The quest for an administrative nexus for information technology programs

ABSTRACT

Information Technology and Information Systems have evolved as inherently interdisciplinary fields. While an essentially haphazard proliferation of programs has helped to create a field of study that can necessarily and appropriately cross boundaries between mathematics, science, engineering, and business disciplines, the historical ambiguity with respect to program naming and classification has been, for many individuals and institutions, a source of confusion.

As a discipline, if indeed there can be a single discipline to consider, individuals, educational institutions, and practitioners are constantly addressing the issue of where programs belong, both pedagogically and administratively. The existence of numerous, competing classification schemes, none of which appears to either offer a compelling advantage or commands a consensus concerning appropriateness, is the core issue the authors address in this paper.

An analysis of data that are freely available (web sites for relevant academic institutions and programs) reveals literally hundreds of titles and dozens of administrative configurations for programs that fall under the broader and typical headings of CS, IS, IT, MIS, etc.. A similar inquiry into the practitioner side of the problem reveals numerous competing schemes that include, CIP & SOC, not to mention a myriad of taxonomies from various industry and professional groups (ACM, IEEE, etc.).

The one thing that can be asserted with essentially absolute confidence is that this amalgam is confusing at best, and the status quo is not in the long-term interests of the discipline. The authors make no grandiose claims to having developed a unified paradigm to magically make sense of the wide range of program offerings in the numerous Information Technology and Information Systems related disciplines. Rather, this paper recognizes and begins to address the need to lay a foundation for appropriately categorizing and classifying this diverse collection of programs and configuration.

REFERENCES

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INDEX TERMS

Primary Classification:
  K. Computing Milieux
  K.3 COMPUTERS AND EDUCATION
      K.3.2 Computer and Information Science Education

General Terms:
Documentation, Management, Standardization

Keywords:
classification, curriculum, information systems, information technology