A Curriculum for Future Information Technology

Patrick Appiah-Kubi

, Ramesh K. Karne

and Bharat Rawal

Electronic and Computer Eng. Tech. Dept., Indiana State University, Terre Haute, IN, U.S.A.

Computer and Information Science Dept., Towson University, Towson, MD, U.S.A.

Computer Information Science Dept., Shaw University, Raleigh, NC, U.S.A.

Keywords: Computer Science, Information Systems, UIT, Information Technology, Career Tracks, Topics.

Abstract: Computer science, information systems, information technology and other related programs have been

evolving over the years to prepare students for the ever changing work force or to become research

scientists. These program structures and curriculum gets updated rapidly even before a student had a chance

to complete a four year cycle. When a student graduates, there may be a daunting challenge to find a right

fit for a right job in today’s global market. This paper proposes a curriculum paradigm that is based on

sound engineering principles and need for applied education. The curriculum proposed here is based on

student needs and industry outlook. It reduces educational cost for students, administrative cost for teaching

institutions and training cost for industry. It also provides a first cut of curriculum that integrates a variety of

disciplines under the information technology umbrella. The curriculum taxonomies are shown to illustrate

the proposed concept. An initial road map and time schedules are shown to demonstrate the feasibility of

this concept. The roles of students, faculty and industry supervisors are discussed. The approach proposed

here will have a broader positive impact in information technology when adopted. Further research is

needed to fully exploit the proposed concept.

1 MOTIVATION

Current education and curriculum in the global

world is changing rapidly in many dimensions.

There is a big debate on online versus on-campus

education and there is no clear consensus on this

issue. The cost of education for students and their

parents is becoming increasingly unaffordable. The

competition from the world markets is forcing

students to quickly adapt to new technology, tools

and emerging applications. Countries like India and

China are producing information technology (IT)

professionals in masses and in fast pace to quickly

get them into job market. Some of these

professionals may not have traditional IT degree, but

they do perform well at work and cope with the

changing environment. The international workforce

is quickly replacing the domestic elites in current IT

industry.

There is tremendous commonality and repetition

in many of the fields such as computer science,

information systems, information technology and

related areas in most countries. All these disciplines

can be simply classified under a large umbrella

referred to as a unified information technology

(UIT).

Current curriculum in UIT is based on a “silos”

approach. It is categorized on subjects and the ability

of students to learn in a chronological order. The

international UIT work force today demonstrates

that rigorous training in a given area also provides

sufficient background in performing most of today’s

UIT jobs. Other disciplines provide some insight

into new curriculum ideas, which are worth

considering. In medical field, the four year

curriculum is divided into two parts, where students

study for two years in the classroom and work for

two years on rotations (hands-on) to select a specific

field. Similarly, in some engineering disciplines, the

curriculum uses a common curriculum for two years

and 2-3 years to specialize in a given field. These

models provide motivation to develop a curriculum

for UIT education.

2 INTRODUCTION

The UIT discipline referenced in this paper is

360

Appiah-Kubi P., K. Karne R. and Rawal B..

A Curriculum for Future Information Technology.

DOI: 10.5220/0004927503600366

In Proceedings of the 6th International Conference on Computer Supported Education (CSEDU-2014), pages 360-366

ISBN: 978-989-758-020-8

 2014 SCITEPRESS (Science and Technology Publications, Lda.)

presumed to be an umbrella for many computer

related fields as mentioned before. A typical “silos”

map for curriculum for computer science (CS),

information systems (IS) and information

technology (IT) is shown in Figure 1. Each column

in the figure is a “silo” based on its categorization

and ability of a student to learn in a chronological

manner. However, there are some inter-

dependencies in these “silos” as some topics are

common among them. For example, some

programming concepts learned in CS1 and CS2 are

used in an OS class. This approach requires a four

year period to complete a given specialization.

However, this structure does not train students the

way industry expects, as a consequence many

organizations hire highly trained person versus

highly educated person.

Figure 1: “Silos” map for CS, IS, IT.

This curriculum paradigm has many dimensions that

address the fast changing technology and global

market trends. However, it does not focus on future

needs and anticipated technology. A curriculum

should prepare students in the shortest amount of

time with required educational background,

certifications and skills that can be retained for a

long period of time. It should provide a clear path to

pursue careers in a particular area of expertise. It

should focus on major domain applications instead

of ever changing computer environments. These

requirements for curriculum development need an

approach than making cosmetic, pedagogical and

incremental changes to existing programs.

Engineering and Medicine fields have some unique

characteristics that can be borrowed to develop new

curriculum that will address many issues faced in

current IT educational system.

3 CURRICULUM FOR UIT

The novel curriculum proposed would utilize the

commonalities among many areas in IT; require

practical skills for students, emerging industry

needs, cost-cutting for student education and

optimizing academic institution’s resources. Each of

these objectives will be met by the proposed

curriculum. The main attributes of this proposed

curriculum is described in the following sections.

3.1 Duration

Due to rapid changes in technological and industrial

needs, the 4 year college should be reduced to 3

years. This will reduce the education cost and help

students and parents in many ways. The three year

period proposed is a continuous period including

summers. This includes six semesters and three

summers. It does not imply that four years without

summers is close to three years with summers. Some

of the time is used for internships, practical learning

and certifications.

3.2 Topics

The current course structure will be divided into

topics, which can be mixed and matched to suit a

particular career track. For example, a database

course is divided into many topics such as relational

data model, data modeling, transactions,

concurrency control, database programming and

database administration. There is no course concept

in this new model. In addition, certifications

(research experience), applied experience and

theoretical topics (foundations) are added to the

curriculum to prepare students for industry and

research careers. These items are modeled as a four

layer architecture model as shown in Figure 2.

3.3 Teachers

The teaching approach that will be adapted in this

curriculum would use different teachers drawn from

academia, research labs and industry. It would

consist of academicians, industry supervisors or

domain experts and researchers. Each of them will

play their own role in the curriculum. A single

teacher teaches his/her expert topic instead of an

entire course. As the topics change rapidly, domain

experts from industry are brought in to cover

emerging topics as needed. An academician at an

institution may teach theoretical topics that he/she is

considered as an expert or knowledgeable in the

ACurriculumforFutureInformationTechnology

361

subject. An industry supervisor/domain expert will

cover applied experience and certifications that are

needed in the program. Similarly, a researcher from

a research lab or another academic institution will

provide research experience components relevant to

the learned theoretical topics by students. The

medium of teaching can be in the class-room, on-

line, industrial site, or a lab depending on the type of

topic and experience. All of the above faculty

categories must be compensated by the host

academic institution and be evaluated by students.

3.4 Career Tracks

In this model, the curriculum prepares a student for a

given career track based on his/her interests and

performance. Industry needs and their required skills

and expertise will play a major role in the

curriculum process. The career tracks depend on

current industrial needs, which may change often.

Advisors will assist students to choose an

appropriate track that is suitable to their primary

interest. There can be many types of career tracks in

UIT. These tracks may depend on a specific area or

a combination of one or more areas. A network

security engineer track may require multiple topics

and experiences along with some sort of

certifications. The four layer model shown in Figure

2 illustrates this curriculum hierarchy.

Figure 2: New Curriculum Architecture.

Students may need to take many topics and have

many applied experiences to get into a particular

career track. Some career tracks may require

research experience and applied experience to

complete a particular career. The proposed four

layer model follows a many to many mapping from

one layer to the next. This is a more general view of

the model, however some layers may only have

many to one mapping between them. That is, there

are cases where many theoretical topics map to one

applied experience. For example, one needs to learn

data structures, TCP/IP and process management to

write a Web server application. This is a many to

one mapping. In another example, Web server and

Process Management applications require

knowledge of process or thread creation. This is a

many to one mapping. Overall, many-to-many

mapping cover all cases in this layered approach.

The disadvantage of training students for single

track is that they may not find a suitable position in

that track after graduation. In this case, a student

can always switch to another career track and pursue

that track to find a job. This is similar to medical

schools, where they do a second residency. Students

must choose the right career track to start with so

that there will be no need for later switch. Advisors

must point students to the right track based on

market conditions. This approach is different from a

current paradigm, where a student obtains a generic

degree, sometimes special tracks (such as security,

Web, E-commerce, networking) and could apply for

many available jobs. As the industry is very much

focused on hiring students with a specialized skill,

the proposed solution should work better. One can

do two career tracks, which may require more time

to complete the program. The career track switch

can also be done after working for a while, by

upgrading your skills.

4 IMPLEMENTATION

The proposed curriculum has many facets in its

implementation. The nature of this approach brings

many unconventional avenues and innovations. The

following sections provide detailed descriptions for

implementing this model.

4.1 Homogenize IT Areas

As shown in Figure 1, UIT areas share many topics

in common. Consider a data communication network

course in each area. The fundamentals in data

communication networks are the same for all areas,

however their scope of leaning is different. For

example, CS students learn to implement protocols,

IS students focus on operation of protocols, and IT

students train for network administration and

configurations. All of them need foundations for

data communication networks. Similarly, some other

common areas such as Web Applications, Web

Security and Software Engineering can be

homogenized. There may be some areas that are

very unique in a particular field, where there is no

need to homogenize the area.

Career Tracks

Certifications

Applied

Experience

Theoretical Topics (Foundations)

N:M

Research

Experience

N:M

CSEDU2014-6thInternationalConferenceonComputerSupportedEducation

362

4.2 Development of Theoretical Topics

Developing unique topics in UIT requires more

research and understanding of the proposed

curriculum. To demonstrate the feasibility of the

proposed concept, some database and network topics

as well as required topics are identified and used for

illustration. This is by no means a comprehensive

study for the identified areas. The process of

identifying a topic should be similar to identifying

entities in a database model. A topic should have

some theoretical or empirical grounds and unique in

its domain. A topic can also be viewed as a nugget

that has some foundation for future extension. For

example, relational data model is a topic which has

sound theoretical basis. Similarly, inter-process

communication is a topic, which proliferates

throughout Web technology. These topics are very

unique and they have broader impact in their domain

applications. We need to identify all such topics in

UIT so that we can build a solid foundation for

achieving the proposed curriculum. The ACM and

IEEE Computer Society curriculums (ACM, 1968);

(Computer Science Curricula, 2013); (Computing

Curricula, 2013) over the years have used a different

type of approach which is based on courses and

fields that have emerged over the years and has no

stability in its mission. The proposed curriculum

divides existing curriculum into topics (more

granularity) thus making them more stable. That is,

there is a need for engineering and science principles

in UIT education instead of training students for

immediate needs of industry and technology

evolution and making them obsolete after few years.

4.3 Development of Applied

Experience

Applied experience involves hands-on training for

UIT students. After learning theoretical topics, they

need to get hands-on experience with current tools

and techniques in industry. Academic institutions

may or may not have resources such as Database

tools at their home institution. Students also need

experience in developing real world systems which

can be provided by industry and through their

experts. A typical applied topic may involve

configuring a large network for operation and

maintenance or a programming experience where

students work with a large software project and

building a module. We need to identify applied

experience projects that are related to theoretical

topics, which require further research in this area.

4.4 Development of Research

Experience

Research experience involves understanding current

research areas and problems. After learning

theoretical topics and may be some applied

experience, students can be exposed to some

research experience. This experience can be

provided to students through collaborations and

internships with research organizations and other

research institutions. We need to identify some topic

areas to develop such research experience projects.

A typical topic may consist of applying multi-core

architecture knowledge to partition a computer

intensive application to achieve higher performance.

Such projects should be undertaken by students who

are interested in research careers.

4.5 Identify Certifications

In today’s industrial careers, certifications are vital

components. Certifications such as A+, Network+,

CCNA, CCNA, CISSP, and Security+ (Hein, 2012)

are required for some jobs. These certifications

cover wide array of topics and sometimes span

across many areas. The theoretical topics and

applied experience provided to students should

cover some areas of certifications. A student

pursuing a particular career track which requires

certain certification should get complete knowledge

and experience to pass that certification. There

should not be a need for the student to get outside

help to pass a certification. Identifying needs for

certification requires further research to develop a

comprehensive curriculum.

4.6 Development of Career Tracks

Today’s career tracks are driven by current trends in

technology. The current trends in technology are

driven by industry without any scientific basis;

otherwise they would have been stable for a long

period of time. Sound principles must be extracted

from the emerging technology and incorporated into

topics in the curriculum. This requires more research

and understanding of the proposed curriculum to

cope with the current trend in career tracks. To

illustrate the proposed concept, we have identified

some career tracks in database and networks from

Web sources (Career Tracks, 2013) and shown them

in Figure 3.

ACurriculumforFutureInformationTechnology

363

4.7 Mapping Topics to Career Tracks

Mapping theoretical topics to career tracks follow

the four layer architecture presented in Figure 2.

This process requires further research to layout the

exact mappings. In order to show some sample

mappings, we have studied database and network

areas and developed some mappings as shown in

Figures 4 and 5. We need to get industry, research

and academic organizations to develop all possible

mappings from topics to career tracks.

4.8 Identify Industrial Supervisors

The proposed curriculum requires a strong

collaboration between industry and teaching

institutions. When topics are clearly identified in

UIT, experts from industry need to be identified who

can provide applied experience for students.

Students may get this experience in their labs at their

home institution or they may get this at a chosen

industrial site. The supervisors who train students

should be compensated by the host institution.

Figure 3: Career Tracks.

Figure 4: Database Topics / Career Tracks Mappings.

4.9 Identify Researchers

The proposed curriculum also requires a strong

collaboration between research institutions and

laboratories. Some students may pursue research

careers after graduation and they need to be exposed

to research trends to appreciate the type of

environment and problems to be addressed in an

area. The researchers who provide training to

students should be compensated by the host

institution.

4.10 Medium of Teaching

Media of teaching has many dimensions in this

model. Theoretical topics can be taught in classroom

or online. Applied experience can be obtained in a

laboratory at host institution or at an industrial site

working with a supervisor. Research experience can

be obtained at a host institution, research

organization or a research laboratory. Knowledge

and practical experience for professional

Certifications can be gained at a host institution or

online provided by an expert professional in a given

area. The teaching environment and medium is

different from a traditional setting as done today.

Figure 5: Network Topics / Career Tracks Mappings.

4.11 Development of Grading Policy

The grading policy needs more research and

evaluation. However, the following grading policy

is suggested for the proposed curriculum. For a

given career track, a cumulative grade is given for

each semester including summers. Over a three year

period there are a total of 9 semesters including

summers. A final cumulative grade is given for the

•DBA

• Database Analyst

• Database Programmer

• Database Engineer

• Database Architect

• Database Security Engineer

• Data Modeler

• Data Warehouse Architect

Database Career Tracks

• Network Administrator

• Network Engineer

• Network Programmer

• Network Architect

• Network Support Engineer

• Network Security Engineer

• Wireless Network Engineer

Network Career Tracks

• General Intro to PC

• Fund. PC Architecture

• Fund. Programming

• Scripting

• Web Scripting

• Set Theory

• Technical Writing

• DBMS Architectures

• OS Concepts

• Relational DB Model

• SQL

• End User Sec.

• Client / Server Sys.

• DB Transactions

• DB Recovery

• DB Backup

• DB Security

DBA

OCA / MCDBA / DB2

Theoretical Topics

(Foundations)

Applied Experience

Certifications

DB Server Installation / DB Server Configuration /

SQL Programming / DB Recovery / DB Backup / DB

Startup / DB Shutdown /

• General Networking

• Network Cabling

• Protocols

• TCP Protocol Analysis

• ICMP Protocol

• Domain Name System

(DNS)

• Subnetting

• The OSI Model

• Routing

• Super netting & CIDR

• Ethernet

• Virtual Trunk Protocol

• Network Address Translation - NAT

• WAN Technologies

• Wireless Networks

• Distributed Networks

• Network Security

Auxiliary Skills

• General Math skills, Binary / Hex / Logic

Gates

• Theory of sounds / Wave mechanics

• Analog / Digital System /fiber optics

• General knowledge of electronics components,

resister, capacitors, transistor,

IC Circuits

Network

Administrator

Theoretical Topics

(Foundations)

CCNA / Network+ / A+ / Security+ / MSCSE

/ MCITP / LPIC / Linux+

Network Configuration / Routing / WAN installations / upgrades /

migrations / Peer-Peer and Client VPN services / IT operational

systems and services / LAN / Email / Design, implementation, and

operations / IP / Firewall / IPS / Content Filtering / NERC CIP /

BGP / OSPF / Spanning Tree / Network Security / System Security

Applied Experience

Certifications

CSEDU2014-6thInternationalConferenceonComputerSupportedEducation

364

entire program based on the average of 9 semester

grades. For each topic, applied experience, research

experience, and certification there will be an

independent grade in each semester. After a

particular topic, experience or certification is

complete a letter grade will be given by an instructor

or a supervisor. All these grades are used in each

semester to compute a cumulative grade point for a

particular semester. A letter grade of A, A-, B, B+,

B- and C are used in the curriculum. Any cumulative

grade less than C in any semester will be a fail grade

and that student will have to repeat the whole

semester. More studies are needed to refine this

grading system.

4.12 Student Academic Plan

Figure 6 shows a typical academic plan for a

particular career track for the 3 year period. In the

plan, students are required to spend the first four

semesters taking theoretical topics. These topics are

intended to provide some foundation in the field of

UIT and also prepare them for the applied

experience topics. They will then spend the next 3

semesters doing rotational applied experience areas,

where they will be assigned to industry and get

training under a supervisor. One semester will be

optional for those who want to have a research

experience to conduct research under a researcher. If

a student decides against the research experience

then they have to continue with the applied

experience. Students also have one semester option

to prepare and take certifications in their chosen

career tracks. Similarly student can opt against

taking the certification and can continue with the

applied experience. More studies are however

needed to refine this academic plan.

Figure 6: Academic Plan of proposed Curriculum.

4.13 Development of Tuition Plans

Tuition and fees is an institutional issue. We don’t

have any particular suggestions for this issue.

However, a simplest way to charge tuition is based

on a semester.

4.14 Payment Plans for Teachers

As the curriculum is divided into topics, applied

experience, research experience and certifications,

one can setup a payment plan based on the same

categories and number of students. This issue is also

related to an institution and we don’t have any

particular plan for this item.

5 PROS AND CONS

The proposed curriculum is novel and is not

evolutionary in nature as such it will face resistance

in its implementation. It needs a strong collaboration

between academia and industry. However this

collaboration will be hard to achieve as industry is

not in the business of educating students. The UIT

curriculum offers many benefits in spite of the above

drawbacks. Students get full education and training

from a bottom up approach along with hands-on

experience and needed certificates. When a student

graduates, he/she is ready for a real world job.

Industry benefits immensely as they can hire

students who don’t need much training. The

academic institutions can reduce their permanent

faculty and overhead as supervisors and researchers

take some of the teaching load in applied experience,

research experience and certifications. Students will

get better jobs in industry, possibly with the

companies they were already associated with during

their education. Fundamentals or theoretical

knowledge acquired by students will remain with

students for long. The UIT requires further research

and pilot sites to understand and study the

implementation issues.

6 CONCLUSIONS

This paper proposed a UIT curriculum that has a

broader impact in education. The UIT curriculum

approach is described in detail. A four layer

architecture model is presented to capture its

concept. Some sample examples of career tracks are

illustrated to describe the new curriculum. A

timeline required to complete a career track will be

three years. The implementation issues and pros and

cons of this concept are outlined. The curriculum

proposed here requires further research and

demonstration through some pilot sites to

demonstrate its feasibility.

Fall

Spring

Summer Fall

Spring

Summer

Yea r 2

Year

Fall

Spring

Summer

Yea r

TheoreticalTo pi c s(Foundations) AppliedExperience

Research

Experience

Certifications

ACurriculumforFutureInformationTechnology

365

REFERENCES

ACM Curriculum Committee on Computer Science. 1968.

Curriculum 68: 187 Recommendations for Academic

Programs in Computer Science. Comm. ACM 11, 3

(Mar. 18 1968), 151-197. 189.

Career Tracks, Retrieved on 03/10/2013 from

http://www.monster.com/

Computer Science Curricula 2013 Ironman Draft (Version

0.8) November 2012, Retrieved on 03/16/2013 from

http://ai.stanford.edu/users/sahami/CS2013/ ironman-

draft/cs2013-ironman-v0.8.pdf.

Computing Curricula, Information Technology Volume,

Retrieved on 03/16/2013 from

http://www.acm.org/education/curric_vols/IT_October

_2005.pdf.

Rich Hein, 2012. 23 IT Certifications That Mean Higher

Pay, Retrieved on 03/10/2013 from http://

www.cio.com/article/715529/23_IT_Certifications_Th

at_Mean_Higher_Pay.

CSEDU2014-6thInternationalConferenceonComputerSupportedEducation

366