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Undergraduate Information Systems (IS) Curriculum and Career Track Development in United States Colleges and Universities: Assessment of Adherence to IS 2010 Curriculum Guidelines

The purpose of this study was to survey information systems (IS) curriculum in Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB) accredited information systems programs across the United States, to evaluate current adherence to the IS 2010 curriculum guidelines, and to assess the number and type of career track developments initiated as a result of less stringent requirements in the new curriculum guidelines. In addition, an analysis was conducted to see if curriculum in AACSB-accredited information systems programs across the United States changed significantly since other similar evaluations reported in 1996 and 2006, and whether it is closer in adherence to the IS 2010 curriculum guidelines.
The results of this study provided a current-state description of IS curriculums in the United States, specifically: (a) percentage adherance relationships and between AACSB-accredited information systems programs to IS 2010 curriculum guidelines; (b) defined curriculum profiles or latent class cluster characteristics of recent career track developments that have emerged; and (c) perceptions of adherence by the IS department faculty compared to the assessed adherence to IS 2010 curriculum guidelines.
In the findings, a comprehensive view of the landscape for adherence to IS curriculum guidelines is discussed, including the following. (a) There is a wide range of adherence to the IS curriculum guidelines. In addition, none of the IS program assessed were either entirely compliant or not compliant at all. (b) Some topics are widely covered (over half) as core curriculum while other topics are offered as core curriculum in less than half of IS programs. (c) Very few IS programs have formally implemented the IS 2010 career track guideline recommendations. (d) IS programs implementing formal career tracks specify a reasonably small number of track options for students to consider. (e) IS programs that include career tracks provide unique offerings beyond the proposed sample tracks depicted in the IS 2010 curriculum guidelines. (f) There appear to be reasonably well-defined categories or clusters of IS programs as related to IS 2010 curriculum guideline adherence. (g) IS program faculty describe a higher perceived adherence to IS curriculum guidelines than what is actually assessed in this study. (228 pages)

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:UTAHS/oai:digitalcommons.usu.edu:etd-2116
Date01 May 2012
CreatorsBell, Corbin Christopher
PublisherDigitalCommons@USU
Source SetsUtah State University
Detected LanguageEnglish
Typetext
Formatapplication/pdf
SourceAll Graduate Theses and Dissertations
RightsCopyright for this work is held by the author. Transmission or reproduction of materials protected by copyright beyond that allowed by fair use requires the written permission of the copyright owners. Works not in the public domain cannot be commercially exploited without permission of the copyright owner. Responsibility for any use rests exclusively with the user. For more information contact Andrew Wesolek (andrew.wesolek@usu.edu).

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