Professional Accreditation of Information Systems Programs

Although accreditation is over 100 years old, the accreditation of information systems programs is a new experience for information systems programs. This paper describes the important aspects of accreditation as a process of excellence and shows how information systems faculty members can now employ that process to improve the overall quality of their programs for the benefit of their students, their institutions, and their profession

Toward Competency-Based Professional Accreditation in Computing

Program accreditation in medical or religious professions has existedsince the 1800s while accreditation of business and engineeringprograms started in the early twentieth century. With this long history,these disciplines have focused on ensuring the competence oftheir graduates, as modern society demands appropriate expertisefrom doctors and engineers before letting them practice their profession.In computing, however, professional accreditation startedin the last decades of the twentieth century only after computerscience, informatics, and information systems programs becamewidespread. At the same time, although competency-based learninghas existed for centuries, its growth in computing is relativelynew, resulting from recent curricular reports such as ComputingCurricula 2020, which have defined competency comprising knowledge,skills, and dispositions. In addition, demands are being placedon university programs to ensure their graduates are ready forentering and sustaining employment in the computing profession.This work explores the role of accreditation in the formationand development of professional competency in non-computingdisciplines worldwide, building on this understanding to see howcomputing accreditation bodies could play a similar role in computing.This work explores the role of accreditation in the formationand development of professional competency in non-computingdisciplines worldwide, building on this understanding to see howcomputing accreditation bodies could play a similar role in computing.Its recommendations are to incorporate competencies inall computing programs and future curricular guidelines; create competency-based models for computing programs; involve industryin identifying workplace competencies, and ensure accreditationbodies include competencies and their assessment in their standards

A Holistic Approach to Develop IS Curricula: Focusing on Accreditation and IT Certification

Introduction Information Systems (IS) are complex systems requiring both technical and organizational expertise for design, development, and management. Many academic institutions worldwide aim to generate an IS curriculum that produces graduates with solid foundation in IS and equipped with the skills that make them readily employable. However, all aspects of the computing fields including IS are faced with great pressure from industry to train students on specific IT technology and skills. As a result, university level IS curricula need frequent updating to answer the need of industry and to remain effective. The highly competitive Information Systems field requires universities and colleges to train students on the use of the latest technologies. Some academic institutions are redesigning their curricula to include IT certifications into their curricula. This process provides graduates with a solid foundation in IS and one or more IT certificate. Businesses today need college graduates to make an impact and become productive employees almost immediately after joining the work force. Information Systems (IS) programs are accredited by oversight bodies to determine whether the program provides quality education (Lidtke & Yaverbaum, 2003; Lunt, Lawson, Goodman, & Helps, 2002). Currently, ABET (Computing Accreditation Commission, 2004) is the accreditation body with responsibility for accrediting all programs in the computing field. The Computing Accreditation Commission (CAC) is responsible for the accreditation of IS programs. The IS 2002 model curriculum provides recommendation for the core IS curriculum to meet ABET criteria. While ABET specifies the 120 credit hours for the Bachelor degree, IS 2002 addresses 33 credit hours only. Currently, there is a move by a number of colleges and universities to form partnership with IT vendors such as Microsoft and Cisco to provide hands-on experience that prepares students for successful entry into the job market and to sit for Industry Certification exams (Houston, Blesse, & Herrod, 2005). Many employers are looking for IS graduates to acquire certification in addition to their Bachelor degree. IS graduates can demonstrate that they have the necessary skills to be productive by acquiring one or more appropriate IT certificates. The IEEE and ACM recognize the importance of the IT certifications and provide their members with over four hundred online courses leading to technical certifications. In this paper, an IS model curriculum that addresses accreditation requirements and certification needs is proposed. The model addresses all ABET criteria, which provide recommendations for general education (GE), IS environment, major core courses, major electives and general elective courses. The model curriculum uses the IS 2002 report (Gorgone, Davis, Valacich, Topi, Feinstein, & Longenecker, 2002) to implement the IS core courses. The model also provides a framework to integrate IT certification in IS courses at various levels of the curriculum. n example of how to use the proposed model curriculum is developed. The rest of the paper is organized as follows. The second section lists the criteria for accrediting IS programs. The third section introduces the IS 2002 recommendations for curriculum development and addresses some of the implementations issues. The fourth section discusses the proposed comprehensive IS curriculum. The fifth and sixth sections discuss embedding IT certification into the IS curriculum. The seventh section presents an example of how to implement the model curriculum. Finally the eighth section is the conclusion. ABET Criteria for Accrediting IS Programs ABET, a recognized accreditor for college and university programs in applied science, computing, engineering, and technology, is a federation of 30 professional and technical societies representing these fields. Among the most respected accreditation organizations in the U.

AAPM medical physics practice guideline 10.a.: Scope of practice for clinical medical physics.

The American Association of Physicists in Medicine (AAPM) is a nonprofit professional society whose primary purposes are to advance the science, education, and professional practice of medical physics. The AAPM has more than 8000 members and is the principal organization of medical physicists in the United States. The AAPM will periodically define new practice guidelines for medical physics practice to help advance the science of medical physics and to improve the quality of service to patients throughout the United States. Existing medical physics practice guidelines will be reviewed for the purpose of revision or renewal, as appropriate, on their fifth anniversary or sooner. Each medical physics practice guideline (MPPG) represents a policy statement by the AAPM, has undergone a thorough consensus process in which it has been subjected to extensive review, and requires the approval of the Professional Council. The medical physics practice guidelines recognize that the safe and effective use of diagnostic and therapeutic radiation requires specific training, skills, and techniques as described in each document. As the review of the previous version of AAPM Professional Policy (PP)-17 (Scope of Practice) progressed, the writing group focused on one of the main goals: to have this document accepted by regulatory and accrediting bodies. After much discussion, it was decided that this goal would be better served through a MPPG. To further advance this goal, the text was updated to reflect the rationale and processes by which the activities in the scope of practice were identified and categorized. Lastly, the AAPM Professional Council believes that this document has benefitted from public comment which is part of the MPPG process but not the AAPM Professional Policy approval process. The following terms are used in the AAPM's MPPGs: Must and Must Not: Used to indicate that adherence to the recommendation is considered necessary to conform to this practice guideline. Should and Should Not: Used to indicate a prudent practice to which exceptions may occasionally be made in appropriate circumstances

Latin American perspectives to internationalize undergraduate information technology education

The computing education community expects modern curricular guidelines for information technology (IT) undergraduate degree programs by 2017. The authors of this work focus on eliciting and analyzing Latin American academic and industry perspectives on IT undergraduate education. The objective is to ensure that the IT curricular framework in the IT2017 report articulates the relationship between academic preparation and the work environment of IT graduates in light of current technological and educational trends in Latin America and elsewhere. Activities focus on soliciting and analyzing survey data collected from institutions and consortia in IT education and IT professional and educational societies in Latin America; these activities also include garnering the expertise of the authors. Findings show that IT degree programs are making progress in bridging the academic-industry gap, but more work remains

Educating and Training Library Practitioners: A Comparative History with Trends and Recommendations

published or submitted for publicatio

School Leadership: Improving State Systems for Leader Development

Describes research findings about what effective school principals do, how best to train and support them, and the state's role in promoting better school leadership. Includes worksheets to help guide board discussions about shaping state policy

Can Accreditation Work in Public Health? Lessons From Other Service Industries

Reviews the literature on the experiences and outcomes of existing accreditation programs in health and social service industries in order to derive implications about the potential benefits and costs of accreditation for public health agencies

Are SREB States Making Progress? Tapping, Preparing and Licensing School Leaders Who Can Influence Student Achievement

Looks at the progress SREB states are making in developing systems to identify, prepare, and assess future school leaders

Quality assurance in higher education: for whom and of what?

Over the past two decades the quality assurance of higher education institutions has captured a growing interest as evidenced by the increasing number of national and transnational bodies engaged in this area. Yet as the first decade of the 21st century draws to a close, higher education systems and thus the regimes designed to ensure their quality are faced with significant complexity. Issues of accountability, authority and responsibility are paramount when responding to industry bodies, to globalisation and the transnational provision of higher education and to the use of market mechanisms. In this paper we raise some of the challenges for quality assurance for higher education presented by this growing complexity through the question, quality assurance in higher education, for whom and of what, highlighting our concern for a need to expand the centrality of accountability to include authority and responsibility as part of the quality assurance regimes for higher educatio