I mentioned yesterday an announcement of a press event at UALR next week about an economic development effort to be headed by Dr. Mary Good and described as a "game changer."
Rooting around on the web this morning, I've found that this is the emerging analytics center, as described in a job posting seeking a director for the operation. From that posting:
The EAC Operations Director will have a broad scope of work to be performed, which will include (but is not limited to): professional organizational and financial management services and coordination of a multi-tiered committee support structure for the EAC —- comprised of an EAC Installation/Operation Team, the EAC Data Science Advisory Board, the EAC Management Board, and linkage to the UALR Office of Innovation for Commercialization Business Advisory Board; professional marketing/public relations coordination and creative direction utilizing campus resources; intense focus to quickly achieve revenue-driven sustainability funding goals through research/co-development funding from a variety of local, regional, national and international sources; an aggressive Return-On-Investment (ROI) model will require extensive interaction with data-related industry and government project solicitation with coordination through campus-wide/cross discipline faculty engagement in proposal submissions and management linked to the UALR Office of Research and Sponsored Programs; available for extensive work-related travel on a local, regional, national and international basis, as needed.
The analytics center will engage in "visualization." That is, it will make visual presentations of complex data. Demonstrations of this work are promised next week. The center was mentioned at a UA Board meeting in late 2012, to be funded by a $5.5 million Donaghey Foundation grant.
I'm frankly not sure what all that means, but more info for those who might be interested.