The quest for an administrative nexus for information technology programs
Pages 151 - 154
Abstract
Information Technology and Information Systems have evolved as inherently interdisciplinary fields. While an essentially haphazard proliferation of programs has helped to create a field of study that can necessarily and appropriately cross boundaries between mathematics, science, engineering, and business disciplines, the historical ambiguity with respect to program naming and classification has been, for many individuals and institutions, a source of confusion.
As a discipline, if indeed there can be a single discipline to consider, individuals, educational institutions, and practitioners are constantly addressing the issue of where programs belong, both pedagogically and administratively. The existence of numerous, competing classification schemes, none of which appears to either offer a compelling advantage or commands a consensus concerning appropriateness, is the core issue the authors address in this paper.
An analysis of data that are freely available (web sites for relevant academic institutions and programs) reveals literally hundreds of titles and dozens of administrative configurations for programs that fall under the broader and typical headings of CS, IS, IT, MIS, etc. A similar inquiry into the practitioner side of the problem reveals numerous competing schemes that include, CIP & SOC, not to mention a myriad of taxonomies from various industry and professional groups (ACM, IEEE, etc.).
The one thing that can be asserted with essentially absolute confidence is that this amalgam is confusing at best, and the status quo is not in the long-term interests of the discipline. The authors make no grandiose claims to having developed a unified paradigm to magically make sense of the wide range of program offerings in the numerous Information Technology and Information Systems related disciplines. Rather, this paper recognizes and begins to address the need to lay a foundation for appropriately categorizing and classifying this diverse collection of programs and configuration.
References
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Anthony, E. C. (2003). Computing education in academia: Toward differentiating the disciplines. ACM Conference Proceedings. CITCA'03 Oct. 16--18, 2003., Lafayette, IN.
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Kohum, Frederick G., David F. Wood (2004). The ABET CAC Accreditation: Is Accreditation Right for Information Systems? IACIS 2004, V, 2, 579--583.
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Leidig, P. (et. al.) Whither IS? Issues and Problems in Classifying CC2005 Programs Using CIP Codes. ISECON Proceedings, 2005.
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Lunt, B. H., Reichgelt, T., Ashford, T., Phelps, A., Slazinski, E., and Willis, C. An Empirical Comparison of Baccalaureate Programs in Computing. Proceedings of the Conference on Information Technology Curriculum III, (Rochester NY, October 2002).
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NCES National Center for Educational Statistics, Classification of Instructional Programs Code Index; http://nces.ed.gov/pubs2002/cip2000/index.asp
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Reichgelt, Han (et. al.) A Comparison of Baccalaureate Programs in Information Technology with Baccalaureate Programs in Computer Science and Information Systems. Journal of Information Technology Education Volume 3, 2004.
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Rice, George., Michael Bowman. Are We There Yet? Journal of Information Technology Education, V.6, 2007, pp. 227--240.
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Shackelford, R. et.al. (2005) Computing Curricula 2005; The Overview Report by the Joint Task Force for Computing Curricula 2005, Association for Computing, Association for Information Systems, Computing Society, 2005
Index Terms
- The quest for an administrative nexus for information technology programs
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October 2007
284 pages
ISBN:9781595939203
DOI:10.1145/1324302
- General Chairs:
- Bob Sweeney,
- David Feinstein,
- Program Chair:
- J. J. Ekstrom
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Published: 18 October 2007
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