Issue link: http://www.e-digitaleditions.com/i/57469
Technology invest in and manage IT projects. Those are skills, he emphasizes, that make an IT employee versatile and valuable over the long term. Mithas and Krishnan also found that firms place greater The MBA Makes IT Better U.S. companies value business education over tech experience when it comes to hiring—and compensa- ting—IT professionals, finds research by Sunil Mithas of the Uni- versity of Maryland's Smith School of Business in College Park and Mayuram Krishnan of the University of Michigan's Ross School of Busi- ness in Ann Arbor. The two researchers found that an IT professional with an MBA degree earns an average 46 percent more than a counterpart with only a bach- elor's degree; in addition, that worker earns 37 percent more than an IT professional with any other master's degree. In U.S. dollars, that translates to $24,000 per year and $17,000 per year more, respectively. "Education is more valuable than experience because it provides more durable and versatile conceptual skills," Mithas notes. "In contrast, IT experience has a high rate of obsolescence—learning new tech- nologies makes a professional valu- able for only a few years when those skills are in high demand." Mithas adds that an MBA education teaches IT professionals how to evaluate new technologies and strategically 62 BizEd NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2008 value on IT experience at other companies than on experience gained among their own ranks—a finding that can explain the high turnover culture in the IT profession. They also found a gender gap in earnings—women in IT earn about 9 percent less than their male counterparts. The paper, "Human Capital and Institutional Effects in the Com- pensation of Information Technol- ogy in the United States," appeared in the March 2008 issue of Man- agement Science. New Kelley Campus Opens in Second Life Indiana University's Kelley School of Busi- ness in Bloomington has unveiled its virtual island campus on the online virtual world Second Life. Resem- bling the real-life campus, Kelley's Second Life island was created for its Kelley Executive Partners program. The new virtual campus is designed to encourage more collabo- ration, especially at a time when more corporations are exploring the poten- tial of Web 2.0 technologies to save in travel costs and increase productiv- ity, says Anne Massey, a professor in Kelley's department of operations and decision technologies. "In today's academic and business environments, more often than not, individuals and teams are collaborat- ing across boundaries of distance, time, language, and culture," Massey says. "As the adoption of Web 2.0 and 3-D virtual worlds accelerates, new possibilities for overcoming boundaries are emerging." To launch the new campus, Kelley held a half-day event in the virtual world that included guest experts on virtual collaboration, tours of the virtual campus, and even a Second Life boat race to illustrate how teams can work collaboratively in Web 2.0 environments. Trading on Technology The trading room has become the must- have technological tool for many business schools, as the emphasis on real-time, real-world education con- tinues to intensify. Two schools have recently launched their own trading rooms and related courses, to bring the global stock market straight to their students. DePaul University's College of Commerce and Kellstadt Graduate School of Business in Chicago, Illi- nois, recently launched its new vir- tual trading room for undergraduate finance students. The facility features a live electronic ticker that spans two walls of the room, large monitors to display real-time finance news, and 18 dual-monitor computer stations with access to feeds from newswire services. Computer stations also provide access to analytical tools, portfolio analytics, trading platforms, and risk management software. Another school, the University of