Career Track Design in IS Curriculum: A Case Study

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Career Track Design in IS Curriculum A Case Study

• Louise L. Soe
• Drew Hwang
• CIS Department, Cal Poly Pomona

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Curriculum Redesign Case Study

• Who we are
• Background
• Research into Curriculum Change
• Model Curricula
• IS Career Track Database
• Our Curriculum Analysis
• Decision making

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Who we are

• Southern California Polytechnic University
• learn by doing is school motto
• CIS major classes are taught hands-on, projects
• CIS self identity tied up with curriculum
  innovation
• Our faculty had beeen early leaders in
  differentiation of business information systems
  from CS (70s 80s)
• Career tracks began in 1980, and were important
  to our curriculum to our self-identity

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Recent Developments

• Founders of department had retired
• Drop in number of majors (from 1300 in 1998 to
  550 in 2006)
• NOTE We initiated reduction by increasing
  standards in 1999 to bring enrollments down.
• System-wide reduction in number of quarter units
  to graduation from 195 to 180
• Pressures of AACSB re-accreditation on college

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Recent Developments

• CIS had developed a strong security program,
  building on existing MSMBA IS Auditing program
• With NSF grant support
• Collaboration with Carnegie Mellon Information
  Assurance Capacity Building Program
• The National Security Agency the Department of
  Homeland Security recognized the Cal Poly CIS
  program as a Center of Academic Excellence.
• only 3 schools in California have this
  distinction.
• The other 2 are UC Davis the Naval Postgraduate
  School in Monterey.

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The process

• Fall 2006 Faculty decided we needed a to review
  curriculum
• Gathered information on model curricula
• IS 2002, CC 2005, IT 2005
• Reviewed curricula of 490 IS, MIS, CIS
  baccalaureate programs in U.S. business schools
  to see where we stand
• Built database to hold information

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Findings Career Tracks throughout U.S.

• 96 programs had total of 269 career tracks
• Numbers of tracks ranged from 2-13
• No consistency in track names
• Almost all career tracks are named after
  disciplines sub-disciplines very few named
  after jobs.
• It appears that faculty dont look at a model,
  but craft track names that mean something to
  their consistencies help their students get jobs

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More findings

• No consistency on the definition of what
  constitutes a career track
• Numbers of courses varied
• further complicated by fact many program
  definitions of a track only included the final
  2-3 courses
• others listed the students entire degree
  requirements from beginning to end.
• No consistency in choice of specific courses that
  belonged in career tracks with same/similar names
• Track structures ranged from highly structured to
  completely unstructured (i.e., individually
  designed by student advisor).
• Track courses ranged from entirely within the
  major department to entirely outside the major
  department

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70
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Track Categories in 96 schools

• Applications Development (49)
• IS Disciplines (IS, MIS, CIS, CS, IT) (41)
• Web technologies/ E-commerce (38)
• Networking/ Telecommunications (33)
• Information Assurance (25)

• Business/Systems Analysis (19)
• Business Functional Applications (19)
• Information Management (15)
• Specialized IS/Studies (14)
• End User Support/ Training (8)
• Decision Support Systems (8)

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Our Curriculum in Fall 2006

• Students earn a B.S. degree in Business with
  concentration in Computer Information Systems
• Business core 12 4-unit courses
• 8 CIS core courses-- have to get C or better in 2
  tries
• 2 Java programming courses
• Intro to object-oriented systems analysis
  design
• Telecommunications
• Database design Development
• Web development
• IS careers gateway to tracks
• Senior project capstone course after 3 track
  courses completed
• 4 career tracks take 4 courses 4th can be 2
  unit internship or special studies or a 4-unit
  track course
• Application Systems Development
• Internet Programming Security
• Business Systems Analysis
• Telecommunications

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At End of Fall Quarter

• One-day faculty retreat to review curriculum
• Compared core courses to model curricula
• IS 2002 compared favorably in terms of body of
  knowledge
• IT 2005 not comparable consensus that we did
  not have faculty resources to adopt this model,
  however attractive it is
• Compared our track courses to career tracks of
  other schools in database
• We were OK, but no longer out in front

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By the end of the retreat

• Decided to leave core alone
• Had been complete reorganized in 1995 to adopt
  object orientation
• Had been tweaked ever since to strengthen body of
  knowledge students had at graduation
• Almost all students had IT internship
• Decided to examine the career tracks and align
  them with developments in the field
• Programming classes had moved to web interface
• Strong growth in security area

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Results

• Scrapping career tracks was discussed but proved
  too foreign to departments culture
• Committee developed 3 career track proposals
• Cafeteria model students design own tracks with
  advising
• Cluster model students pick clusters of 2-3
  courses build own track, with advising
• Reform current track realignment (incremental)
• Information Assurance (Security, Computer
  Forensics, Secure Web Computing, IS Auditing)
• Application development merges with
  web/e-commerce courses multimedia course (which
  provides usability accessibility components)
• Business Systems Analysis (includes RAD)
• Telecommunications Networking

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Decisions in Spring 2007

• One faculty member presented each option the
  arguments for and against it.
• Lots of discussion and switching decisions
• Everyone enjoyed the meeting
• the level of give take was high
• In the end, the faculty reached consensus on
  keeping the tracks realigning them
• Changes in track structure are being implemented
  in January 2008

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Conclusions

• We are in minority (25) of programs with career
  tracks
• Our tightly structured program is demanding on
  faculty resources
• The process of re-examining our curriculum was an
  important activity for us
• We needed to adapt to the changes in the field.

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Recommendations

• Periodic review of curriculum is healthy
• The current effort of ACM to create a model
  career track curriculum is sorely needed
• definition of what a career track is
• Some consistency in track names
• Consistency in courses required for track
• Still using job names rather than subdiscipline
  names that we found almost everywhere
• List on next slide

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Current AIS/ACM Wiki List of Trackshttp//blogsan
dwikis.bentley.edu/iscurriculum/index.php/Career_t
racks

• Application Developer
• Business Intelligence Manager
• Business Process Analyst
• Database Administrator
• Database Analyst
• eBusiness Manager
• ERP Specialist
• Information Auditing and Compliance Specialist
• IT Architect

• IT Asset Manager
• IT Consultant
• IT Operations Management Specialist
• IT Security and Risk Manager
• Network Design and Administration Specialist
• Project Manager
• User Interface Designer
• Web Content Manager