OR/MS Today - October 2001 INFORMS Online IOL Launches Practice Portal By Robin Lougee-Heimer The INFORMS Online Practice Portal (http://www.informs.org/Practice/) debuted, fittingly, in conjunction with the first INFORMS conference designed for practitioners ("Optimizing the Extended Enterprise in the New Economy," San Diego, May 20-22, 2001). The driving goal behind the new Practice Portal is to advance ORMS practice by providing practitioners with the online resources and tools they need to better succeed in buying, selling and applying ORMS solutions and services. Exactly what do practitioners need from IOL to improve their professional lives? Sometimes the most efficient way to define what is needed is to start with a prototype, test drive it, identify what is missing or superfluous and evolve. Adopting this approach, we constructed a preliminary version of the Practice Portal. The first instantiation of the page was primarily a collection of pointers to existing IOL content and links, organized with practitioners in mind. The site was revised on June 6, 2001 to incorporate suggestions made during the San Diego debut, and additional improvements followed. The categories and links on the Practice Portal page were chosen to highlight resources at IOL and other sites on the Web that are of particular interest to practitioners. The portal guides visitors to pages at IOL, Michael Trick's OR Page (MTORP) and elsewhere in a variety of categories, including: Software. The Software section features links to provider surveys, product directories and extensive, searchable listings of programs and packages of all types, including open-source software. Follow a link in this section to the collection of OR/MS Today's yearly software surveys. Or access MTORP's listing of computer programs to find more than 25 Java programs, 15 online optimizers and other programs and 80 software packages, along with a handy search facility to direct your browsing. Library. Practitioners don't typically have access to the type of library facilities available on-site at most universities. Think of this section as a virtual approximation to the usual brick-and-mortar academic library. Currently, the Practice Portal Library houses links to INFORMS publications (e.g., OR/MS Today, Interfaces and Management Science), the INFORMS Research Paper Archive and MTORP's listing of online journals. Just as every library has a reference desk, this section also has links to frequently asked questions (FAQs) and a facility for searching the Annual Comprehensive Index Bibliographic Database. Companies. The Companies section contains links to best practices in ORMS, as well as comprehensive listings of companies providing ORMS software and services. From this section, you can navigate the Web to find out more about the companies that have been acknowledge for their outstanding practices and the prizes they've been awarded, such as the Franz Edelman Award for Management Science Achievement and the Daniel H. Wagner Prize for Excellence in Operations Research Practice. What's Next? How the site evolves next depends primarily on your feedback and volunteer interests. Truly successful Web sites meet customer needs. You are the customer. What are your needs? What online resources would improve your ability to practice OR? Is it ... market intelligence — what are the current thoughts on the potential for optimization software and services? case studies by other practitioners about their failures and successes? white papers written with the practice audience in mind? resources to educate your clients about optimization, such as charts depicting the value of ORMS? a "virtual library" providing free to low cost information retrieval services? discussion forum with other practitioners and experts — on what topics? continuing education via Web-seminars — covering which subjects? guides to upcoming events? surveys on optimization software products and trends? facilities to hold your own online Web conferences? Do you want to ... advertise job openings? promote awareness of your corporate programs for students or faculty? pursue employment opportunities? publicize your business events at INFORMS meetings? engage suitable academic partners in long-term research on REAL problems you want to solve but don't have the bandwidth to tackle? As an online resource for practitioners, the site is also a resource for the members of the academic and student communities wanting to reach the practice community. Do you have something of value you want to target to practitioners? Are you... willing to provide continuing professional education? Web seminars? on-site tutorials? an expert for hire? interested in practice-oriented positions or projects for your promising students? looking for a challenge and curious about the real problems facing practitioners which they just don't have the bandwidth to consider? in need of real-world data? Community input is needed to help set priorities, and volunteers are wanted to help transform the ideas into reality. Volunteers at all levels of commitment are welcome. Write to iol_practice@informs.org with your comments, complaints, criticisms, encouragement, feedback and suggestion. Guest columnist Robin Lougee-Heimer is a Staff Member at the IBM T.J. Watson Research Center. Table of Contents OR/MS Today Home Page OR/MS Today copyright © 2001 by the Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences. All rights reserved. Lionheart Publishing, Inc. 506 Roswell Street, Suite 220, Marietta, GA 30060, USA Phone: 770-431-0867 | Fax: 770-432-6969 E-mail: lpi@lionhrtpub.com URL: http://www.lionhrtpub.com Web Site © Copyright 2001 by Lionheart Publishing, Inc. All rights reserved.