GC-417 IT Curriculum Success Portal

In this project, we built a curriculum and course web portal to have all curriculum and course information in one place with easy search and browse interfaces. Currently course data and information are scattered in various places. These include essential information like course description, learning outcomes, sample syllabus, offering schedule and history. It also includes curriculum development information for department use, such as coordinator, developer, revision schedule, open learning materials. We collected all sources of IT course information and built a database to integrate the data in one place. Through this, we can build a complete profile of a course and our curriculum. Then, a data driven interactive web app can pull the data from the database and display all course information to users in dynamic views. This is meant to consolidate a large amount of information about IT courses into one place so students and faculty can easily find the otherwise fragmented information

Teaching Web Information Retrieval and Network Communications Undergraduate Courses in IT Curriculum

This paper provided the results of an investigation on the teaching of computer networks courses and web information retrieval courses in undergraduate Information Technology (IT) curriculum. The paper consists of two parts. First part of the paper surveys the undergraduate courses in two curriculum areas, computer networks and web information retrieval. The content of the survey includes the topics covered, the textbooks used, and major projects in these courses. The second part of the paper describes the authors’ experiences in teaching such courses to undergraduate students in various discipline areas including computer science majors, IT majors, and non-technical majors

The Need to Address Mobile Device Security in the Higher Education IT Curriculum

Mobile devices, including smartphones and tablets, enable users to access corporate data from anywhere. In 2013, people will purchase 1.2 billion mobile devices, surpassing personal computers as the most common method for accessing the Internet. However, security of these mobile devices is a major concern for organizations. The two leading mobile operating systems (OS), Google’s Android OS and Apple’s iOS, both have security concerns as do the mobile applications and the major application markets. ‘Bring your own devices,’ where employees supply their own equipment for work-related purposes, can cut costs for organizations, but failing to address security can significantly increase those costs. This paper focuses on the increasing need for mobile business and its related mobile device security concerns. We propose that future IT professionals should be aware of these issues and learn how to secure mobile devices through the integration of the topic into the IT Model Curriculum. Using the case of one undergraduate IT program, we developed a set of mobile device security education recommendations, which we then mapped to the IT Model Curriculum using the guidelines from Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology (ABET). This mapping approach demonstrates one way how higher education institutions could integrate mobile device security into any IT curriculum

Implementing a Competency-Based Information Technology Curriculum: Challenges and Opportunities (Poster Abstract)

ACM and IEEE Computer Society released new curriculum guidelines for baccalaureate degree programs in Information Technology, also known as the IT2017 report. Built on the foundation of the first ACM/IEEE IT2008 report, the new report, published in December 2017, stands out by its focus on employer-informed competencies that IT graduates should have in order to meet technological challenges of the workplace in the next decade. This poster highlights elements of the IT2017 curricular framework that help academic departments apply a competency-based approach to IT program development. Although competencies are prevalent in many areas of professional practice, placing competencies at the center of IT curriculum development requires rethinking of how we design learning environments in which students achieve IT competencies. In this poster I present some challenges with implementing the IT2017 curricular framework and discuss opportunities for turning the IT2017 report into a living document that learns from IT programs\u27 implementation experiences

An Overview of the New ACM/IEEE Information Technology Curricular Framework

ACM and IEEE have developed a curricular report titled, “Information Technology Curricula 2017: Curriculum Guidelines for Baccalaureate Degree Programs in Information Technology,” known also as IT2017. The development of this report has received worldwide content contributions from industry and academia through surveys as well as many international conferences and workshops. An open online publication of the report was made available in December 2017. This paper presents a digest of the content of the report, the IT curricular framework, and suggestions for its use in developing new information technology programs or enhancing existing ones. The heart of the IT curricular framework is a set of competencies identified through knowledge, skills, and dispositions, as supported by pedagogical research. The paper also describes ways in which institutions could use the curricular framework not only to develop information technology degree programs, but also to improve and enhance related computing programs

A Competency-based Approach toward Curricular Guidelines for Information Technology Education

The Association for Computing Machinery and the IEEE Computer Society have launched a new report titled, Curriculum Guidelines for Baccalaureate Degree Programs in Information Technology (IT2017). This paper discusses significant aspects of the IT2017 report and focuses on competency-driven learning rather than delivery of knowledge in information technology (IT) programs. It also highlights an IT curricular framework that meets the growing demands of a changing technological world in the next decade. Specifically, the paper outlines ways by which baccalaureate IT programs might implement the IT curricular framework and prepare students with knowledge, skills, and dispositions to equip graduates with competencies that matter in the workplace. The paper suggests that a focus on competencies allows academic departments to forge collaborations with employers and engage students in professional practice experiences. It also shows how professionals and educators might use the report in reviewing, updating, and creating baccalaureate IT degree programs worldwide

IT Knowledge: What Do Accounting Students Think They Know? Do You Know More Than I Do? An Exploratory Study

In recognition of the growing role of information technology (IT) in teaching accounting, we surveyed students at three Midwestern universities to determine their self-reported knowledge levels of 36 specific information technologies and difference in those IT knowledge levels between universities.  Unlike other areas of accounting, there are no set standards for the IT curriculum for accounting education.  Because of this, we expect to find significant differences in IT knowledge between these three universities.  These findings are analyzed in light of authoritative guidance on appropriate accounting technology topics and research on the current status of IT in accounting education.  We find accounting students have a low level of self-perceived IT knowledge.  These students are not proficient in requisite technologies even after completing most of their undergraduate course work.  We also find that there are significant differences in IT knowledge between the three universities in the study.  These findings imply that we may be doing a disservice to accounting students and the accounting profession by not having a set IT curriculum.  We conclude that it is time to assess IT knowledge and IT skill requirements necessary for accounting students and develop a standard IT curriculum in accounting education

A Course Sequence For Integrating Problem Solving And Critical Thinking In A Hybrid Outcome Based Is/It Curriculum

In this paper we propose a curriculum for the information systems (IS) and information technology (IT) fields that follows the ABET criteria and the IS 2002 recommendations. The proposed curriculum is driven by two sets of learning outcomes: the university learning outcomes, which are a set of higher level outcomes and the college learning outcomes which are embedded in all core courses. A course sequence was developed to facilitate student learning of problem solving and programming concepts. The sequence includes courses in problem solving, algorithm design and development, solution modeling and coding. VB.Net, a visual programming environment, was the language of choice to introduce object oriented programming. The master course syllabi for the sequence provide clear details about learning outcomes covered in that course as well as the piece of evidence for that outcome. The master course syllabi with clearly defined learning outcomes can help instructors focus their lessons. The proposed course sequence can help students learn problem solving concepts naturally and facilitate the programming learning process. It is anticipated that such a curriculum will reduce students\u27 fear of programming and renew their interest in the computing field in general as well as the IS/IT field in particular. © American Society for Engineering Education, 2008

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

Multinational perspectives on information technology from academia and industry

As the term \u27information technology\u27 has many meanings for various stakeholders and continues to evolve, this work presents a comprehensive approach for developing curriculum guidelines for rigorous, high quality, bachelor\u27s degree programs in information technology (IT) to prepare successful graduates for a future global technological society. The aim is to address three research questions in the context of IT concerning (1) the educational frameworks relevant for academics and students of IT, (2) the pathways into IT programs, and (3) graduates\u27 preparation for meeting future technologies. The analysis of current trends comes from survey data of IT faculty members and professional IT industry leaders. With these analyses, the IT Model Curricula of CC2005, IT2008, IT2017, extensive literature review, and the multinational insights of the authors into the status of IT, this paper presents a comprehensive overview and discussion of future directions of global IT education toward 2025