Looking Ahead: Business Intelligence & Analytics Research in the Post-Pandemic New Normal

The COVID 19 black swan event has disrupted every aspect of life in unprecedented ways, causing organizations to scramble to effectively sense and respond to the tumultuous business environment. Business intelligence and analytics (BI&A) capability has gained attention as a key weapon in the arsenal needed to combat turbulent times and to adjust to the post-pandemic new normal. Post-pandemic BI&A trends point to changes in organizational priorities for BI&A infrastructure that influence the traditional view of BI&A architecture and its role within an organization. As a result, new challenges and opportunities are emerging. This paper identifies and examines twelve key post-pandemic BI&A trends from industry practice and six major research themes. It also proposes an initial set of research questions that could inspire future research in BI&A in the post-pandemic new normal. © 2022 IEEE Computer Society. All rights reserved.

Application of Consumptive Metrics to Measure Internship Alignment

Internships aim at transitioning students from the academic environment (academic learning at the university) to a professional work environment (industry practice). Our paper aims to objectively evaluate the alignment of learning with practice based on the internship program conducted in Term 1, 2020 (pre-Covid), for our undergraduate students at the College of Technology Innovation studying in the bachelor's program for Computer Science and Information Systems. In order to measure the alignment, from a theoretical perspective, we adopted the framework of Kirkpatrick, which provides a set of "consumptive metrics"for evaluating the learning resources consumed in education and training, using the constructs 'reaction' (how the learners feel, including their personal reactions to the internship training) and 'learning' (measuring the knowledge, skills, or attitudes acquired as a direct result of the training, including mapping to their courses). Using 36 internship student reports collected over a single semester (in which students spent 8 weeks onsite at various organizations in the United Arab Emirates) as a sample for this study, we measured internship results in terms of the learning resources consumed during the internship experience using consumptive metrics to observe its alignment with practice. The results of the study allow academics to reinforce strong areas and improve areas of concern to better align learning with practice. © 2021 IEEE.