Print this

GSLIS Corporate Roundtable

The GSLIS Corporate Roundtable brings together GSLIS faculty and graduate students on the cutting edge of research with leaders in the business community—from software engineers to business educators, corporate librarians to web taxonomists, all working together to solve a broad range of information science related challenges.

The group consists of professionals from a broad range of industries including:

• Arch Coal Inc.
• Archer Daniels Midland Company
• ASPCA
• Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago
• Knowledge Jolt
• State Farm Insurance Companies
• Talent Intelligence

The group meets bimonthly to discuss topics brought to the table by corporate members in the form of a detailed case. Past topics have included: organizational informatics, taxonomies/controlled vocabularies, data mining problems and solutions, governance of taxonomies including funding standards and policies, group processes involved with the Text Encoding Initiative, overcoming the "information silo" mentality, etc.

The Shared Benefits of Membership

• Explore opportunities for collaboration between Illinois businesses and leading researchers in the nation's top-ranked LIS school (U.S. News & World Report)
• Provide corporate members an opportunity to pose questions for in-depth investigation, research, and discussion
• Facilitate the building of alliances among members, across fields and across disciplines
• Provide Illinois business the opportunity to meet and recruit top graduates in the field of Information Science and Library Science
• Predict what skills will be needed for graduates to thrive in tomorrow's business information environment

What kinds of questions do corporations bring to GSLIS?

An Insurance Provider

How can one improve on-line education for 150,000 agents in the field? How does one get accurate, timely information to agents in disaster relief areas? How can one overcome culturally embedded practices that give rise to the "information silo" mentality?

A Machine Manufacturer

The design and manufacture of complex farm equipment requires meticulous documentation practices. Within a given model, make and year, a farm implement's varied systems can be driven by any one of a series of upgraded software versions. How can one track and archive the software documentation related to the these systems, then make the accurate documentation available to dealers, mechanics, and sales staff?

An Energy Producer

Complex legal contracts exist for drilling sites—each contract can have multiple amendments/addendums/clauses that alter the terms of the contract over time. How can one create a digital archive to reliably track this information?

An Agribusiness Company

Researchers keep detailed notes while conducting experiments in the field. Knowledge gained from each experiment, if not documented in final reports, goes untapped. How can one collect, digitize, and make useful the information locked in an archive of hand-written notebooks?

JOIN US!

If your company is interested in exploring the answers to these or other related questions, contact: Sharon Johnson, -sdjohnso, at uiuc.edu- or 217-244-6473.