Issue link: http://www.e-digitaleditions.com/i/62203
Technology the only thing made easier with this system. Activities such as sending e-mail or booking an airline ticket also are facilitated, especially if tasks are time-sensitive. "Mobile units allow users to do U of Arkansas receives $600K Grant to Study Women and Minorities in IT D ATA B I T For some, cell phones aren't just a means of communica- tion—they're a means of survival. Henley Manage - ment College of Oxford - shire, England, surveyed 1,000 people in the U.K. and found that 46 percent of 25- to 34-year-olds said they "could not live with- out" their mobile phones. Eighty-six percent of all respondents cited text mes- saging as the main purpose for their cells. tasks on the run. You receive updat- ed information immediately and can act accordingly," says Junglas. "In case of location-based services, the system provides you with your own geographic position or the location of the person you're looking for." Junglas claims not work. Her system relies solely on wireless LAN technology that mim- ics systems that global cellular net- works use. The next step for this technology is to expand the wireless cloud and create more location-based applica- tions, says Junglas. "We're living in a world with decent network coverage," she says, pointing to the Inter net as an example. "What we ultimately want to have, though, is a world that provides ubiquitous networks and universally usable devices, a world in which users can access networks at any time from any place. At Terry College, it's what we call 'u-commerce.'" 54 BizEd JULY/AUGUST 2003 that while other tracking systems exist, they rely on satellites to retrieve location information (such as global posi- tioning systems, or GPS). Unfortun ately, in a local area envi- ronment such as a building, these technologies do Four researchers at the Sam M. Walton College of Business at the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville recently received a National Science Founda - tion grant for $603,942 to study the under-representation of women and minorities in the field of information technology. The four researchers include Anne O'Leary-Kelly, profes- sor of management; Bill Hardgrave, executive director of the school's Information Technology Research Center; Vicki McKinney, assistant professor of information systems; and Darryl Wilson, assistant profes- sor of information systems. The proposed study, titled "The Influence of Professional Identifi ca - tion on the Retention of Women and Racial Minorities in the IT Work force," will examine the degree to which an individual's self-image derives from attachment to a profes- sion. The research will explore whether differences in individual characteristics and situational experi- ences lead women and minorities to develop different levels of profes- sional identification as compared to majority individuals. Another goal of the study will be to examine the influence of professional identifica- tion on the career persistence of IT workers. The longitudinal study will focus on 11,000 IT workers from seven diverse companies. The research team will survey the workers once a year for a series of three years. Researchers note that their goal is TOOLS OF THE TRADE DealMaven Inc. Offers Knowledge Base to B-Schools For the past three years, financial productivity software firm DealMaven Inc. of New York, New York, has of- fered its Financial Analysis Knowledge Base, an online training program for Microsoft Excel and financial analysis. Through more than 800 pages of content and interactive exercises, Knowl- edge Base is intended to accustom students to Excel-based financial analysis that investment bankers are expected to use in "real-world" occupations. Vince Scafaria, CEO and co-founder of DealMaven, worked with Robert Holthausen, a professor at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, and a team of investment bankers to develop Knowledge Base. The self-paced training program incorporates spreadsheet-intensive financial analysis, complete with quizzes, quantitative case studies, and step-by-step modeling tutorials. The program assumes no prior knowledge in finance. Its modeling tutorials walk users through the process of building a financial model in Excel. Complete with an in-depth glossary, Knowledge Base also serves as a tutorial aid and a reference tool. The software has been used as a training tool by investment banking firms such as Lehman Brothers. Deal- Maven is now making it available to higher education institutions. This fall, the Wharton School will be the first business school to make the software available to its students. "Our program has been used on Wall Street to train recent graduates in business as well as other disci- plines," says Scafaria. "By making Knowledge Base accessible to students while they are still in school, we hope to help them take their skill sets to the next level and give them an advantage in the job market."