An Implementation of a Core Curriculum in an Information Technology ...

An Implementation of a Core Curriculum in an Information Technology Degree Program Hazem Said Louise Chaytor Daniel Humpert John Nyland Robert Schlemmer

Mark Stockman Chris Christopherson Patrick Kumpf Annu Prabhakar Vali Tadayon

Soleda Leung Sam Geonetta Russ McMahon Tamisra Sanyal Tom Wulf

University of Cincinnati 2220 Victory Parkway, Cincinnati, OH 513-556-6565 colleges offering higher education pathways from 2-year associate to baccalaureate, master, PhD, JD and MD degrees. Currently, the Computer Science program is located within the College of Engineering while the Information Systems program is housed in the College of Business.

ABSTRACT This paper will layout the University of Cincinnati's efforts in creating the core curriculum for an information technology degree program to be started in the autumn quarter of 2004. By core, we are referring to coursework required by all information technology majors no matter their chosen area of specialization: networking, software development or web technologies. The work done creating this information technology groundwork for students is based on ACM SIGITE's initial implementation of IT curriculum guidelines. Input for the IT core was also obtained from faculty, students, and industry partners. Processes by which specific course offerings were chosen will be detailed: objectives of the core and courses, desired outcomes for students, content, and associated hands-on activities. In all, the paper will present a means by which the core curriculum can be successfully implemented in information technology programs at other universities that are interested in such an endeavor.

In the past decade, numerous computer technology and information processing related programs sprouted up from different colleges to meet the public demands for more “applied” technology. This included both associate degree and baccalaureate degree programs from University College, College of Evening and Continuing Education and College of Applied Science (CAS). About 18 months ago the Provost mandated the Collegiate Structures Initiative (CSI) in an effort to combine and relocate university resources. As a result, CAS inherited all these programs and has been given the responsibility to administrate the variety. At approximately the same time as CSI, the CAS computer technology faculty began a comprehensive re-evaluation of the programs’ curriculum. Although the timing coincided with the university-wide effort, the process was initiated independently from CSI. The curriculum revision was propelled mainly by the emergence of new technology and the formation of the new IT discipline.

Categories and Subject Descriptors H.3.2 [Computers and Education]: Computer and Information Science Education – curriculum, accreditation.

General Terms

The external involvement began back in 1996 when a group of faculty participated in the documentation of the first volume of Ohio itWorks (http://www.itworks-ohio.org/), which was a statewide effort to standardize the State’s IT competency profile for high school, associate, and baccalaureate education. In April 2002 several faculty members attended CITC2 held in Savannah, Georgia. Since then, SITE was born and now it is known as SIGITE. These faculty members have become active participants within SIGITE. In spring 2003 they initiated the dialog within the university over the need to design an IT program that conformed to the national standard. The incentive to achieve program accreditation has been foremost in everyone’s mind. Comments and suggestions from industry, the programs’ advisory board, as well as alumni, were sought for the new curriculum design. Input from the current students was also weighed. Based on all the input, the first faculty retreat in spring 2003 helped shape the directions of the new curriculum to be.

Documentation and Standardization

Keywords Information Technology, Curriculum, software, networking, database, web technologies.

1. INTRODUCTION 1.1 Background The University of Cincinnati is a public institution with an annual student enrollment of approximately 34,000. There are 15 Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. SIGITE’04, October 28-30, 2004, Salt Lake City, Utah, USA. Copyright 2004 ACM 1-58113-936-5/04/0010...$5.00.

1.2 SIGITE Model Curriculum In September 2001, a group of national IT educators formed the Society of Information Technology Education (SITE). The

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charges to the Society included establishing accreditation guidelines as well as a curriculum models to oversee national as well as global IT education. Since then, the Society has successfully applied to the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) and been accepted as a Special Interest Group for Information Technology Education (SIGITE). Since April 2002, several CAS IT faculty members have actively participated in ACM-SIGITE, attending conferences, presenting papers and serving on committees. The definition of Information Technology (IT) as a discipline as well as goals, outcomes and curriculum guidelines were shared with members of SIGITE in CITC III and IV. [4,10] ACM-SIGITE defines four IT Core Areas as Problem Solving & Programming, Web Technologies & Issues, Databases, and Networking. We took the liberty to convert semester-hours stated in the two proposals to quarter-hours used by our institution. The IT program at University of Cincinnati (UC) abides by the above requirements for both the associate (AS) as well as the baccalaureate programs (BS). [2]

Table 1: Specialty areas available for primary and secondary tracks Area Availability Software Development

Primary & Secondary

Web Technologies

Primary & Secondary

Networking

Primary & Secondary

Database

Secondary Only

Digital Media

Secondary Only

3. CURRICULUM DETAILS Following the general guidelines of ABET, the curriculum is divided into technical component and non-technical component. The technical component is IT-related courses and it constitutes 63% of the curriculum. The non-technical courses are non-IT courses and are generally taught by other units in the University. Figure 2 shows the ratio between the technical and non-technical courses in the curriculum.

2. STRUCTURE OF THE PROGRAM The courses in the IT program consists of core courses plus specialty courses offered through tracks. Core courses are courses required to be taken by all students in the program. This includes courses in the general education, mathematics, science and foundation courses that provide breadth of knowledge in all of the IT areas. The diagram in figure 1 outlines the structure of the program.

Non-IT Technical 36%

IT-Technical 64%

Figure 2: Ratio between technical and non-technical courses The curriculum could be further divided into different modules according to figure 3.

Electives Module 19%

Figure 1: Structure of the program

IT Core Module 35%

The program is structured such that the first two-and-a-half years of the BS degree are the requirements for the AS degree. This structure has the advantage of smooth transition between AS and BS levels.

Secondary Module 5%

Primary Module 16%

Students are required to declare a primary track after their freshman year. Students finish the requirements of the AS degree after the fall quarter of their third year. They can continue on to receive the BS degree or graduate with an AS degree. Students who continue to the BS degree are required to declare a secondary track. Table 1 shows the choices available for both primary and secondary tracks.

Non-IT Core Module 25%

Figure 3: The different modules in the program

The program requires five quarters of cooperative education starting after the fall quarter of the second year.

The curriculum is made of five main modules: the IT core module (35%), the non-IT core module (25%), the electives module (19%), the primary track module (16%) and the secondary track module (5%).

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This structure of the curriculum satisfies the general requirement for accreditation as well as the general requirements for the University. This modular design allows easy maintainability of the curriculum. The changes in the IT industry are very frequent and the structure of the curriculum needs to adapt to these changes.

Table 2: The foundation courses in the core module Course Description Introduction to IT

An introduction to the field of Information Technology that surveys topics related to software development, computer networking, databases, digital media, and web technologies. The course also discusses professional skills required for IT professionals

Computer Application

A course in the use of the microcomputer in a professional business environment. This course includes an overview of hardware and business software applications such as, the operating environment and the business software included in a typical office application.

Implications of IT

This course focuses on the impact brought upon our society by the computer and its related technologies. Issues related to privacy, ethics law, encryption, copyright, computer crimes, etc., will be critically examined.

3.1 The IT Core Module 3.1.1 Background The previous IT-related programs at CAS were not modularly structured. In the spring 2001 faculty retreat, deficiencies were realized and it was recommended that a modular structure be created and to consist of core courses for all students and a specialized track module where students can make a choice. At the same time, the initial drafts of the SIGITE curriculum model suggested a similar modular structure for IT programs. The purpose of the IT core module is to provide a foundation and breadth of knowledge that is necessary for all the graduates.

3.1.2 Details of the IT Core Module The core consists of the foundation of each of the five specialties in addition to fundamental courses that are necessary for the graduates such as Management in IT, Human Computer Interaction, Implications of IT and Project Management, as seen in figure 4.

Senior Design Core 16%

Human Computer Interaction

This course is concerned with the design of interfaces that facilitate the use of computers and other personal electronic devices such as handheld devices. Theory and practice of usability is emphasized.

Management in IT

The course discusses general management techniques and specific issues and tools for project management in information technology

Foundation 23%

Database Core 9%

Digital Media Core 5% Web Core 5%

Software Core 23%

Table 3: Details of the software core courses Course Description

Networking Core 19%

Programming Logic & Methods

The art and science of writing computer algorithms is introduced without reference to any specific computer language. This Course relates logical and mathematical concepts such as truth tables and set theory to computer algorithm construction. Concepts and program design for Object Oriented Programming will be introduced.

Computer Programming I, II & III

This is a three quarter sequence of computer programming in an object oriented language. It is intended to be the first sequence of programming courses.

Systems Analysis & Design I

This is a broad study of systems development lifecycle from the initial stages of systems requirement analysis to the implementation of the system. Different techniques and methodologies in different developmental stages will be studied.

Figure 4: Details of the IT core module

3.1.2.1 Foundation Courses The foundation courses constitute 23% of the core module. A list of the foundation courses and their description is in table 2.

3.1.2.2 The Software Core The core courses in software provide the foundation for the software specialty as well as the foundation for other tracks such as database, web technologies and networking. The software core is 23% of the IT core module and is equal to the foundation courses. Software development is one of the IT Core areas as recommended by SIGITE. Software was a major element of the previous degree programs at CAS and it is natural that it becomes one of the main areas of the core. However, it is the one area that is debated the most. The debate addressed how many software courses in the core? what these courses are? And what technologies should be used? The debate will continue towards the optimum definition to the role of software in IT degree programs. Details of the software core courses are in table 3.

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3.1.2.3 The Networking Core

3.1.2.6 Web Technologies Core

The networking core includes four courses: computer hardware, introduction to operation systems, introduction to networking and information security and privacy. These courses are not computer engineering courses. They are specially designed for IT students. The hardware elements are introduced to students as components. Students learn the operation and integration of these components within a machine and a network of machines. They also learn how to troubleshoot these components, identify them and replace them as needed. Low level discussion of circuits and electronics are not introduced in this program as they are discussed fully in the computer engineering program in the electrical engineering technology department.

The web technologies core is one course in the fundamentals of web development that introduces students to HTML, XML and the basics of client side development.

3.1.2.7 Digital Media Core The digital media core is one course that provides the foundation of developing applications that integrate text, audio, images and video.

3.2 Non-IT Core Module The non-IT core module consists of four areas: mathematics, English, physics and professional development as indicated in figure 6. Prof. Develop 2%

3.1.2.4 Senior Design Core The senior design project is one of the unique elements of the previous IT programs at CAS. Senior design projects are supported by the college’s 175 years of technical education. The college hosts an annual tech expo that gives opportunity for seniors to display their projects to the local community. The previous IT programs at CAS included a three-quarter course sequence of senior design where students are asked to develop a real-life IT project and to document it and present it in a professional manner.

Physics 9%

Technical Writing 13% Mathematics 50%

English 26%

One of the deficiencies of this system is the lack of time to fully discuss project management, the complexity of grading and the lack of time for students to finish a professional project while taking full load of classes. In the new curriculum, the communication and project management components are separated from the technical component. The sequence starts with a course to help students identify a project and make the necessary market research, problem analysis and proposal development. In the following quarter, students must take two courses. The first is part of the core and it focuses on communication and project management and the second is part of the primary track and it focuses on the analysis, design and prototype development of the project. In the third quarter, students must also take two courses. One is part of the core and focuses on the technical documentation, presentation and training. The second course is part of the primary track module in which students develop the final product and test it. Figure 5 shows a layout of the senior design sequence.

Figure 6: Details of the non-IT core module The professional development course introduces students to the cooperative education system and helps students create their resume and prepare for the job search and interviewing process. The physics course with the science electives fulfills the science requirement and provides students with the needed foundation to work in a scientific environment.

3.2.1 Mathematics Mathematics is a pillar of any engineering and technical education and it constitutes 50% of the non-IT core module and 12.5% of the entire curriculum. The mathematics requirement is fulfilled by the courses listed in table 4. Table 4: The mathematics courses in the core curriculum

Figure 5: Layout of the senior design sequence

3.1.2.5 Database Core The database core consists of two courses: Introduction to database and database management systems. These two courses provide the foundation for designing and developing relational database using enterprise database management systems such as MS SQL sever.

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Course

Description

Algebra & Trig I & II

A freshmen sequence of algebra and trigonometry

Computational Concepts in IT

A new course to provide the mathematics related to IT and link the math concepts to its application in IT

Discrete Math I & II

A new sequence in discrete math

Probability & Statistics

An advanced course in probability and statistics for technologists

The new IT program at CAS does not require calculus. It was realized through the experience of the faculty members as well as through the draft recommendations of SIGITE that IT professionals need more discrete mathematics than calculus. Thus, the calculus sequence was replaced by a discrete math sequence and a new course called computational concepts in IT that aims at providing a link between the mathematics courses and its application in the area of IT.

3.4 Primary Module The primary module is 16% of the curriculum. Students are required to choose a primary module after their freshman year. They take courses from their primary module every quarter until their graduation. The primary module provides depth in one area of specialty. Students culminate their primary module with senior design project.

The English requirements are a three quarter freshman sequence of English and one course of speech. These were the English requirement for the previous IT programs and it did not change.

The IT program at CAS currently offers three options for the primary module as indicated in table 1: Software development, networking and web technologies. The choice of these three options is based on the SIGITE curriculum model, students and community responses and available resources.

3.2.3 Technical Writing

3.5 Secondary Module

3.2.2 English

Two courses of technical writing are required in the sophomore and the junior years. These are standard courses offered for all CAS students. The two courses are placed at different points in the curriculum to help the students develop their own technical writing skills through their learning career.

The secondary module is 5% of the curriculum and it provides limited depth in a secondary area of IT. The use of secondary modules in the curriculum is a recommendation from the SIGITE curriculum model draft. After discussion and debate, the faculty members adapted a secondary module. The initial response of the students supported the secondary module. Different combinations between primary and secondary modules gave students a real choice in their preferred areas of IT.

3.3 Electives Module The electives module is 19% of the curriculum as shown in figure 3. The electives module gives the students different options to choose from according to their career goals and areas of interest. There are four components of the elective module: the general education, science electives, free electives and IT-free electives.

Our program starts with five options for a secondary track. The three options available as primary in addition to database and digital media as shown in table 1.

3.6 Cooperative Education

3.3.1 General Education Electives

Cooperative education (co-op) is an integral part of the University and is required for all associate and baccalaureate programs. The new IT program requires two quarters of co-op for associate degree students and 5 quarters for baccalaureate degree students. Students start their co-op in their fifth quarter and end in the spring quarter of their junior year. The first and last summer are not required and are designed to allow students to catch up and prepare for the following year. Table 4 shows the schedule of co-op.

The general education electives are five courses that students must take to fulfill the general education requirements of the University. Students must take courses from at least five areas from the following eight: fine arts, history, humanities, literature, social science, diversity and culture and social and ethical issues. Two of the five courses can be of any level while three have to be 300 level or above to satisfy the requirement of the college.

3.3.2 Science Electives The science electives are provided to fulfill the requirements of science in accreditation as well as to prepare the students to work in different areas of science where IT is implemented. Students are given the option to choose which areas of science to study to fulfill their career goals and areas of interest. Students are required to take two science courses as electives.

Table 4: Schedule of cooperative education

3.3.3 Free Electives

Fall

Winter

Spring

Year 1

School

School

School

Year 2

School

School/

Coop/

School/

Coop

School

Coop

Coop/

School/

Coop/

School/

School

Coop

School

Coop

Coop/

School/

Coop/

School

Coop

School

School

School

School

Year 3

Two courses are provided in the curriculum as free electives. These courses are provided to create flexibility in the program to serve transfer students, to allow students to customize their learning and to increase either the breadth or the depth of their learning.

Year 4

3.3.4 IT-Free electives

Year 5

The IT-free electives are two courses in any area of IT. This also provides flexibility in the program for both transfer students and students in the program.

Summer

3.7 Scalability

The free electives in addition to the IT-free electives provide enough credit hours for students to increase the depth of their secondary area to make it a second primary. Students can also use these credits to increase the depth in a third area of specialty or it can be used to give students breadth of knowledge in different areas.

The word scalability here is used to refer to the ability of the curriculum to adapt to new technologies and new specialties. The modular design of the curriculum is scalable.

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different committees within the University and will start in the fall of 2004.

The name and description of the courses is independent of the technologies used. Technologies can change in any course without the need to create new courses or the need to change the name.

5. REFERENCES [1] Denning, P.J. The Profession of IT. Communications of the ACM, Volume 44, No 8, August 2001.

New specialties can be introduced gradually into the curriculum to gauge students’ interest and to develop the needed resources. For example, the process to add a new specialty in Security could be: 1-

New courses in Security can be offered as part of the electives module.

2-

A secondary module in Security can then be added.

3-

A primary module in Security can finally be added.

[2] Information Technology Curriculum at UC CAS, http://it.cas.uc.edu [3] Kreppel, M.C., and Rabiee, M., University Community Partnership through Senior Design Projects, Proceedings of the 2003 ASEE Annual Conference and Exposition (Nashville, TN, June 2003) [4] Leung, S., Said, H., Stockman, M., Enroute to Making an IT Baccalaureate Program, submitted for publication at the 2004 SIGITE Conference, UT, October 2004

3.8 Core Curriculum for the Associate Degree Option The new IT program at CAS is designed such that students can graduate with an associate degree after two and half years as shown in figure 1. The College has strong relationship with community colleges and smooth transition between associate degree graduates and a +2 degree is important. In addition, some of the old degree programs were associate degree, see section 1.1. It was our experience that many students, in particular part-time students, may not finish their degree continuously and situations do occur where a student needs to leave school to attend to other responsibilities. The associate degree option allows those students and others to graduate with an associate degree after two and half years in the program.

[5] Lunt, B.M., Ekstrom, J.J., Lawson, E.A., Kamali, R., Miller, J., Gorka, S., and Reichgelt, H. Defining the IT Curriculum: The Results of the Past 21/2 Years. Proceedings of the American Society for Engineering Education Annual Conference and Exposition (Salt Lake City, US, June 21-23, 2004) [6] Lunt, B.M., Lawson, E.A., Goodman, G., Helps, C.G.R, Designing an IT Curriculum: The Results of the First CITC Conference. Proceedings of the 2002 American Society for Engineering Education Annual Conference and Exposition. [7] Reichgelt, H., Zhang, A., Price, B. Designing an Information Technology Curriculum: The Georgia Southern University Experience, Journal of Information Technology Education, Volume 1, No. 4, 2002.

The curriculum for the associate degree program consists of a core module and primary module in addition to two general education elective. The curriculum for the associate degree is the same as the baccalaureate degree except for two courses. Students graduating with an associate degree do not take the second sequence of discrete math nor the physics course. Instead, they take the information security and privacy course and a general education elective.

[8] Said, H., et al, An Implementation of a Software Development Track in an Information Technology Degree Program, submitted for publication at the 2004 SIGITE Conference, UT, October 2004 [9] Said, H., et al, An Implementation of Secondary Tracks in an Information Technology Degree Program, submitted for publication at the 2004 SIGITE Conference, UT, October 2004

Associate degree graduates are required to do two quarters of cooperative education before they graduate. These are the first two co-op quarters for the baccalaureate students.

[10] SIGITE curriculum guidelines: http://www.sigite.org

4. CONCLUSION

[11] Stockman, M., et al, “An Implementation of a Networking Track in an Information Technology Degree Program”, submitted for publication at the 2004 SIGITE Conference, UT, October 2004

The Information Technology program at the University of Cincinnati College of Applied Science is redesigned following the draft recommendations of SIGITE and to benefit from the experience of the previous IT programs at the University and current IT programs in different universities. The curriculum follows a module design and it consists of a core module, primary module and secondary module. The modularity in design allows flexibility and scalability. The core module provides breadth of knowledge both in IT and in general education areas as required by the University and ABET. The program was approved by the

[12] UC General Education Program: http://www.uc.edu/gened

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