Management Information Systems (MIS) students and researchers at The Fox School and throughout Temple University now have access to the one of the most advanced software development packages on the market today thanks to The Fox School's Irwin L. Gross eBusiness Institute’s (eBI) affiliation with the IBM Scholars Program.

eBI partnered with IBM to bring the Rational XDE Professional Plus software to campus at a value of $4.2 million. The software was installed early this semester and is in use on 437 machines in Speakman Hall, its BizTech Server Lab, and the Tuttleman Learning Center. The software enables students and researchers to model business processes, develop data models and use integrated tools for systems architecture and designs.

“This cutting-edge software will enhance our MIS teaching and research programs tremendously,” says Munir Mandviwalla, eBI executive director and MIS department chair at The Fox School. “Increasingly, software development teams are spread across the globe. New skills and tools are needed to meet the challenges of globalization.”

Earlier this semester, IBM delivered a course on Rational’s modeling tools at The Fox School for MIS students and faculty, the school’s information technology staff and associates of the eBusiness Institute. The Rational XDE software is being used for teaching systems analysis and design, a core topic of MIS curriculum at the undergraduate level. Student groups work on real software projects with businesses in the area. They study business problems and use the Rational tools to model the requirements and the alternative solutions. They then develop the designs and work through the implementation, and, finally, test their computer-based solutions.

The IBM Scholars Program is only made available to accredited higher education institutions. It provides colleges and universities with access to software, hardware, and other materials designed to assit students and faculty with the design, development, and testing of software applications. IBM’s Rational tools are currently used by 98 of the country’s Fortune 100 companies.