MaCuDE IS Task Force Phase II Report: Views of Industry Leaders on Big Data Analytics and AI

This paper represents the Phase II report of the Management Curriculum for the Digital Era (MaCuDE) disciplinary task force on information systems (IS). Aligned with the current work of the AIS (Association for Information Systems) and ACM (Association for Computing Machinery), we focus on the current and future industry driven educational needs and requirements posed by big data analytics (BDA), artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning (ML), and related innovations. In this report, we probe and report on the views of industry leaders regarding BDA/AI education needs. We conducted 18 rich semi-structured interviews with a representative sample of industry leaders around key changes and issues related to workforce demands in digital transformation and associated educational needs. We performed a grounded theory based analysis of key themes in reported education needs. We note the shifting meaning of AI and BDA phenomena and identify three main organizational level needs for the digital era -capability improvement and transformation, decision-making strategies and tactics, and changes in operations or products- and connect them to three individual professional competencies- fundamental environmental competencies, data information and content, and system design competencies- necessary to deliver them. Based on the analysis we outline several novel competency-based IS curriculum recommendations for the master\u27s and undergraduate level IS education

Market Segmentation of Information Systems Academic Programs

Past Information Systems (IS) curriculum studies recognize the importance of the practitioner’s perspective and attempt to incorporate “real world” IS skill requirements within recommended IS model curriculum guidelines. While recent IS curriculum recommendations move towards a greater customer orientation, many practitioners still feel IS education programs are not producing the types of IS professionals needed on their job sites. This raises an important question: Given the significant role that practitioners have played in recommending new curriculum designs, why are IS practitioners not satisfied with the quality and skill training of IS graduates? While many reasons, such as poor curriculum implementation and the rapid change of technology, may contribute to this problem, a significant contributor may be that blanket adoption of national IS model curriculum fails to recognize the basic marketing concept of segmentation. We posit that understanding the customers of IS academic programs in segmented markets should lead to better designed curriculum and accordingly, deliver students that better meet specific market demands. Rather than simply ranking IS employer skill preferences on a national basis, this study relies on the marketing reference discipline for guidance in introducing a market segmentation model and an implementation approach to help bridge the gap between academia and practitioners

MaCuDE IS Task Force: Final Report and Recommendations

This Phase III report of the Management Curriculum for the Digital Era (MaCuDE) disciplinary task force on information systems (IS) synthesizes the main findings of the project’s two earlier phases. Based on the synthesis, this report formulates the task force’s recommendations (Phase III) for future IS curricula and graduate competencies associated with Big Data Analytics (BDA) and Artificial Intelligence (AI). During the MaCuDE project, the task force—collaborating with Association for Information Systems leadership on education— first (Phase I) surveyed a sample of representative universities to examine the status of IS education in the digital era. During the next phase (Phase II), the task force interviewed industry leaders regarding their information systems education needs with a focus on emerging BDA and AI needs. This report builds on Phase I and Phase II results and associated feedback from project stakeholders and outlines an IS curriculum framework that identifies projected competency levels for key IS competency areas (both new and changing) within main IS program types related to BDA and AI education (undergraduate and graduate programs; IS programs, other business programs, and non-business programs) in the coming decade. The report also highlights critical policy issues to successfully implement the proposed IS curricula changes addressing BDA and AI needs

Project Management Courses in IS Graduate Programs: What is Being Taught?

The most recent model curriculum for graduate information systems programs includes a project management course, which contains a balance of technical and managerially related skills. Prior research has shown that adoption of this project management course among information systems graduate programs is not extensive. This study compares the topical coverage of the courses that are being offered against the Project Management lnstitute\u27s Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK) and Georgia State University\u27s Computer Information Systems graduate project management course in information technology. A web-based survey of 206 institutions with graduate information systems programs was conducted; 103 responded and 78 indicated that they had a project management course with 41 instructors completing the questionnaire (53% response rate). Data collected from the survey were then analyzed using descriptive statistics. With respect to the topics of project management found in the PMBOK, information systems programs are covering hard skills such as project scope and cost management to a large extent and giving less emphasis to soft skills such as human resource and project communications management. Also, procurement management is only covered to a very small extent. Similarly, information systems programs matched well with the benchmark course at Georgia State University in the extent of coverage for hard skills such as work breakdown, estimation, and project networks, but their coverage of areas such as project chartering and dealing with vendors and suppliers was considerably lower

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

Revising Undergraduate IS Model Curriculum: New Outcome Expectations

This paper outlines and further specifies the key points articulated in an IS Model Curriculum panel presentation at the Americas Conference for Information Systems (AMCIS) 2008. This presentation centered on the major changes to the IS Model Curriculum that is currently being proposed by the joint Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) and the Association for Information Systems (AIS) task force. The goal of this task force is to provide the first major revision of the IS model curriculum since IS ’97. The major modifications to the IS Model Curriculum involve: 1) reaching beyond the business school to include programs housed in other parts of the university (e.g., health informatics); 2) revising the outcome expectations for the IS graduates and proposing subsequent changes to the curriculum topics; 3) revising the curriculum structure by separating the curriculum core from the elective topics; and 4) involving and making relevant the model curriculum to the global IS community. Also, this paper summarizes the key components to the restructuring of the IS Model Curriculum: high-level organizational needs for IS capabilities and graduate knowledge and skills. Finally, future steps in the curriculum revision process are discussed

Future of Master’s Level Education in Information Systems

Master’s level programs in Information Systems provide exciting opportunities for schools and departments that are willing to actively engage with their corporate partners and other key stakeholders to develop products that simultaneously address the needs of students, employers, and other stakeholders and build on the core strengths of the IS discipline. This article reports on the results of a panel discussion on master’s level education in IS that took place at AMCIS 2010. The panelists included experienced program directors, curriculum experts, and academic administrators from both North America and Europe. Their contributions brought together descriptions of successful program models, in-depth understanding of how the context for master’s programs in IS is changing, and ideas regarding the future direction for master’s education in IS