Abstract:

Overview:
Over the past decade, a large university business school’s Management Information System (MIS) department has conducted approximately one hundred capstone consulting projects for the university’s Office of Technology (OIT) department. This case study paper provides an on overview of the process, results and lessons learned from those projects. This paper describes how these two departments create a “win win” opportunity by leveraging the changing needs of the OIT department and the skill set of our graduating students. What we have found interesting is how few institutions take advantage of this opportunity. From our unscientific pooling of other universities’ OIT departments, using undergraduate MIS students to conduct research and recommendation strategies for a university’s IT department seems to be a very novel idea. Students are subject matter experts and colleges have skilled students available. The MIS department has had the good fortune to find a great partner in our university’s OIT department which has a continuous list of digital transformation research opportunities. The MIS department has an endless stream of undergraduate students bringing a diverse set of experiences and courses to provide insight to the OIT transformational issues.

Motivation:
Our MIS department has designated the last course in the major as an experiential learning capstone course. In the past, we have researched and presented on MIS projects for major corporations in our community. Ten years ago, we developed a relationship with the university’s OIT. The OIT leadership expressed an interest in providing MIS transformational projects for our capstone course. This combination of digital transformation opportunities and student talent became a win for both the students and OIT. The successful formula consisted of the students using their skills in conducting research on new and innovative technology ideas. The students are subject matter experts for the right projects. Finally, it is a chance for the students to “Give Back to the University.”

Results:
Feedback from a project sponsor. “Impactful insights from the student groups. Teams provided clarity in a way that we had not gathered from students in past explorations of this topic. Teams also suggested that there be more collegiate content in the portal experience.” One of the lessons learned over the years and dozens of projects is developing a long-term relationship with our partners. There are project sponsors who have done multiple projects with the capstone course. The OIT department now considers the capstone course a strategic consulting partner.

Keywords:

Digital transformation, Experiential learning, Consulting projects, Undergraduates.