An Analysis of Career Tracks in the Design of IS Curricula in the U.S.

1. An Analysis of Career Tracks in the Design of IS Curricula in the U.S. Drew Hwangdhwang@csupomona.eduLouise Soellsoe@csupomona.eduComputer Information Systems, Cal Poly Pomona

2. Topics • Background of study • Literature Review • Research methods • Findings • Career Track Categories • Career Track Frequencies • Conclusions / Recommendations • Naming strategies & numbers • Career Track Structures

3. Background • Study began in 2006 when our department was reviewing and changing its curriculum • What do other programs offer? • How do we compare? • What should we change? • Drew reviewed career tracks in 4-year schools with MIS/IS/CIS majors or programs • “Career Track Design in IS Curriculum: A Case Study,” Information Systems Education Journal, November 2007, 5(29), 1-18 • Presented at ISECON 2007 • Drew updated data for this paper in Feb-May 2009

4. Two approaches to curriculum studies (Jones, 1997) 1. Normative – develop normative standards to ensure “body of knowledge” and skill sets are part of the curriculum • Model curricula • IS 2002 • IT 2004 • Working group on new model curriculum: Topi, Valacich, Kaiser, Nunamaker, Sipior, de Vreede, and Wright. “”Revising the IS Model Curriculum: Rethinking the Approach and the Process.” Communications of the Association for Information Systems, Vol. 20, pp 728-740.

5. Two approaches to curriculum studies (Jones, 1997) 2. Descriptive – describes what exists – our study fits here • What exists • Longenecker & Feinstein (1989) • Gill and Hu (1999) looked at changes • AACSB school curricula • Chen, Danesh, Willhardt, 1991 • Heinrichs and Banerjee (2002) • Kung, Yang and Zhang (2006) • Comparisons to model curricula • MacKinnon, 2003 • Williams and Pomykalski (2006)

6. Curriculum design spectrum • Curriculum with diversity • Broad spectrum of knowledge and skills – • Curriculum with specificity • Concentrations in one or more subfields • Career track model falls within this part of the spectrum • Other names for career tracks: options, emphases, concentrations, specializations, specialties, paths, certificates, clusters, support areas

7. Is specificity relevant? • “Generic IS curriculum is outdated” (Lee, Trauth and Farwell (1995, p. 333) • “Single career track” IS professional is “outdated” (Lightfoot, 1999) • Specialization occurs in graduate programs (Ehie, 2002) • No relationship between IS course specialization and initial full-time job placement and starting salary (Ross, et. al 2004)

8. Methodology • Between February and May, 2009, Drew reviewed curricula of 450 U.S. business schools with baccalaureate IS programs • http://www.univsource.com/bus.htm • He looked at every school’s website to identify those with career tracks or specializations • Built a database • Analyzed his findings

9. Findings • 110 /450 (24.5%) had career tracks or specializations • No standardized way to name career tracks • No standard way to define what courses belong in a career track • No standard way to define how many courses make up a track • During our analysis, we clustered them into categories based on names and what courses they included

10. Track Names usually contain keywords • IS Fields: Information Systems, Information Technology, Computer Information Systems, Management Information Systems • IS subfields: Networking, Decision Support Systems • Referent disciplines: Accounting Information Systems • Job names: Business analyst

11. How many courses in a career track? • Track curriculum varied in size: • defined from beginning to end • Could be 2 to 5 courses beyond a common core • Could be very similar to other tracks within the same program (sometimes one class differentiated two tracks) • Could involve other programs (e.g., accounting) • Could be defined by student and an advisor

12. How did we classify them? • First, based on Track name • Then looked at courses listed for career tracks (since different schools defined this differently) if we were unsure • Then classified them into groups – tried to hit right granularity

13. Career track Categories (304 tracks)

14. How many tracks per school?

15. Conclusions: Numbers / Naming • Most schools (80.9%) with tracks have 1 to 3 • Probably due to resources and complexity • Track naming is idiosyncratic – we assume it is a faculty decision, probably influenced by: • Subfields in which they specialize – • In older subfields, track names vary less • In newer subfields, more variation for similar tracks • Names attractive to prospective employers • Representation of faculty areas of expertise • Schools seem to update tracks in line with new technologies and opportunities for jobs.

16. Conclusions: Track structure • No consistent track structure among these programs • Tracks with same name at 2 schools may vary widely • Highly structured (no choices) to highly flexible (determined by student and advisor) • May be interdisciplinary in nature or not • 2 tracks in same program may have courses that are mutually exclusive or may vary by only one course • IS programs within business schools they may be partnered with referent disciplines, which influences curriculum offerings.

17. Conclusions: in 11 Track Categories • 7 categories represent standards in IS field – well established • Applications Development, IS Disciplines, Systems / Business Analysis, Networking / Telecommunications, Information Management, Decision Support, End-user computing – note the last two are dwindling. • 2 categories represent more recent IT areas • Web Development / E-Commerce • Information Assurance • Business Functional Applications category • stresses individual business functional areas • Specialized Information Systems / Studies • a catchall category

18. Recommendations • Programs reviewing their career tracks should continue to scan the environment and the career opportunities available to students • The newest model curriculum task force is working in the area of a career track model curriculum – their findings and recommendations may influence future career tracks.

19. Future Research possibilities • Longitudinal review in 2 years to see what is changing, especially in this period of uncertainty • Compare characteristics of schools with career tracks with those that do not • Compare existing tracks with model curricula, especially when new model with career specializations is in place Hwang & Soe, ISECON, 2009

20. Questions? • Comments? • Ideas? Hwang & Soe, ISECON, 2009