RICHARDSON, Texas (Feb. 13, 2003) - Two University of Texas at Dallas (UTD) School of Management faculty members have won a teaching grant, valued at more than $152,000, from IDS Scheer, Inc., to test one of that company's software tools with students in their classes.

Dr. Nirup Menon and Dr. Michael Savoie have won The ARIS Award 2002 for their proposal to test the ARIS software in their management information systems classes. For their project, they are using a computer "test bed" - a facility of 20 linked computers designed for trial runs of new and emerging technology applications - at UTD's Center for Information Technology Management (CITM).

Dr. Menon explained that students in both his Enterprise Resource Computing course and in Dr. Savoie's System Re-Engineering Project course learn to work with the software. Students are introduced to the ARIS software in Dr. Menon's course, where they work on configurations for a mock company. The following semester, the same students use ARIS to prototype a re-engineered business process and system in Dr. Savoie's course.

The sequence of courses is designed to help the students develop expertise in modeling large systems. Dr. Savoie, who is also CITM's director, says the center is working to provide "real world" business projects that the students can use to apply their new knowledge.

The ARIS Award is part of the University Alliance Grant Awards Program of SAP America, Inc. The company's award program recognizes universities that have developed or implemented educational curricula based on IDS Scheer's ARIS computer architecture and software. The award will be formally presented at the SAP Innovation Congress in Miami this weekend. A 2002 ARIS Award also will be presented to Western Michigan University at the congress.

About UTD
The University of Texas at Dallas, located at the convergence of Richardson, Plano and Dallas in the heart of the complex of major multinational technology corporations known as the Telecom Corridor, enrolls more than 13,000 students. The school's freshman class traditionally stands at the forefront of Texas state universities in terms of average SAT scores. The university offers a broad assortment of bachelor's, master's and doctoral degree programs. For additional information about UTD, please visit the university's web site at http://www.utdallas.edu.