ACS Accreditation - Issues, page 1
ACS Accreditation - Issues
Scope
We are currently attempting to have the undergraduate, graduate / postgraduate course
work and research programs offered by ISE in computing-related areas accredited by
the Australian Computer Society. In some cases (e.g. BIT, BSE, BBI) this is a
reaccreditation because of the course restructuring, for others it is a new accreditation
because they are new courses, previous accreditations have lapsed (or are no longer
possible) or they have not previously been accredited. In this document we outline
some issues with the currently approved (by Academic Board) courses that may create
problems with the ACS accreditation.
ACS Accreditation Requirements
There are some basic requirements that must be met for full professional
accreditation. Those that are raising some issues are:
1. There must be a minimum of one year’s full-time equivalent ICT content (i.e.
24 credit points), of which at least one third is at third year level (8 credit
points).
2. There must be a progression from introductory units through intermediate
level units that consolidate and develop skills to advanced units that synthesise
the material from the earlier parts of the course and explore advanced topics.
This progression should be enforced through the prerequisite structure. One
implication of this is that the minimum length of a graduate / postgraduate
course is three semesters.
3. A number of areas from the ACS core body of knowledge must be covered.
These are:
a. ethics, social implications, professional practice;
b. communication skills (written, verbal and interpersonal); and
c. project and quality management.
These must appear as explicit content in coursework units, although additional
coverage through process (e.g. in projects) is acceptable, but not coverage
through process alone.
4. The course objectives must include “the education of professionals in ICT”.
Issues with Current Courses and Units
All Courses
It is arguable that none of the course introductions, with the possible exception of the
Master of Technology, satisfy requirement 4 above.
Software Engineering Practice
The UG and G syllabuses are inconsistent, although it is assumed that these units will
be taught together. The G level unit includes ethics, social impacts and professional
practice. The UG level unit does not. It is important that these topics are taught in the
G level unit, because they are the only place in which they appear (or can be
guaranteed to appear) in the MTech program.
ACS Accreditation - Issues, page 2
Information Systems Major
The 24 credit point version of the IS major would be eligible for professional level
accreditation, except that one of the electives is Document and Workflow
Management, a level 2 unit, which means that it is possible that a student may only
have 2 units (6 credit points) at level 3, which is in breach of rule 1 above. A
suggestion is to make D&WFM a level 3 unit but those units usually map to PG units
rather than G units (which is why D&WFM is currently a level 2 and a G level unit).
Master of Business Informatics
The seven required units all qualify as ICT units, although two (Organisational
Behaviour G and Sociology of Technology and Work G) are taught by schools other
than ISE. However, it is possible for all five electives to be non-computing units,
which is in breach of Rule 1. There are a number of approaches to address this:
 it could be argued that two of the electives, Human Resource Management G
and Statistical Decision Making G fall within the definition of IS units, since
this definition includes Individual and Organisational Behaviour and Decision
Support Systems, which means that, for the moment, there are only three nonIS electives (but this could change);
 the list of electives could be restructured in a way that requires students to take
at least one IS elective; or
 a further IS or IS-related unit could be included in the list of required units.
It may be that we decide to open up the MBI so that it is more flexible, in which case
it may be better to go for associate level accreditation of the MBI. However, points to
consider here are:
 if the MBI is the graduate equivalent of the BBI it should have the same level
of accreditation;
 the MBI is so close to being accreditable;
 getting the ACS to recognise the BBI was an important breakthrough, and we
need to hold our ground.
An option that would be good for the MBI is: to put Organisational Performance G in
and make it a required unit. It can be claimed under the Individual and Organisational
Behaviour category (hence giving 8 units as required for ACS accreditation).
With respect to the "need for flexibility" in the MBI. Isn't that really the role of the
Business Informatics specialisation in the MIT, while the MBI gives the "basic
training", which has to be reasonably prescribed in order to ensure the necessary
breadth of coverage of disciplines?
Master of Technology
The major difficulty here is to ensure that the mandatory areas from the core body of
knowledge are covered. Since the only required units are Professional Practice G and
one of Software Engineering Practice G and Systems Project and Quality
Management G, core body of knowledge areas must be included in these units. The
main area of doubt seems to be the content of Software Engineering Practice G (see
above plus there is a question about how much project management is actually taught
in SEP).
The prerequisite structure of the G level units is also a little confusing. Computers and
Programming G has Introduction to Software Technology G as a prerequisite, but is
ACS Accreditation - Issues, page 3
itself a prerequisite for Computer Structures and Networks G, Security and Support in
IT G, Software Engineering Practice G and Web Design and Programming G. This
means that the first two semesters of the course with a Software Engineering
specialisation may not be able to be completed in two semesters. Presumably this is
because Computers and Programming G requires some introductory programming
knowledge. Also, Introduction to Software Technology G does not appear in the
Network Engineering specialisation, but Computers and Programming G does. Should
the prerequisite for Computers and Programming G be “Introduction to Software
Engineering G or equivalent knowledge”, and is it OK to retain this sequence, which
pushes the course out to more than three semesters?
Master of Information Technology by Coursework
Entry to both this degree and the research degrees below requires a prior qualification
that should be sufficient for professional membership of the ACS. The argument for
attempting to obtain ACS accreditation for these degrees is that the prior qualification
may have been obtained overseas, so accrediting the MIT and the research degrees
gives students a convenient and direct route to professional recognition in Australia.
In its present form, accreditation cannot be obtained for the MIT because the only
required unit is Professional Practice G (which covers communication), and even this
is not required for the Business Informatics specialisation, so there is no guarantee
that mandatory parts of the core body of knowledge will be covered. In any case,
PPinIT is a G level unit and cannot be said to build on a UG course. If advanced
standing is given, there are no required units (the MIT becomes a 1 year course), and
all units must be at PG level. This is OK if it can be shown that the core body of
knowledge is extended by units undertaken in the course but, if there are no required
units, this cannot be demonstrated.
One suggestion is to create a new PG, required unit that reflects the concerns raised
last year by our panel and addresses ACS accreditation. It would be required in the
MIT and either required or optional in the MBI, depending on how we get the MBI to
have 8 required, IT units. The panel’s concern was that (post) graduate students
should learn advanced communication and facilitation skills so that, ultimately, as
project managers or other stakeholders, they ensure that the relevant stakeholders are
involved in design, acceptance, etc, and that focus groups, interviews, ethnographic
methods, etc are used appropriately to this end as are feedback and review processes –
generally that a project is kept on track and that the right problem is solved – ethics
would also be included. Such a unit might be named Advanced Project Management
(or something else, suggestions welcome) and would solve quite a few problems, for
example, it would take the pressure off PPinIT to solve all issues in communication
when an advanced course would clearly benefit students who already have quite good
communication skills but are seriously interested in project management.
Research Degrees
The case being made for Honours, MInfSc and DInfSc is that the Research Proposal
and Research Methodology units, and compulsory activities (e.g. giving seminars,
conference attendance, managing the project) during the research project, cover the
mandatory part of the core body of knowledge. The question is whether this will be
successful.
ACS Accreditation - Issues, page 4
The PhD cannot be accredited because it has no formal course content.
Associate Level Recognition
The Graduate Diploma in Information Technology and Graduate Diploma in Business
Informatics are the first two semesters of the MTech and MBI respectively. They do
not satisfy the ACS requirements for professional recognition, but may qualify for
recognition at the associate level. A similar case can be made for the 18 and 21 credit
point versions of the IS major. There will be no attempt to obtain accreditation for the
Graduate Certificates in IT and Business Informatics.