Two student teams from the University of Arkansas at Little Rock will compete as finalists in the Merck Analytics Challenge.

The focus of the Merck Analytics Challenge is to make sense of big data through visualization. Students, in teams or as individuals, create an original graphic that provides clear and meaningful insight into a problem.

The UALR students represent two out of the top 10 teams to make the national finals in the business analytics category of the Association of Information Systems Student Competition.

Students competing on the undergraduate team include Jon Wickland, Tim Jones, Doug Meyer, and Thea Ross, while Kun-hee Kim, Taner Bugak, Martial Trigeaud, and Aditya Mamidi make up UALR’s graduate team.

Both teams are advised by Dr. Rachida Parks, assistant professor of business information systems, and are currently taking either her undergraduate or graduate course in business analytics.

The UALR undergraduate team will be presenting their data analytics reports on how television and social media use has increased QVC sales, while the graduate team will be offering insights into the Pennsylvania Ballet sponsorship and ticket sales.

A panel of industry experts carefully evaluated and scored each entry. The students were selected from 29 entries with 17 universities competing nationwide.

“This is an extraordinary achievement for our students and a good representation of our program as well as our university,” said Parks.

Finals will be held April 1-3  as part of the Association for Information Systems (AIS) Student Chapter Leadership Conference, hosted by Indiana University in Bloomington. The two groups will give a 10-minute presentation before a panel of final-round judges.

The students’ submissions will be judged based on the clarity of their reports and graphs, novelty and creativity, and the meaningful insights into the real data provided by the companies QVC, Merck, and Pennsylvania Ballet.

For the data analytics competition, students choose one of three challenges presented by the competition and address one or more of the questions for that challenge by creating a graphic.

“In addition to technical and statistical expertise, data analytics is about critical thinking and looking for that needle in the haystack to provide decision makers with actionable items,” said Parks.

Last year, two of Parks’ students competed and made it to the finalist list.

“I am so proud of these students for working a lot of hours in and outside of the class to achieve this outstanding recognition,” said Parks.