LIKES: Educating the Next Generation of Knowledge Society Builders

Although information technology (IT) is used extensively in the education of all disciplines, the computing-related fields are facing tremendous challenges, such as declining student enrollment and a lack of representation from minorities and women. Strengthening the connection between computing and other fields could help instructors to integrate IT in their teaching and to support the learning of students, who will become the next generation of Knowledge Society builders. Presently, this connection is weak due to the lack of interdisciplinary collaboration and mutual understanding among faculty in computing and other fields. Our ongoing effort entitled “Living in the KnowlEdge Society (LIKES) Community Building Project” aims to build a community that will define a socially-relevant way to make systemic changes in how computing and IT concepts are taught and applied in both computing and other fields. In this paper, we review previous efforts in this area and summarize our project’s achievements and lessons learned. We also provide recommendations on integrating IT into other curricula and on strengthening interdisciplinary collaborations

An overview of the nature of the preparation of practice educators in five health care disciplines

Practice education is a core element of all educational programmes that prepare health care professionals for academic award and registration to practice. Ensuring quality and effectiveness involves partnership working between Higher Education Institutions (HEI’s) and health care providers, social care communities, voluntary and independent sectors offering client care throughout the United Kingdom and Republic of Ireland. Clearly practitioners who support, supervise and assess learners for entry to their respective professions need to be well prepared and supported in their roles as practice educators. However it would appear that the nature of this support and preparation varies across disciplines and that good practice is not easily shared. With this in mind, the Making Practice Based Learning Work (MPBLW) project aims to make practitioners more effective at supporting and supervising students in the workplace across a range of health care disciplines namely Dietetics, Nursing, Occupational Therapy, Physiotherapy and Radiology. The Department of Employment and Learning (Northern Ireland) and the Higher Education Funding Council for England has funded this collaborative project involving staff from Ulster, Northumbria and Bournemouth Universities. The outcomes for each phase of the project are: Phase One: • Identify and document good practice on how practitioners are prepared for their educational role. Phase Two: • Develop and evaluate learning materials for use by practitioners across five health care disciplines. • Make learning materials available in a number of efficient media, e.g. paper, electronic, CD-ROM and web-based. • Develop a programme applicable to interprofessional and uniprofessional contexts. • Widen access for a multicultural workforce. Phase Three: • Embed best educational practice through the establishment of an academicpractitioner network. • Disseminate a range of materials and processes across the wider academic and health and social care communities

Integrated Curriculum for a Bachelor of Science in Business Information Systems Design (BISD 2010)

Commentators on Information Systems (IS) education have urged the IS community to develop new and alternative IS curricula. The IS 2002 model curriculum has recently been revised. The new IS 2010 curriculum guidelines for undergraduate degree programs in Information Systems [Topi et al. 2010] has a curriculum structure to accommodate the education of several different professional roles within IS. This paper identifies one such role, the Business Information Systems Designer. It presents and argues for a new, integrated Bachelor of Science curriculum for Business Information Systems Design (BISD 2010) to educate for this role. The proposed curriculum focuses on the design and use of IS in business and has a strong design focus. The education focuses on developing and training a set of capabilities that enables the Business Information Systems Designer to participate in the design of business and IS in concert. Some examples of capabilities are communication and presentation skills, business and industry understanding, and high-level modeling. Consequently, the curriculum adopted a capabilities-driven pedagogical model in order to train specific skills. The paper presents the BISD 2010 with its specific expected learning outcomes, structure, and pedagogy, and also how the students should be able to fulfill the learning outcomes. The proposed curriculum differs from much of the current IS model curriculum discussions in a number of respects: (1) it is built on a notion of design, design science, and design as a profession, (2) it is based on a capability driven pedagogical model, (3) the curriculum is modeled for a European higher education context and the Bologna accord, and (4) it is not a model curriculum, but a specific, comprehensive, and ambitious curriculum for a degree program

Education and Design: Using Human-Computer Interaction Case Studies to Learn

Computers are essentially an ever-present tool that can be used in almost any discipline to make work faster and easier. Creating these programs, however, such that they fulfill the needs of the customer is a challenging process given the uniqueness of the discipline and circumstance. Thus, the use of a programming design methodology can enable the computer program designer to create a better system that meets the needs of the customer. Teaching this process, or in essence how to design, is the focus of this work. In this paper we present how using case studies in Human-Computer Interaction, and more specifically displaying the evolution of a case study, increases a designer’s ability to learn and then apply this knowledge. We investigate how to use this design evolution within case studies and the effects it had on application, while also exploring how case studies can be used in educating computer scientists

Human Factors in Cybersecurity: Academia’s Missed Opportunity

With human errors and behavior being significant contributors to data breaches and cyber-attacks, it is critical to integrate human factors principles into cybersecurity education. The lack of emphasis on human factors in cybersecurity curricula has resulted in a significant gap in understanding and addressing the role of human behavior in cybersecurity. This paper highlights the need for colleges and universities to offer courses in human factors principles in cybersecurity to educate the future workforce. The article discusses the importance of understanding human factors in designing secure systems and the benefits of integrating human factors into cybersecurity research and practice. The paper addresses the challenges institutions face in developing and teaching human factors courses in cybersecurity, including the need for more faculty members with relevant expertise and credentials. This research argues that teaching human factors in cybersecurity is essential to prevent data breaches and cyber-attacks caused by human errors and behavior

Identifying core knowledge and skill sets for model curricula: update

This deliverable presents state of the art in curriculum development work, and compares IDCnet to it. Next it discusses the methodology followed to identify key knowledge and skill sets for Design for All. The categories of knowledge thus identified are organised into a taxonomy with examples given for each category and subcategory along with a set of learning outcomes. The purpose of the taxonomy is to structure the knowledge. As this deliverable was a ‘living’ document, and as further activities have taken place since this deliverable was first submitted, this version includes a substantially expanded chapter 5, incorporating comments from: the project review process; the new members of IDCnet; the second IDCnet workshop; as well as comments received from colleagues in response to dissemination activities at conferences. The categories and subcategories of the taxonomy remain unchanged, but further topics and examples have been added to illustrate and clarify the use and range of each category. Finally, the next steps in the IDCnet WP3 strategy are briefly described

Invited Paper: The Transition from MIS Departments to Analytics Departments

This paper takes a look backward while simultaneously looking to the future for MIS departments that are making the transition to Analytics departments. MIS has a long past of providing a base of skills supporting organizations. We examine this history as well as how the blending of MIS with business translator and modeling skills has led to the development of analytics programs and concentrations. While the transition to analytics has taken place in many MIS departments at least partially, the question is how long analytics will remain a focus and when will the next major shift occur

Integrating Computational Thinking into Information Systems and Other Curricula

Computational thinking (CT) is a fundamental skill needed to function in modern society. Despite widespread use of computers as productivity tools, existing curricula in information systems (IS) and other disciplines have not fully embraced CT concepts and skills. Increasing cross-disciplinary integration of CT into these curricula can help develop students’ problem-solving ability and provide educators with useful resources. Our collaborative initiative, named the Living in the Knowledge Society (LIKES) community building project, supports the integration of CT into college-level curricula by building a community of scholars and educators who will define the way to make systemic changes in how computing and IT concepts are taught and applied in both computing and other fields, thus better preparing the next-generation Knowledge Society builders. We describe the workshops, community-building activities, outcomes achieved, and case studies of developing teaching modules, curriculum guidelines, and teacher adoption strategies. Our work should benefit educators interested in integrating CT in their curricula, computing researchers interested in collaborating with other domain experts, and current students who aspire to become educators

Using Bloom\u27s and Webb\u27s Taxonomies to Integrate Emerging Cybersecurity Topics into a Computic Curriculum

Recent high profile hackings have cost companies millions of dollars resulting in an increasing priority to protect government and business data. Universities are under increased pressure to produce graduates with better security knowledge and skills, particularly emerging cybersecurity skills. Although accredited undergraduate computing programs recognize the need to solve this problem, these computing programs are constrained by accreditation standards and have limited ability to modify their curricula. This paper discusses a case study on how one Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology (ABET) accredited undergraduate IT program created a strategy to continue to teach existing security-related topics as well as emerging cybersecurity topics within its IT curriculum without increasing credit requirements. The faculty developed an IT Security-related and Cybersecurity Curriculum Taxonomy to identify strategies to move security-related topics taught in the higher level courses to lower and intermediate courses. Thus emerging cybersecurity topics could be added to high-level courses. The faculty also created the IT Student Learning (Security-related) Taxonomy by combining Bloom’s Taxonomy’s six levels of thinking with Webb’s Depth of Knowledge Model. This student learning taxonomy enabled the faculty to review the student learning outcomes for each of the existing security-related core topics and develop new ones for the emerging cybersecurity topics. Challenges, benefits, and application of this strategy to other disciplines are discussed

Information practices for sustainability: role of iSchools in achieving the UN sustainable development goals(SDGs)

In September 2015, the United Nations (UN) GeneralAssembly passed a resolution identifying 17 Sustain-able Development Goals (SDGs) and 169 associated tar-gets, and countries around the world agreed to achievethese by 2030. By conducting a thematic analysis offour key UN policy documents related to sustainabledevelopment, this paper argues that alongside financialand other resources, access to, and use of, appropriateinformation are essential for achieving SDGs. The paperalso reviews research on information and sustainabilityundertaken at the iSchools and the computer andhuman–computer interaction HCI communities. Giventhat the mission of iSchools is to connect people andsociety with the required information through the use ofappropriate technologies and tools, this paper arguesthat iSchools can play a key role in helping people, insti-tutions, and businesses, and thus countries around theworld achieve SDGs. The paper identifies 4 broad areasof teaching and research that can help iSchools aroundthe world prepare a trained workforce who can manage,and facilitate access to, information in specific domainsand contexts. It is also argued that cooperation and col-laborations among iSchools can promote a culture ofsustainable information practices among universitygraduates and researchers in different disciplines thatwill pave the way for achieving SDGs in every sector