A degree of employability: a research agenda towards curricula design

The challenge of providing commercial science and technology skills in an academic environment stimulates considerable debate, with industry suggesting it cannot be done. In investigating enhancing employability skills of STEM graduates many institutions are considering new initiatives and policies. This research works towards developing models to change practice in curriculum design by embedding industry frameworks. The application of SFIA in course design intends to improve the student journey from undergraduate to graduate to employee by incorporating skills and language required by professionals, into the heart of HE curricula. The paper reflects the efforts to meet these goals and sets out an agenda for research to identify the impact of the approach. A key deliverable is a transferable model for the development of fit-for-purpose academic curricula in HEIs, fully aligned with industry requirements and needs. The research progresses to clarify the impact and effectiveness of this approach

Closing the gap between software engineering education and industrial needs

According to different reports, many recent software engineering graduates often face difficulties when beginning their professional careers, due to misalignment of the skills learnt in their university education with what is needed in industry. To address that need, many studies have been conducted to align software engineering education with industry needs. To synthesize that body of knowledge, we present in this paper a systematic literature review (SLR) which summarizes the findings of 33 studies in this area. By doing a meta-analysis of all those studies and using data from 12 countries and over 4,000 data points, this study will enable educators and hiring managers to adapt their education / hiring efforts to best prepare the software engineering workforce

Mapping of Sustainability Education to Construction Related Curricula: A Case Study of Quantity Surveying (QS) Degree Programme

An effective response is required to climate change and the steady diminution of resources of our natural world. We are all situated within and dependent upon the Built Environment for our survival. We all benefit from buildings and infrastructure. The creation, refurbishment and maintenance of this environment is a £100 Billion industry. Each new build operation, every refurbishment and the operation of existing systems all consume resources, in many cases scarce and non-renewable. What is vital is awareness in those actually responsible for the creation and renewal of the facilities referred to above? There can only be a concerted effort at sustainable building when there is genuine, informed, concern on the part of all members of the construction team. Perhaps we should look to our providers of construction-related education to instil students with increasing awareness of the issues. The current study examines the extent to which there is appreciation of issues of sustainability amongst educators and the extent of their inclusion within the curricula of (in this case) Quantity Surveying students at a northern university chosen for the study. The literature review findings and results from the content analysis of the series of interviews conducted suggest the level of inclusion appears to be low. This supports findings from the recent RICS research, which suggested that sustainability may be evident across only 3-5% of the curricula of most Quantity Surveying programmes, and incorporated at a basic level only

Education alignment

This essay reviews recent developments in embedding data management and curation skills into information technology, library and information science, and research-based postgraduate courses in various national contexts. The essay also investigates means of joining up formal education with professional development training opportunities more coherently. The potential for using professional internships as a means of improving communication and understanding between disciplines is also explored. A key aim of this essay is to identify what level of complementarity is needed across various disciplines to most effectively and efficiently support the entire data curation lifecycle

Engineers for the future; accounting for diversity

tailoring engineering and STEM education to meet the needs of all stakeholders. (External Industry requirement) a. Educational institutions must consider an increasingly diverse group of stakeholders, including students, staff, industry, and the wider community. How can educational activities expand our horizons beyond classroom and industry experience

ALIGNING IS CURRICULUM WITH INDUSTRY SKILL EXPECTATIONS: A TEXT MINING APPROACH

Digitalization offers both great opportunities as well as new challenges and uncertainties. In particular, students in their role as future employees will have to cope with the new digital environments, which makes lifelong learning and up-to-date skills even more important than they already are. Key players in this long-term development are the universities as providers of the necessary skills and knowledge. By now, it is clear that digitalization will have a broad impact on the future conditions of universities. But are they already prepared for it? Against this backdrop, we present an approach to combine universities’ offerings with the required industry job skills to identify potential curricular gaps at course level that arise through ongoing digitalization and, as a consequence, changing skill requests for employees. We identify an appropriate set of methods for our project including text min-ing methods, an expert survey and an interview phase for evaluation. We illustrate our approach using a large data set of German IS curricular module descriptions and offers for IS job starters

Educational Policies for Integrating College Competencies and Workforce Needs

Explores the challenges of workforce development for a global economy in Brazil, Mongolia, Ukraine, and the United States, with a focus on basic skills development, internships, and the role of stakeholders. Recommends policy and curriculum changes

ACM/IEEE-CS information technology curriculum 2017: A status update

The IT2008 Curriculum Guidelines for Undergraduate Degree Programs in Information Technology has been showing its age, and in 2014, the ACM Education Board agreed to oversee the creation of a revision, now being referred to as IT2017. Much progress has been made, and a version 0.6 will be ready by Oct 2016. All proposed panel members are members of the IT2017 Task Group

MAPPING IS CURRICULUM RESEARCH AREAS: A SYSTEMATIC LITERATURE REVIEW FROM 2010 TO 2019

Research on IS curriculum addresses many important aspects related to IS curriculum planning: sharing of good curriculum planning practices, reviewing and recommending contents for IS curriculum, and identifying graduates’ competency needs. A bit surprisingly, however, there is no systematic literature review on IS curriculum research, increasing the possibility that knowledge does not accumulate, or reach intended beneficiaries. In this paper, we present results of a systematic literature review of IS curriculum research from 2010 to 2019. In total, 204 articles are downloaded from Scopus, AIS eLibrary, and ACM digital library. In addition to providing an overview of research demographics, we classify the articles first into three broad categories (planning process, curriculum contents, competency requirements), and secondly to more specific classes within each category. For IS curriculum researchers, the results assist in identifying prior research in different areas, thus promoting accumulation of research knowledge. For IS faculty, the paper provides an overview of IS curriculum related studies and a possibility to identify papers based on their immediate curriculum design needs and interests