IT Across the Curriculum: Creating an IT Minor at UMass Amherst

1
"IT Across the Curriculum Creating an IT Minor
at UMass/ Amherst"

• Jim Kurose
• Department of Computer Science
• Univ. Massachusetts/Amherst
• www.cs.umass.edu/kurose

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Overview

• introduction
• fluency in information technology
• creating an IT minor at UMass/Amherst

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Premise
Information Technology is affecting every
Discipline in the Liberal Arts, the Humanities,
and the Sciences
B. Israel, Dept. Journalism, UMass/Amherst
In journalism alone, digital environments are
changing the form and composition of news, ideas
about what news is, and what role it plays in a
society increasingly both fragmented -- and tied
together -- by technology. Our students must
command what these changes mean, as well as
knowing how to use them, in order to help us
make sound social decisions.
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IT Across the curriculum

• Goal new IT curriculum broadly available,
  applicable to undergrads
• IT in many disciplines of study
• distinct from technical disciplines CS,ECE, MIS
• more than literacy
• two focii
• fluency in IT
• application within discipline
• workforce issues for industry, job opportunities
  for students

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Background

• nationwide
• IT workforce shortage
• career opportunities for the IT fluent
• NRC report Being Fluent with Information
  Technology http//stills.nap.edu/html/beingfluent
  /
• Massachusetts
• IT workforce shortage, career opportunities
• 1999 UMass/Amherst workshop "Formulating a UMass
  Response to the IT Labor Shortage
• http//www.umass.edu/itprogram/ITworkforce.pdf
• BHE interest in IT

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Education for a lifetime

• useful life of college education 50 years
• Q what to learn about IT for this span,
  considering that
• Electronic computer are 55 years old
• ARPAnet (Internet) is 32 years old
• Term PC (as in personal computer) is roughly 20
  years old
• WWW is less than 10 years old

What should the class of 52 been taught?
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A three-part answer

• IT fluency requires acquisition of three kinds
  of knowledge

contemporary skills
fundamental concepts
intellectual capabilities

• concepts, skill, and capabilities are different
  dimension of IT Fluency
• co-equal, interdependent

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Skills

• knowing contemporary applications
• approximates computer literacy
• essential for
• job preparedness
• education, as a student productivity tool
• learning other parts of IT fluency
• moving target relies on state of the art
• examples
• using word processor, speadsheet, Internet search

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Concepts

• foundation of information technology
• concepts explain
• how, why IT works as it does
• constraints, limitations on applications
• principles, for building new understanding
• examples
• principles of computer systems, networks
• algorithmic thinking
• digital representation of information

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Capabilities

• higher-level thinking problem solving skills
• abstraction, modeling
• logical reasoning
• analysis
• application of IT concepts and skills within a
  discipline of study
• often (usually?) a non-technical discipline

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An IT minor at UMass/Amherst

• Sept 1999 UMass/Amherst workshop "Formulating a
  UMass Response to the Information Technology
  Labor Shortage
• industry, academia
• www.umass.edu/itprogram/ITworkforce.pdf
• Oct 2000 UMass/Amherst workshop Designing an
  IT program What is at the academic core of an
  IT minor or major?
• 120 faculty
• every college, every dean
• led by faculty from social sciences

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An IT minor at UMass/Amherst

• 6 to 8 course sequence
• foundations in the technology of IT
• application of IT within ones discipline

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Technical Foundations of IT

• computing foundations to frontiers (gateway
  course)
• introduction to problem solving with computers
• representing, storing, and retrieving information
• computer networks

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Applications within a discipline

• Economic Issues of Contemporary IT (Resource
  Econ.)
• Information Theory (Art)
• Contemporary Legal and Ethical Issues in
  Cyberspace (HRTA)
• Information Technology and Written Communications
  (English)
• Writing and Emerging Technoligies (English)
• History of Electronic mdeia and IT
  (Communication)
• IT in a Social and Historical Perspective
  (journalism)
• Social Impact of IT (Communication)
• GIS for Fisheries and Wildlife Management
  (Resource Conserv.)
• Intro to Business Info Systems (SoM)
• Info Systems in Public Health (Public Health)
• IT in Biology Education (Biology)
• IT Applications in Public Policy Analysis and
  Administration (Pub. Policy)

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Looking Forward

• proposal for broadly-based cross-campus minor
  program to faculty senate
• leadership from social sciences, humanities
• expanding faculty participation
• industrial input advisory board
• long-term funding/commitment

www.umass.edu/itprogram
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Conclusion

• Were in this for the students!
• enriched career opportunities
• foundation for competing in the 21st century
• Broadly based in academic core of university
• IT application and technical foundations
• led by humanities, social sciences
• collaboration with CS, ECE
• provost-level buy in

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The end

• Thanks!
• Slides available at
• http//gaia.cs.umass.edu/kurose/dartmouth_it.ppt

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Questions

• What about an IT major?
• What about an IT graduate program
• Whats happening at other schools?
• Indiana
• Penn State
• RPI
• U. Washington

• Isnt it good enough to know how to use IT?