Career Track Design in IS
Curriculum: A Case Study
Louise L. Soe
Drew Hwang
CIS Department, Cal Poly Pomona
ISECON 2007
Curriculum Redesign Case Study
• Who we are
• Background
• Research into Curriculum Change
– Model Curricula
– IS Career Track Database
• Our Curriculum Analysis
• Decision making
ISECON 2007
Who we are
• Southern California Polytechnic University
– “learn by doing” is school motto
– CIS major classes are taught hands-on, projects
• CIS self identity tied up with curriculum
innovation
• Our faculty had beeen early leaders in
differentiation of business information systems
from CS (70s & 80s)
• Career tracks began in 1980, and were
important to our curriculum & to our self-identity
ISECON 2007
Recent Developments
• Founders of department had retired
• Drop in number of majors (from 1300+ in
1998 to 550 in 2006)
– NOTE: We initiated reduction by increasing
standards in 1999 to bring enrollments down.
• System-wide reduction in number of
quarter units to graduation from 195 to 180
• Pressures of AACSB re-accreditation on
college
ISECON 2007
Recent Developments
• CIS had developed a strong security program,
building on existing MSMBA IS Auditing program
– With NSF grant support
– Collaboration with Carnegie Mellon Information
Assurance Capacity Building Program
• The National Security Agency & the Department
of Homeland Security recognized the Cal Poly
CIS program as a
“Center of Academic Excellence”.
– only 3 schools in California have this distinction.
– The other 2 are UC Davis & the Naval Postgraduate
School in Monterey.
ISECON 2007
The process
• Fall 2006 – Faculty decided we needed a
to review curriculum
• Gathered information on model curricula
– IS 2002, CC 2005, IT 2005
• Reviewed curricula of 490 IS, MIS, CIS
baccalaureate programs in U.S. business
schools to see where we stand
– Built database to hold information
ISECON 2007
Findings: Career Tracks throughout U.S.
•
•
•
•
96 programs had total of 269 career tracks
Numbers of tracks ranged from 2-13
No consistency in track names
Almost all career tracks are named after
disciplines & sub-disciplines; very few named
after jobs.
• It appears that faculty don’t look at a model, but
craft track names that mean something to their
consistencies & help their students get jobs
ISECON 2007
More findings
• No consistency on the definition of what
constitutes a career track:
– Numbers of courses varied –
• further complicated by fact many program definitions of a
track only included the final 2-3 courses
• others listed the student’s entire degree requirements from
beginning to end.
– No consistency in choice of specific courses that
belonged in career tracks with same/similar names
– Track structures ranged from highly structured to
completely unstructured (i.e., individually designed by
student & advisor).
– Track courses ranged from entirely within the major
department to entirely outside the major department
ISECON 2007
Number of tracks
in program
Frequency of Programs Percent of total
with tracks: N=96
Programs
1
15
16%
2
36
38%
3
25
26%
4
9
9%
5
5
5%
6
2
2%
7
2
2%
8
1
1%
9
0
0%
10
0
0%
11
0
0%
12
1
1%
Totals
96
100%
ISECON 2007
70%
Track Categories in 96 schools
• Applications
Development (49)
• IS Disciplines (IS, MIS,
CIS, CS, IT) (41)
• Web technologies/
E-commerce (38)
• Networking/
Telecommunications
(33)
• Information Assurance
(25)
• Business/Systems
Analysis (19)
• Business Functional
Applications (19)
• Information Management
(15)
• Specialized IS/Studies
(14)
• End User Support/
Training (8)
• Decision Support
Systems (8)
ISECON 2007
Our Curriculum in Fall 2006
• Students earn a B.S. degree in Business with concentration in
Computer Information Systems
• Business core: 12 4-unit courses
• 8 CIS core courses-- have to get C or better in 2 tries:
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
2 Java programming courses
Intro to object-oriented systems analysis & design
Telecommunications
Database design & Development
Web development
IS careers – gateway to tracks
Senior project – capstone course after 3 track courses completed
• 4 career tracks – take 4 courses; 4th can be 2 unit internship or
special studies or a 4-unit track course
–
–
–
–
Application & Systems Development
Internet Programming & Security
Business Systems Analysis
Telecommunications
ISECON 2007
At End of Fall Quarter
• One-day faculty retreat to review
curriculum
– Compared core courses to model curricula
• IS 2002 – compared favorably in terms of body of
knowledge
• IT 2005 – not comparable – consensus that we did
not have faculty resources to adopt this model,
however attractive it is
– Compared our track courses to career tracks
of other schools in database
• We were OK, but no longer out in front
ISECON 2007
By the end of the retreat …
• Decided to leave core alone
– Had been complete reorganized in 1995 to adopt
object orientation
– Had been tweaked ever since to strengthen body of
knowledge students had at graduation
– Almost all students had IT internship
• Decided to examine the career tracks and align
them with developments in the field
– Programming classes had moved to web interface
– Strong growth in security area
ISECON 2007
Results
Scrapping career tracks was discussed but proved too
foreign to department’s culture
Committee developed 3 career track proposals:
1. Cafeteria model: students design own tracks with
advising
2. Cluster model: students pick clusters of 2-3 courses &
build own track, with advising
3. Reform current track realignment (incremental):
–
–
–
–
Information Assurance (Security, Computer Forensics,
Secure Web Computing, IS Auditing)
Application development merges with web/e-commerce
courses & multimedia course (which provides usability &
accessibility components)
Business Systems Analysis (includes RAD)
Telecommunications & Networking
ISECON 2007
Decisions in Spring 2007
• One faculty member presented each option &
the arguments for and against it.
• Lots of discussion and switching decisions
– Everyone enjoyed the meeting
– the level of give & take was high
• In the end, the faculty reached consensus on
keeping the tracks & realigning them
• Changes in track structure are being
implemented in January 2008
ISECON 2007
Conclusions
• We are in minority (25%) of programs with
career tracks
• Our tightly structured program is
demanding on faculty resources
• The process of re-examining our
curriculum was an important activity for us
• We needed to adapt to the changes in the
field.
ISECON 2007
Recommendations
• Periodic review of curriculum is healthy
• The current effort of ACM & to create a model
career track curriculum is sorely needed:
– definition of what a career track is
– Some consistency in track names
– Consistency in courses required for track
– Still using job names rather than subdiscipline
names that we found almost everywhere
• List on next slide
ISECON 2007
Current AIS/ACM Wiki List of Tracks
http://blogsandwikis.bentley.edu/iscurriculum/index.php/Career_tracks
• Application Developer
• Business Intelligence
Manager
• Business Process Analyst
• Database Administrator
• Database Analyst
• eBusiness Manager
• ERP Specialist
• Information Auditing and
Compliance Specialist
• IT Architect
• IT Asset Manager
• IT Consultant
• IT Operations
Management Specialist
• IT Security and Risk
Manager
• Network Design and
Administration Specialist
• Project Manager
• User Interface Designer
• Web Content Manager
ISECON 2007