Treffer: A Holistic Approach to Develop IS Curricula: Focusing on Accreditation and IT Certification.

Academic institutions worldwide are constantly trying to refine or even reinvent their Information Systems (IS) curricula to address the needs of industry and government. As many IS curricula emerge, a number of them do not satisfy well recognized standards and even lack critical components. Furthermore, a highly competitive Information Technology (IT) global market is putting pressure on colleges and universities to include IT certification in the curriculum. The goal of this paper is to propose a comprehensive model IS curriculum based on well recognized standards while integrating the objectives of key IT certificates. ABET (Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology) is the main agency for accrediting IS programs in the U.S. The ABET criteria, which specify the requirements for designing IS curricular components, are used to design the model curriculum. These components consist of general education courses, environmental courses, major core courses, major electives and general elective courses. Furthermore, the IS 2002 report, which identifies specific features ofaca the IS profession and shows how to integrate them into IS curricula, is used to implement the ABET core courses. The IS 2002 report is studied in order to develop the core IS component of the proposed model curriculum. In addition, key IT certifications as well as IS components that have the potential to lead to these IT certifications are identified. In this study, four areas in the IS model curriculum are identified to integrate IT certification objectives. These areas are: Personal productivity, Networking, Programming and problem solving, and Hardware and software. Five IT certificates that can be integrated in these four areas are identified. These are: MS MOUS or ECDL, CompTIA Network +, Cisco CCNA, CompTIA A+, and Sun Certified Programmer for Java 2 Platform. An example showing how to integrate Network+ certification, Cisco CCNA, is presented with a comparison between Cisco CCNA and CompTIA Network+. A master course syllabus that covers the CCNA objectives is developed. It is anticipated that colleges and universities will benefit from this study by using the proposed IS model curriculum as a framework for easy integration of certification modules into IS courses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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