Notes on Information Technology and IT Programs, Dep
George
Stockman, Summer 2005
This document
is under development and should change significantly over 2005. It was begun
This is NOT
intended to comprehensively cover all of computation and information, but
concentrates on recently converging ideas on “Information Technology”.
Forward:
This information has been collected in order
to support the current
Outline
of what is here
1.
Some definitions
of IT
2.
Motivation for
why we should do IT and how IT is different from CS and IS.
3.
What about the
MSU IT specialization?
4.
Some links to
publications about IT curriculum and programs
5.
Some links to a
variety of other university/organization IT sites
6.
Some
recommendation for IT at MSU
1.
What is IT?
Definitions vary so some
alternatives are provided here. For my colleagues, I want to bluntly say that
interpretations vary from “a weak techie view of computer science” to a fresh
new high level view of “an organizing theme for the next great information
age”. We at
IT
Definition 1: This definition is quoted directly from
the web site of a dep
“Information Technology is a term that covers all forms of computer and
communications equipment and programming software used to create, store,
transmit, interpret, and manipulate information in its various formats (eg, business data, voice conversations, still images,
motion pictures and multimedia presentations). Studies in IT combine many
disciplines, with underlying principles based in mathematics, logic, physics
and psychology. “
IT
Definition 2: A blue sky definition comes from
·
converting data into information
·
humming a tune and your search engine
correcting the pitch
·
predicting the spread of the next flu
epidemic
·
combating malicious hackers
·
understanding the human genome
·
exploring virtual reality
·
supporting cutting edge research
·
developing business solutions
·
and more …
Informatics develops new uses for information technology and in order to
solve specific problems in areas as diverse as biology, fine
IT Definition 3: From the joint work of the professional
organizations ACM and IEEE we have the definition that has been accepted by the
Curriculum Committee of CSE at
“Information Technology (IT) in its broadest sense
encompasses all aspects of computing technology. IT, as an academic discipline,
focuses on meeting the needs of users within an organizational and societal
context through the selection, creation, application, and integration and
administration of computing technologies.”
Core curriculum extracted from the
ACM/IEEE draft recommendations for IT
From
the 115 page document on http://sigite.acm.org/activities/curriculum/ we extract the core concept areas and the
number of hours of coverage. Courses are not prescribed. Sample courses are
given; however, departments are encouraged to design their own courses to cover
the various topics. Detailed topics and objectives are given for each of the 12
major areas below. Roughly, the hours correspond to “lecture hours” of which we
would have about 40 for a “typical” 3 credit MSU course. (This is NOT an
endorsement of lecture delivery.) Therefore,
delivery of 281 total hours corresponds to a full set of seven 3-credit
courses. This is for a MINIMUM coverage of a minimum core. Note that many
technical college major programs require about 40 credits or 13 courses “in the
major area itself.”
1)
IT fundamentals
(33 hours)
2)
HCI (20
hours)
3)
Information
Assurance and Security (23 hours)
4)
Information
Management (34 hours)
5)
Integrative
Programming and Technologies (23 hours)
6)
Networking
(20 hours)
7)
Programming
Fundamentals (38 hours)
8)
Platform
Technologies (14 Hours)
9)
System
Administration and Maintenaince (11 hours)
10) System Integration
and Architecture (23 hours)
11) Social and
Professional Issues (21 hours)
12) Web systems and
technologies (21 hours)
Total recommended : 281 hours
Not community college stuff!
It’s
important to emphasize that the IT program outlined above should not be
confused with community college level work as some XYZ Technology programs have
been. IT is not a “weak CS” degree, but rather a different challenging program.
IT grads will be much more information engineers than a CS, IMS,or TCC grad. As
IT units continue to appear across all organizations, industry will have as
clear an identity for an IT grad as they have for a software engineer or
production manager of a TV station.
It’s
also important to emphasize that there are many opportunities for strong
3-course sequences to provide critical IT knowledge to the other 100 or so
majors at MSU, perhaps each culminating is some domain-centered senior level
course in the vaious departments.
Does MSU have faculty resources to
teach all the core concepts recommended above?
Yes
and no. CSE itself has enough core knowledge in its faculty to begin such a
program. CSE faculty would have some tough prep to do for some of the hours
defined above. With faculty from all of MSU, it would be easy to find expertise
to cover all topics. In the long run, new faculty who are interdisciplinary
according to today’s standard disciplines and who have done research in IT
areas will take ownership of the new discipline.
Load
and resources must be considered. A simple low lower bound computation would be
that MSU would teach 7 new courses once per year and thus 2 FTEs would be
required to staff this program. However, the new major is likely to graduate
100 seniors after a few years: this number implies a much larger FTE than 2. A
mitigating factor is that courses supporting an IT major would be heavily
shared with the existing CS major and other majors and some current CS and TC
students would move to the new IT major. Some universites have reported no
decline in CS after instituting the new IT major. We need to have some
discussions about the numbers of CS, Business, and TC majors interacting with a
new major. Possibly, an even larger load would be created by many students of
other MSU majors using a 3-course IT stovepipe in their program.
2. Motivation for doing IT
The
reasons for developing IT programs and for students to pursue IT are several.
1.
IT knowledge is critical for designing, installing, and
maintaining information systems to support applications and serve people,
companies, governments, businesses, etc. It has been estimated that the US
economy needs many more IT employees; perhaps 5 times as many as programmers/software
engineers. Consider the following quote from the Oakland (Michigan)University
website [ http://www.cse.secs.oakland.edu/it_degree.asp
] “The long-term projections
produced by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) indicate that 70% of the projected
job openings in science and engineering in coming years will be in IT.
According to Gartner’s human-capital-management practice group, there will be a
shortage of 4 million IT workers in 2012. Thus, it is a great time to enter
into an IT degree program. “
2. IT professionals
do not build individual modules (hardware, software, tools) themselves – that
is the domain of computer engineers and software engineers; however, they must
understand what modules exist and how they can be made to interoperate. The IT
professional works more on integration of modules to put applications into
service. The IT professional needs knowledge of existing CS disciplines but
will operate on their seams (see paper by Ekstrom and Lunt).
3. Because IT
employees will be more integrated within the structure of an enterprise, it is
believed that they may be more immune to outsourcing than either computer
engineers or software engineers. This, together with the number of jobs
available, could make IT a more rewarding and more popular career than CS or
CpE. It may also be a career with more impact on the economy as well.
4. HCI is core
to training IT professionals, whereas HCI is elective to CS training. IT
preparation core also contains web programming and database design and
programming, which are often not core in CS programs. IT shares the same
mathematics and logic background with CS. IT has less depth in programming and
computing theory than CS: the depth in IT is placed in modeling and integration
and in understandin how information systems interface with humans and human
processes.
5. Through
project work, capstone courses, or cognates or minors, IT students must prepare
on real cases of integration and problem-solving.
6. A major
resource on the themes of IT and the kinds of careers possible is the 2004
paper by Barry Lunt et al Defining the IT
Curriculum…
7. Apparently,
Michigan has 3 formal IT programs: at CMU, UM, and (in process) Oakland. The
Michigan programs are unique and at the grad level, whereas those at Oakland
and CMU are primarily at the undergrad level. Other model programs can be found
at Indiana, RPI, RIT, and Cincinnati (see links below). These web sites contain
motivation as well as program and course details. The Oakland curriculum, set
to formally begin in Fall 2005 follows the recommendations of IEEE/ACM and
documented by InSITE
8. Finally,
some quotes from the RPI web pages. “It's an IT world. Information Technology
(IT) is, and will continue to be, the driving force of every industry on the
planet. IT is computers and communication. IT forms the infrastructure of
business. IT is the enabler of the information age. IT permeates your everyday
life. IT brings it all together. It has been called "the largest human
resource challenge in the nation." The May 2002 survey of employers
conducted by the Information Technology Association of
3. MSU IT Specialization
The
IT Specialization at MSU is a limited opportunity for a limited number of
students in certain majors. It provides 4 core courses and several electives in
each of three colleges (Business, CommArts, and Engineering) and a capstone
course. http://cas.msu.edu/programs/special/it.html
Currently, (a) there is no major in IT
available, and (b) many other majors at MSU have limited opportunites to study
the importance of IT in their own fields.
Consider
someone studying urban planning or geography, where it is important to extract
and relate information from digital aerial images, maps, and geographic
information systems. Such specific skills are best taught within the
departments where the discipline skills and concepts are used. However, the
underlying fundamentals of representation of images and geographic information
are introduced in CSE 240 and could be taught to almost all MSU students.
Notions of database query are also taught in CSE 240 (and CSE 103 at the
current time), which are also generally relevant to any modern professional
area. The mechanism of a 3-course sequence or short stovepipe in IT could be
available to all majors.
Consider
someone studying forensics or business. Concepts of biometrics are important to
both fields as are concepts in privacy and security of information systems.
Once again, a 3-course sequence in IT fundamentals could be available to these
students as well.
It
is important to note that there are mathematical foundations taught by the Math
Department that must be considered necessary background.
4. Some useful links to publications
K.
Alford et al, A Curriculum Framework for Evolving an Information Technology
Program http://fie.engrng.pitt.edu/fie2004/papers/1400.pdf
J. Ekstrom and B. Lunt, Education at the seams: preparing students to
stitch systems together; curriculum and issues for 4-year IT programs, Proc. ACM
Special Interest Group on IT, ISBN:1-58113-770-2(2003)
pp196-200 http://portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=947165
H. Said et al, An implementation of a core curriculum in an
information technology degree program, Conference On Information Technology
Education: Proceedings of the 5th conference on
Information technology education,
H. Reichgelt 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 Editor:
http://jite.org/documents/Vol3/v3p019-034-098.pdf
S. Leung et al, Enroute to making an IT baccalaureate program, Conference On Information Technology Education: Proceedings of the 5th conference on Information technology education, Salt Lake City, UT, USA (June 2004) PP255 - 260 ISBN:1-58113-936-5 ACM Press http://delivery.acm.org/10.1145/1030000/1029597/p255-leung.pdf
Princeton Review article on IT
and programs at RPI, http://www.princetonreview.com/grad/research/articles/decide/infotech.asp
5. Some useful links to organizations
1.
Brigham Young School of Technology contains a Dept. of
IT http://www.et.byu.edu/sot/
2.
Central
3.
4.
InSITE Confernce 2005: Informing
Science + Information Technology Education,
5.
6.
Penn State School
of Information Sciences and Technology has programs and organization at both
the undergrad and grad level http://ist.psu.edu/ist/website/sitemap.cfm
7.
8.
9.
RIT has been an
early entrant into undergrad program development. Several of its
faculty have been active on national committees. Rochester Institute of
Technology, Dept. of IT within the
10. RPI is an innovative leader, along with
6. Some recommendation for IT at MSU
To be
determined.
1)
Decide
to make a move or get out of the way
2)
what else?