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

The role of industry technologies in is education: a South African case study

The issue of determining the most appropriate software tools for instructional purposes is not new. As the tools keep changing and evolving and considering the vast number of existing tools that are there, this process of selecting the best tools for students may become quite challenging and it is important that the dynamic be explored. This research targets studying factors that have impact on tool selection, implementation of tools in the curriculum, and impact of tool use on students. The study also uses Activity Theory as the theoretical framework in holistically exploring how these tools are implemented in an undergraduate Information Systems curriculum. The research adopts an interpretivist approach and follows an exploratory research design using qualitative methods to gather data and thematic analysis for data analysis. This case study is of a South African university, which was chosen using convenience sampling. Data was collected through interviews with 10 lecturers and 8 students at the Information Systems Department and analysis of course outlines. Key findings point to alignment with industry needs, affordability, availability of supplementary resources, and software functionality as some of the important criteria used by educators when selecting software products. The study also identifies primary and secondary contradictions as per the Activity Theory and these highlight the inconsistencies which exist in the department's use of technologies. It is important to note the lack of studies in this area, where existing research mainly focuses on tools used in specific courses in Information Systems, but none have looked at the Information Systems discipline as a whole. The study also highlights the different roles played by technology companies in facilitating the use of tools in courses, which to the researcher's knowledge, has never been done before. Thus, the research contributes to literature and fills the stated gaps in research and answers the research questions

Situating English Language Teaching in Indonesia within a Critical, Global Dialogue of Theories: A Case Study of Teaching Argumentative Writing and Cross-Cultural Understanding Courses

This dissertation aims to critically examine lecturers’ discursive statements in interviews and English Language Teaching (ELT) classroom practices in Indonesia, primarily in the teaching of Argumentative Writing (AW) and Cross Cultural Understanding (CCU) courses at two universities (Multi-Religious and Islamic University) in Java. This study uses poststructural and interdisciplinary lenses: Foucauldian Discourse Analysis (FDA); Connell’s (2007) ideas of Southern Theory, Kumaravadivelu’s (2006b) Post Method Pedagogy, and Al-Faruqi’s (1989) and Al-Attas’ (1993) Islamisation of knowledge, as well as the critiques of these theories and other postcolonial voices. The critical examination of ELT practices through poststructural and interdisciplinary lenses in an Indonesian context is urgent, as teaching practices at present are subjected by competing regimes of ‘truth’ including Western, neoliberal, Southern, and Islamic discourses. The data were collected from curriculum policy documents, semi structured interviews, stimulated recalls and classroom observations from seven lecturers. The data were then transcribed and analysed primarily using FDA and also discussed in relation to other interdisciplinary theories, the critiques of these theories, and other relevant postcolonial literatures. Within the analysis there is a particular focus on how ELT Methods and World Englishes are enacted, negotiated, or resisted by lecturers. This study strongly suggests that Western discourses have dominated other regimes of truth, as evidenced in the privileging of process and genre approaches, global Northern structures of AW essay, as well as an emphasis on American and British English in AW courses and the privileging of those two dominant English varieties in CCU courses in most contexts. The study also suggests there are tensions between religious discourse and emerging neoliberal discourses in national policies and university documents and some lecturers’ language. Southern discourses seem to have been marginalised and seem to be only resorted to support the use of Western discourses in the classroom teaching. The use of FDA and interdisciplinary lenses, along with their critiques and other postcolonial voices, are underexplored in current studies of ELT practices. Therefore,this study extends scholarship in the ELT field and makes a case for exposing lecturers to counter discourses, such as Southern and Islamic discourses, in order for them to be able to critically negotiate or appropriate Western and neoliberal discourses in their teaching practices

Shall we play a game?

In response to real and perceived short-comings in the quality and productivity of software engineering practices and projects, professionally-endorsed graduate and post-graduate curriculum guides have been developed to meet evolving technical developments and industry demands. Each of these curriculum guidelines identifies better software engineering management skills and soft, peopleware skills as critical for all graduating students, but they provide little guidance on how to achieve this. One possible way is to use a serious game — a game designed to educate players about some of the dynamic complexities of the field in a safe and inexpensive environment. This thesis presents the results of a qualitative research project that used a simple game of a software project to see if and how games could contribute to better software project management education; and if they could, then what features and attributes made them most efficacious. That is, shall we— should we— play games in software engineering management? The primary research tool for this project was a game called Simsoft. Physically, Simsoft comes in two pieces. There is an A0-sized printed game board around which the players gather to discuss the current state of their project and to consider their next move. The board shows the flow of the game while plastic counters are used to represent the staff of the project. Poker chips represent the team’s budget, with which they can purchase more staff, and from which certain game events may draw or reimburse amounts depending on decisions made during the course of the game. There is also a simple Java-based dashboard, through which the players can see the current and historical state of the project in a series of reports and messages; and they can adjust the project’s settings. The engine behind Simsoft is a system dynamics model which embodies the fundamental causal relationships of simple software development projects. In Simsoft game sessions, teams of students, and practicing project managers and software engineers managed a hypothetical software development project with the aim of completing the project on time and within budget (with poker chips left over). Based on the starting scenario of the game, information provided during the game, and their own real-world experience, the players made decisions about how to proceed— whether to hire more staff or reduce the number, what hours should be worked, and so on. After each decision set had been entered, the game was run for another next time period, (a week, a month, or a quarter). The game was now in a new state which the players had to interpret from the game board and decide how to proceed. The findings showed that games can contribute to better software engineering management education and help bridge the pedagogical gaps in current curriculum guidelines. However, they can’t do this by themselves and for best effect they should be used in conjunction with other pedagogical tools. The findings also showed that simple games and games in which the players are able to relate the game world to an external context are the most efficacious

THE IMPLEMENTATION OF INDUCTIVE TEACHING AND LEARNING METHODS IN ISLAMIC EDUCATION LEARNING

The article aims to describe the essence of inductive method in Islamic education learning. The learning will run optimally if the teacher utilize the suitable approach and method.Traditional engineering instruction is deductive, beginning with theories and progressing to applications of those theories. Alternative teaching approaches are more inductive. The Islamic education learning should be utilized the inductive method. Topics are introduced by presenting specific observations, case studies or problems, and theories are taught or the students are helped to discover them only after the need to know them has been established. Factually, in modern era the Islamic education learning must be innovated for answering the globalization demand