Education at the seams: preparing students to stitch systems together; curriculum and issues for 4-year IT programs

ABSTRACT

As we have implemented our Information Technology program, several issues have arisen as to sequencing of core concepts. There is general consensus that 5 key areas of IT in 2002 are: Programming, Networking, Web Systems, Databases, and Human Computer Interfacing. Initially we thought of IT as a "breadth" rather than "depth" coverage of topics from Computer Engineering and Computer Science with some ideas from other disciplines. However, we have come to understand that IT students require depth, but not depth on how to implement technology components. IT students require deep knowledge of the interfaces between technologies. This has significant implications for IT curriculum. Students require a working knowledge of the technologies that are to be integrated, plus deep understanding of the interactions between the technologies involved. This deep understanding of the intricacies of integration should be a major focus of IT as a discipline. Initially, IT students need a broad introduction to computer and communication technologies followed by in-depth treatment of their interactions. This paper reflects our current thinking on how one presents the core concepts in such a way as to prepare students to stitch systems together with manageable and deployable seams.

REFERENCES

• 1: Society of Information Technology Educators (SITE), IT Curriculum Guidelines, Unpublished Draft, August 2002.
• 2: Lunt, Barry, Designing an IT Curriculum: The Results of the First CITC Conference, ASEE 2002 Session 1626
• 3: Ekstrom, Joseph, Renshaw, Stephen, Curriculum and Issues in a First Course of Computer Networking for Four-year Information Technology Programs, ASEE 2002 Session 2793
• 4: Ekstrom, Joseph, Renshaw, Stephen, A Project-Based Introductory Curriculum in Networking, WEB and Database Systems for 4-year Information Technology Programs, CITC 3 Rochester NY, September, 2002
• 5: Ekstrom, Joseph, Renshaw, Stephen, Database Curriculum Issues for Four-year IT Programs, CIEC 2003, Tucson, AZ, January, 2003.
• 6: Society for Information Technology Education; IT Accreditation Guidelines, Unpublished Draft; September 2002.
• 7: The authors are aware of SITE member participation in national conferences of ASEE (American Society for Engineering Education), DSI (Decision Sciences Institute), CIEC (Conference on Industry and Education Collaboration), and SIGCSE (Special Interest Group of Computer Science Education). SITE members have also participated in related regional conferences.
• 8: Lunt, Barry, Designing an IT Curriculum: The Results of the First CITC Conference, ASEE 2002 Session 1626
• 9: Frederick Springsteel , Mary Ann Robbert , Catherine M. Ricardo, The next decade of the database course: three decades speak to the next, Proceedings of the thirty-first SIGCSE technical symposium on Computer science education, p.41-45, March 07-12, 2000, Austin, Texas, United States
• 10: Computing Curricula 2001, Computer Science Volume, December 15, 2001 Copyright 2001 ACM/IEEE.

INDEX TERMS

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

General Terms:
Experimentation

Keywords:
accreditation, curriculum, information technology, pedagogy