A View of the State of Information Systems and e-Commerce Undergraduate Education in Canada

1. A View of the State of Information Systems and e-Commerce Undergraduate Education in Canada Mihail Cocosila Alain RossHouda Trabelsi Athabasca University, Faculty of Business AU Collaborative Research Forum April 30, 2010

2. Agenda • Introduction • Research motivation • Research objectives • Theoretical grounds • Methodology • Key findings • Discussion • Limitations • Future research

3. Introduction • In recent years Information Systems (IS) and e-Commerce education have been subject to a worldwide crisis in enrolment. • A suggested response to the downturnhas been to redesign programs, as IS and e-Commerce are comparatively young fields. • Assessing the education in IS and e-Commerce should be done on a regular basis since they are dynamic and relatively immature.

4. Research Motivation • State of IS and e-Commerce education in various parts of the world has become an important topic of study. • A 2007 special issue of the Communications of the Association for Information Systems (CAIS) journal looked at the state of IS education in eight different countries.

5. … Research Motivation • Having a clear image on academic education offerings may significantly impact various stakeholders: • prospective or current students; • alumni; • job placement agencies; and, • public and private sponsoring agencies. • A university’s educational offerings also affect: • capacity to attract new faculty; • collaboration and research work of existing faculty with other scholars; and, • overall image of the institution.

6. Research Objectives • Scope: Get a baseline understanding of the IS and e-Commerce undergraduate programs and courses offered in universities across Canada. • First part of a larger project. • Research questions: • RQ1: Which universities in Canada are offering undergraduate education in Information Systems and e-Commerce? • RQ2: What are the elements of convergence and divergence in the Information Systems and e-Commerce undergraduate education curricula in universities across Canada?

7. Theoretical Grounds • A panel at the Americas Conference on Information Systems (AMCIS) 2007 identified two main themes for increasing enrolments: • marketing (i.e., increase the attractiveness and awareness); • curriculum (i.e., align programs and courses with industry’s needs). • Defining curriculum for IS and e-Commerce education is a challenging task because of the: • continuous evolution of information and communication technology; • changes in the life of organizations; and, • immaturity of the IS and e-Commerce fields (lack of consensus about their boundaries, even).

8. … Theoretical Grounds • Additional challenges: • a variety of driving forces or obstacles in various parts of the world; • different environmental and situational factors; and, • diversity caused by wide geographical spread even within the same country. • Although the issues that real-life organizations are facing could be similar, academia’s attempts to answer them may not lead to analogous programs and courses.

9. Methodology • Develop a data collection template for documenting relevant courses and programs. • Study web sites of all universities (either public or private not-for-profit) registered with the Association of Universities and Colleges of Canada(AUCC). • Identify business, administration, management or information science schools that are the most likely to offer IS or e-Commerce undergraduate education. • Identify undergraduate degrees, certificates or courses offered on IS or e-Commerce topics.

10. ... Methodology • Use IS 2002 Curriculum Presentation Areas and Courses as starting point.

11. Key Findings 46 of the 69 universities registered with the AUCC offered programs, certificates or courses in IS or e-Commerce (Spring 2009).

12. …Key Findings • IS and e-Commerce undergraduate programs offered by universities in Canada

13. …Key Findings

14. …Key Findings

15. …Key Findings • Assessment of IS and e-Commerce courses fitting to the six major IS 2002 Curriculum Presentation Areas and Courses: • Prerequisite (9.7%); • Information Systems Fundamentals (17.0%); • Information Systems Theory and Practice (11.5%); • Information Technology (16.1%); • Information Systems Development (11.4%); • Information Systems Deployment and Management Processes (11.5%); and, • Other (23%).

16. Discussion Answers to the research questions • RQ1 (universities in Canada offering undergraduate education in Information Systems and e-Commerce) • 46 academic institutions from all provinces represented at AUCC; • 26 universities offer undergraduate degrees and certificates; • 20 universities offer elements of IS and e-Commerce education at the course level, within other undergraduate degrees of business, administration or management schools in general; • did not identify independent schools of Information Systems/Sciences, fully separate from schools of management or business administration.

17. …Discussion Answers to the research questions • RQ2(elements of convergence and of divergence in the Information Systems and e-Commerce undergraduate education curricula across Canada) • Convergence -77% of the assessed IS and e-Commerce courses fell into one of the six major IS 2002 Curriculum Presentation Areas and Courses; • Divergence - most frequent ‘other’ courses: • Strategy of e-Commerce; • Accounting informatics; • Legal issues in IS/e-Commerce; • Enterprise systems; and, • Selected topics.

18. …Discussion • Implications of this study: • provides awareness of IS and e-Commerce undergraduate programs and courses in Canada; • allows objective comparisons between schools and programs, without attempting to classify or to assess their quality; • shows need for incorporating more e-Commerce topics into IS curricula due to evolution and diversification of e-Commerce; • shows necessity of updating and extending the IS 2002 framework to answer the rapid changes in this type of education knowledge.

19. Limitations • Targets only business, administration, management or information systems/sciences schools. • Some information may have been missed even within the schools or departments examined. • Despite authors’ effort for objectivity, evaluation of courses as fitting to one category or another remains ultimately a subjective assessment process. • Course categorizations are based on course catalogue descriptions and not course outlines.

20. Future Research • Extend the analysis to other, more technical, schools as possible outlets of IS and e-Commerce education. • Improve and align the course curriculum categories with newer developments. • Conduct a Canada-wide survey on the IS and e-Commerce undergraduate education offerings.

21. Message to Remember Due to the rapid changes in the communication and information technology, in the perceptions on its use as well as in the general business context, we recommend repeating such studies periodically.

22. Paper accepted at ASAC 2010 Thank you! Questions? Mihail Cocosila Athabasca University, Faculty of Business mihailc@athabascau.ca