six months from now.”
The amount of data—including text, images, and multimedia content—that is available to the world at large is staggering and will only continue to grow, says Cardie. “And so the process of managing it all is getting worse, not better,” she says. “We need people who can look at the bigger picture.
“It’s the kind of major I would have liked as an undergrad,” she adds, “because, in addition to computer science courses, it includes courses in optimization, cognitive science, and experiment design—topics not typically taught in a computer science curriculum.” 
