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Journal of Education for Business
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Students' Perception of IS Academic Programs, IS
Careers, and Outsourcing
Ben Martz & Teuta Cata
To cite this article: Ben Martz & Teuta Cata (2008) Students' Perception of IS Academic Programs, IS Careers, and Outsourcing, Journal of Education for Business, 84:2, 118-125, DOI: 10.3200/JOEB.84.2.118-125
To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.3200/JOEB.84.2.118-125
Published online: 07 Aug 2010.
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anyoftoday’shigh-techcompa-nieshaveusedoutsourcingorits sister activityoffshoring (outsourcing beyondgeographicborders)ascost-cut-ting measures. Stefancic (2004) assert-ed, “In its simplest form, outsourcing involves the use of resources outside of the organization to perform routine tasks” (p. 11). However phrased, out-sourcing and offshoring have reached a significant level of importance for the general economy and the job cat-egories and careers in the information systems (IS) industry. The justification andresultsoftheseactivitiesvary.
Someresearchershavesuggestedthat there is no aggregate lowering of U.S. production (Garner, 2004) or that out- sourcingisanormalevolutionofbusi-ness practices (Bhaggwati, Panagariya, & Srinivasan, 2004). One study con-ducted by the Information Technology AssociationofAmerica(2005)suggest- edthatoffshoreoutsourcinghasaposi-tiveaffectonthecountry’seconomyby ultimately lowering production costs for IT vendors, in turn lowering the product costs for consumers. Brainard andLitan(2004)pointedout,“Offshor-ing is closely related to technological advance: both offshoring and techno- logicaladvancesaredrivenbycompeti-tivepressurestoreducecostsandboth resultindisplacementofexistingjobs” (p. 2). Other researchers have looked at outsourcing from the perspective of
service activities (Kraemer & Dedrick, 2004),strategicbenefit(Tapper,2005), outsourcingsuccess(Lee&Kim,1999), costsavings(Stefanic,2004),andcom-panyagility(Teece,2000).
However, outsourcing and offshor-ing have created several unintended consequences, such as resistance from employeesandcustomerdissatisfaction with the outsourced activities (Aron & Singh, 2005). One such consequence that Arabe (2005) pointed out is the higher impact of planning and project management skills. Her summary of several recent analyses of outsourcing problemsshowedthatcompaniesdonot yetfactorintheimplicitcostsofshoddy projectmanagement,poorcommunica-tion, and misguided transition plans. Even the ethicality of outsourcing has beenraisedinrelationtosocialrespon-sibility (Harrison & Kren, 2004). As Haskett,Sasser,andSchlesinger(1997) pointedout,thecostsofacquiringaser-vice may, in some cases, outweigh the price.Intheend,ifoverallcostsavings cannot be achieved, companies usually donotfindenoughvalueinoffshoring (Barthelemy,2001).
In the end though, regardless of the aggregate impact, economic pressures mount on companies at the local level toreducecosts.Thenegativesentiment grows toward those IT companies that outsource,similartothereactiontoJap-anesecarsduringthe1980s(Sharma&
Students’PerceptionofISAcademic
Programs,ISCareers,andOutsourcing
BENMARTZ TEUTACATA
NORTHERNKENTUCKYUNIVERSITY HIGHLANDHEIGHTS,KENTUCKY
M
ABSTRACT.
Theauthorscomparedthe perceptionsofinformationsystems(IS)stu- dentswiththoseofISpractitionersregard-ingIScareers,thepracticeofoutsourcing, andacademicprograms.Resultsindicate thatstudentsandpractitionersappreci-atetheintegrationofreal-lifepracticein academicprogramsandthatthegeneral perceptionofIScareersisneutralbysex. However,studentandpractitionerpercep-tionsdifferaboutoutsourcing,fundamental jobskills,andIS-specificskills.
Keywords:ISacademicprograms,IS careers,outsourcingperceptions
Copyright©2008HeldrefPublications
Yamamoto, 2004).This negative senti-ment spills over into the perception of the IT and IS industry as a whole and astudent’sperceptionofacareerinIT andIS(Bruce&Martz,2007).
PerceptionAboutISCareers
Therehasbeenacontinuousdiscus-sion in academia about the diversity inherentinIScareerdevelopment(Gal-livan, Truex, & Kvasny, 2004; Lee, Koh,Yen, & Tang, 2002; Trauth, Far-well,&Lee,1993).Trauthetal.stated that the “IS profession is being pulled in opposite directions. One is toward more human and business orientation. Theotheristowardthetechnicalskills requiredtomaintainafirm’stechnology infrastructure.Theresultisaknowledge explosion”(p.300).
Researchers in IS have identified many issues related to skills that an ISprofessionalmusthave.Themapof issuesisshapedbywhatskillsthecom-panies need, the skills that end-users need, the skills that are advertised by companiesintheirjobads,andtheskills that IS academics think are necessary. Ingeneral,ISprofessionalsarerequired tohavenotonlytechnicalskillsbutalso nontechnicalskills.Stone(2006)iden-tifiedandcategorizedthenontechnical skills:communicationskills(beableto communicate the technical content in written and oral presentations); busi- nessskills(e.g.,knowledgeinmarket-ing, finance); and management skills (e.g., people management, teamwork, human resource management, leader-ship, etc.). The lack of business skills hasanegativeimpactonpromotionsof IS personnel to management positions in a company. Further, McGee (1996) advised that the main factor contrib-uting to the failure of an IT profes-sionalpromotedtoamanagerposition ispeopleskills.Hefoundthat40%of the promoted IT professionals failed because they were lacking communi-cation and business skills such as the ability to build alliances or have clear linesofcommunicationintheteamsin whichtheyparticipate.
Recent researchers (Gallivan et al., 2004;Lee,2005)haveinvestigatedthe trendsofhiringISprofessionalsonthe basisofwhatskillscompanieslistinthe
jobadvertisements.Gallivanetal.con-cluded that employers have increased the requirements for technical skills. Technical skills specified in the job advertisements had increased by 40% between1988and2001.
Lee (2005) investigated the career pathofanISprofessionalfromanoth-er perspective. AftpathofanISprofessionalfromanoth-er Lee determined whether the majority of positions are in hardware- or software-related jobs, hecontinuedbyinvestigatingwhichof those positions provides a more suc-cessfulcareerforanITperson.Results of his study showed that Fortune 500 companiesrequiremoresoftwareskills than hardware skills. One important implicationofthisstudyisthatsystem analysts’ skills and the skills related toenterprise-widesystemseasetransi-tions to higher positions, such as IT manager, whereas programmers’ skills arelesssoughtforhighermanagement positions. The implication is that to be successful in the IT career path, employees should be able to under-standnotonlyITandISfunctionsbut alsootherbusinessfunctionsand—per-haps more important—functions that involveexternalparties,suchassuppli-ersandcustomers.
Differences between the sexes have provided another arena for differences in IT career perceptions. Researchers haveexploredwhethersexdiscrimination existsintheISandITcommunity.Con-tradictoryresultshavebeencollectedand reported.InformationWeek continuously indicatesthesalarygapbetweenwomen and men. According to its 2005 salary survey(Chabrow&Smith,2005),women receive approximately $9 for every $10 thatmenearninwagesandbonuses.On the other hand, Sumner and Niederman (2004)suggestedthatcareerexperiences, satisfaction with financial rewards from theircurrentITjob.
PerceptionsAboutISAcademic Programs
TheperceptionsofISacademicpro-grams play an important role in the
continuous debate over what skills an IS professional needs for a successful career in IS or IT. To date, research conducted on this topic has focused on two main topics: (a) how IS cur-ricula have changed to better address the real-life need for IS skills and (b) howISprogramsareadvertisedtomake prospectivestudentsawareofapossible careerinIS.
Studies have also been conducted on understanding what an IS program should deliver and how IS curricula shouldchangetobetteraddresspractitio-nerneeds.Al-ImamyandFarhat(2005) noticed a perception gap between IS academicsandISpractitionersonwhat amanagementinformationsystemspro-gram should be. Their results showed that IS academics focus more on the fundamentalconceptsandframeworks, which help their students in the long-term future to build deep knowledge. Yet, the IS community expects recent graduatestoknowcurrenttechnologies andbeabletosolvebusinessproblems immediately upon being hired. The IS communityexpectsrecentgraduatesto be knowledgeable enough on current problems and technologies in order to cuttrainingexpenses.
The implication of the aforemen-tioned findings in practice is twofold. First, because management and busi-ness skills are not highly ranked in an ITcurriculum(Lee&Reichgelt,2005), IT graduates from these programs will have problems succeeding in business careers. Peslak (2005) noted that IS majors’ lack of knowledge of business conceptsnegativelyaffectedtheirprog-ress in understanding how software worksinthebusinesscontext.Thecon-cernisthatISstudentslackthebusiness knowledgerelatedtobusinessprocesses used to work across traditional func-tional areas such as finance, market-ing,production,andaccounting.Future employers consider such nontechnical, process-related skills to be important andevenrankthemhigherthantechni-calskills(Cappal,2001/2002).
Thesecondproblemwiththepercep-tionofISacademicprogramsisrelated tohowISprogramsareadvertisedand the students’ level of awareness of the potential ofa career in IS. A survey of IS majors and nonmajors revealed
that nonmajor students are not well informedaboutthejobs,tasks,salaries, jobenvironments,andjobreputationsof anISprofession(Berry,2006).Theydid not recognize the difference between a computerscienceprofessionalandanIS professional.
METHOD
Inthepresentstudy,wesurveyedstu-dents and IS professionals in the Mid-westernUnitedStatestostudyrelations among their perceptions about IS aca- demicprograms,careers,andoutsourc-ing.Thefocusofthestudywasonthe followingbroadquestion:
Doperceptionsofthepracticeofout-sourcing, the necessary characteristics ofIScareers,andtherequirementsfor theISacademicprogramdifferbetween studentsandprofessionals?
StudyandParticipants
This study used a survey question-nairetoobtaininsightsonpractitioners’ and IS professionals in the Midwest. ThestudytookplaceduringNovember and December 2006. During those 2 months, data were collected from 169 students majoring or minoring in IS. We collected 51 questionnaires from members of IS curriculum advisory boards and other IS practitioners in theMidwest.
Analysis of demographic data about thepractitionerparticipantsshowed(a) a range of professional experience in ISfrom2to52years,withanaverage of 12.96 years (SD = 9.12 years); (b) 43.6% of participants were engaged in thepublicsector,and32.7%ofpartici-pantswereengagedintheprivatesector; and (c) 29.4% of practitioner partici-pantsheldagraduatedegreeinIS,and 58.8%ofpractitionerparticipantshelda bachelor’sdegreeinIS.
Students who participated were enrolledingraduateandundergraduate IS classes at a Midwestern university; 78.6% of them were graduates, and 21.4% of them were undergraduates.
Students were asked if they had real-lifeexperienceasISemployeesandfor thelengthofthatexperience.Ofthem, 58% indicated that they have never workedinanyIS-relatedjobpositions. The remaining 42% were currently workingasISemployees,witharange from 1 to 20 years and an average of 2.1 years of such work experience. The majority of student participants (65.5%)weremen.
SurveyInstrument
The questionnaire that we used had three parts (see Appendix). The first part of the questionnaire contained questions constructed with a 5-point Likert-typescalerangingfrom1(low) to5(high),askingparticipantstorate their level of agreement on 23 ques-tions related to percepques-tions of IS out-sourcing, IS career, and IS academic program.Thesecondpartoftheques-tionnaireaskedparticipantstoratethe level of importance of having general skillsandIT-andIS-relatedskills.The participants rated the importance of both groups of skills in two different timeperiods:NowandIn3years.The lastpartofthequestionnairecontained demographic questions that varied on thebasisofthetwogroupsofpartici-pants: student and practitioner demo-graphic questions. The questionnaire was previewed for clarity by two IT professionals and three IS students. Theircommentsandsuggestionswere consideredforthefinalversionofthe surveyquestionnaire.
RESULTSANDDISCUSSION
SPSSVersion14.0wasusedtogath-er the descriptive statistics. As Siegel (1956) indicated, we used the Mann-Whitneytesttoidentifythesignificant differences that participants reported. Table 1 indicates the areas showing a significant(p<.05)differencebetween the ratings reported by students and those reported by IS professionals. In general, students had a higher rating of the practice of outsourcing (OUT; OUT1, OUT2, OUT3, OUT7). It is clear they believed outsourcing pro-duced a better variety of products, reducedconsumerprices,andproduced
higher quality products more than did theirISprofessionalcounterparts.Stu- dentsalsoseemedmorewillingtosac-rifice profitability to hire locally, in accord with one of the principles of socialresponsibility.
WithregardtotheISprofession,stu-dents perceived project management and IS management jobs to be sus-ceptible to outsourcing (PROF12), but they underestimated—in comparison with IS professionals—the susceptibil-ityofprogrammingjobstooutsourcing (PROF13).
Althoughnoneoftheremainingques-tions showed a significant difference betweenthetwogroups,theanalysisof therawscoresyieldedsomeinteresting observationsheldbybothgroups.First, both groups perceived a recognizable differencebetweenthefieldsofISand computer science. Second, the results indicated no predisposition to think-ing that IS is a male-only field. The dataindicatedthatbothstudentsandIS professionals considered (a) these two disciplinesasidentifiablydifferentfrom each other (ACAD23) and (b) women were a good fit for the IS profession (PROF15).
Third, both groups showed a desire for more real-world and hands-on pro-grams (ACAD17). Co-ops (ACAD19) and real-life experiences (ACAD20) were seen as valuable characteristics of an academic program (seeTable 2). Thissupportsthepreviousdiscussionin academicandpractitionercommunities about the importance of understanding the business functions and integrating that experience into IS programs. It is interestingthattherewasaweakdiffer-encebetweenthetwogroups(p<.091) in their evaluation of conceptual and theoreticalfoundations:Studentsvalued thesemore.
A more in-depth analysis of the IS academic field was provided by the second part of the questionnaire: the characteristics. The results of the characteristicspartwerecompiledand divided into three general categories: (a) where there are differencesNow; (b)wheretherewillbedifferencesIn 3 years; and (c) where there are dif-ferencesNow and In 3 years. Each category’s findings would imply cer-tainideas.
Table 3 shows that IS professionals and students had significantly differ-ent perceptions with regard to the three majorgeneralskillsareas:critical-think-ing skills, problem solvmajorgeneralskillsareas:critical-think-ing skills, and analyticalorconceptualskills.Inallthree skillcategories,ISprofessionalsreported higherlevelsofagreementwiththeNow statementsthandidISstudents.Itisinter-estingthatstudentsperceivedanincrease invalueforthefuture.Inallthreecases, the student perceptions of these same characteristics rose to the point where there was no significant difference in theirperceptionsfromthoseoftheISpro-fessionalsaboutthesituationIn3years.
Table 4 reports data on nine catego-riesofskillswhereISprofessionals’and students’ perceptions differed for the future (In 3 years). In essence, the two groups’perceptionsdidnotdiffersignifi- cantlyregardingtheirthen-currentsitua-tion(Now),buttheirratingsabouttheir situationIn 3 yearsdiverged enough to become significant. There are several observationsofinteresthere.First,with theexceptionofratingsofstructuredpro-grammingbyISprofessionals,bothsets ofratersincreasedtheirperceivedvalue ofeachcharacteristicfromNowtoIn3 years. This seems to imply an increase
intheoverallperceivedvalueofISfunc- tions.Second,inonlyonecategory,writ-tencommunication,didISprofessionals’ ratingsexceedthoseofthestudentsIn3 years. This supports the concern noted by others that written communication skillsarebecoming(andwillbe)signifi-cantskillsforemployment.
Table 5 identifies those categories wheresignificantdifferencesexistinthe perceptionratingsbetweenISprofession-als and studentsNow andIn 3 years. Again,theaverageratingsofallcatego-riesrosefromtheNowpointtotheIn3 years point.Inallbutonecase,oralcom-munication, students rated the category higherthandidtheISprofessionals.
The data enable us to make a few further observations if we assume that theISprofessionalsaregoodindicators of the current and future IS industry needs. First, students seem to over-value skills such as e-commerce, data communications, networking, network security,andcomputerliteracy.Howev-er,theyundervaluebroaderskillssuch as oral communication, written com-munication, critical thinking, problem solving, and analytical or conceptual skills.Second,thedataindicatethatin comparison with IS students, IS pro-fessionals believed that the critical IS skills are the broader skills: critical thinking,problemsolving,analyticalor conceptual,oralcommunication(now), andwrittencommunication(inthenear future)skills.
Conclusion
Regarding the basic question driv-ing this study, the results show the following:
1.Students and practitioners differ in theirperceptionofoutsourcing,with students perceiving that it provides morevalue.
2.Students perceive IS management andprojectmanagementjobsasmore susceptible to outsourcing practice thandoISprofessionals.
3.Students and professionals make a cleardistinctionbetweenISandcom-putersciencefields.
4.StudentsandprofessionalsseetheIS fieldasneutralinregardtothesexes. 5.Students and professionals value
real-world experiences in academic programs.
TABLE1.MeansandStandardDeviationsofStudentsandISProfessionals
Students ISprofessionals (n=169) (n=51)
Item M SD M SD p
Outsourcing,allitemsincluded 3.1188 0.5901 2.6386 0.6148 .000 ISprofession,allitemincluded 3.5626 0.4743 3.4058 0.3981 .049 ISacademic,allitemsincluded 3.8680 1.0487 3.4970 0.4887 .019 OUT1 3.1195 1.3186 1.9600 1.0872 .000 OUT2 3.6503 1.2548 3.0417 1.3520 .004 OUT3 2.4037 1.1423 1.8800 0.9179 .003 OUT7 3.5030 1.0687 3.1176 1.1941 .029 PROF12 3.4935 1.0228 3.0612 1.1620 .014 PROF13 3.9228 1.0523 4.3922 0.8736 .004 PROF14 3.9329 1.0458 4.3333 0.7916 .013
Note.IS=informationsystems;OUT=outsourcing;PROF=profession.
TABLE2.MeansandStandardDeviationsofStudentsandISProfessionals
Students ISprofessionals (n=169) (n=51)
Item M SD M SD p
PROF9:Understandbusiness
functions 4.2651 0.9157 4.2745 1.0016 .950 ACAD17:ISprogramsneed
tobemorehands-on 4.0316 0.9671 4.0392 0.9584 .961 ACAD19:ISprogramneeds
tobeorientedtowardreal
lifeexperience 4.2209 1.0063 4.2157 0.9862 .974 ACAD20:ISclassestobe
taughtbyfacultywithreal
lifeexperience 4.3049 0.8607 4.0816 1.0376 .131 PROF15:IScareerismore
suitedformales 1.9684 1.1589 1.6735 1.0285 .112 ACAD23:Computerscience
andISarethesame 1.9071 1.0669 1.7200 0.9485 .270
Note.ACAD=academic;IS=informationsystems;PROF=profession.
6.Ingeneral,whencomparedwithpro- fessionals,studentsundervaluebroad-er foundational skills (e.g., critical thinking,problemsolving,analytical, communication)andovervaluemore specific skills (e.g., database, pro-gramming,networking).
The implications of these findings for academic programs indicate the
appropriatenessofpointingouttostu- dentswhereIScareersarelesssuscep-tible to the outsourcing phenomenon. The results indicate that IS students clearly worry that outsourcing will continuetobeaviablebusinessprac-tice and that IS jobs are at risk. The second implication is a paradox: To make IS graduates more appealing to prospective employers, educators must emphasize to the students the need for achievementin and study of
areas—foundationskills—thattheydo notyetvalue.
NOTES
BenMartzis aprofessorandChairoftheBusi-ness Informatics Department in the College of InformaticsatNorthernKentuckyUniversity.His researchinterestsincludegroupdecisionsupport systems, entrepreneurship, and student learning environments.
Teuta Cata is an assistant professor in the Business Informatics Department in the College of Informatics at Northern Kentucky University. TABLE3.DifferingPerceptionsofStudentsandISProfessionalsNow
Students(n=169) ISprofessionals(n=51)
Now In3years Now In3years p
Item M SD M SD M SD M SD Now In3years
Criticalthinking 4.1598 0.9657 4.5089 0.8246 4.5800 0.7025 4.6400 0.5980 .005 .297 Problemsolvingskills 4.2544 0.9065 4.5503 0.8159 4.6863 0.6161 4.7255 0.5685 .002 .154 Analyticalorconceptualskills 3.9048 1.0103 4.2976 0.9257 4.2941 0.7292 4.5098 0.6441 .011 .128
TABLE4.DifferingPerceptionsofStudentsandISProfessionalsin3Years
Students(n=169) ISprofessionals(n=51)
Now In3years Now In3years p
Item M SD M SD M SD M SD Now In3years
Writtencommunication 3.5799 1.1369 3.9053 1.924 3.9020 0.8545 4.2941 0.7821 .063 .019 Forecastingorpredicting 3.4911 1.1605 3.9882 1.1072 3.1600 0.9971 3.4800 0.9739 .069 .004 Presentationskills 3.6012 1.0730 4.0893 1.0079 3.4706 1.1019 3.7647 1.0117 .450 .045 Computerliteracy 4.4790 0.8419 4.7545 0.6719 4.3922 0.8019 4.4706 0.8088 .515 .013 DatabaseProgramming,
MySQL,Oracle 3.6807 1.1654 4.1205 1.0138 3.5098 0.9874 3.8039 0.9385 .344 .049 Programmingstructural 3.4940 1.1481 3.7892 1.1694 3.5882 1.0035 3.3922 1.1503 .598 .034 ManagingtheISfunction 3.6242 1.1548 4.1515 0.9853 3.3600 1.0450 3.8000 0.9689 .149 .028 Networksecurity 4.0120 1.0842 4.5723 0.8114 3.7451 0.10926 4.1569 1.0464 .126 .003 Enterpriseresourceplanning 3.5361 1.1633 4.1325 0.9377 3.2800 0.9906 3.7800 1.0554 .160 .025
TABLE5.DifferingPerceptionsofStudentsandISProfessionalsNowandin3Years
Students(n=169) ISprofessionals(n=51)
Now In3years Now In3years p
Item M SD M SD M SD M SD Now In3years
Oralcommunication 3.6213 1.1796 4.0000 1.1127 4.1569 0.9246 4.4118 0.7259 .003 .014 Generallegalknowledge 3.1243 1.1349 3.7160 1.1296 2.6078 1.0407 3.1176 1.1772 .004 .001 Databaseadministration 3.7349 1.1503 4.1627 1.0048 3.1373 1.0587 3.2549 1.2465 .001 .000 Datacommunication
(WANoriented) 3.6970 1.0956 4.2788 0.9344 3.0784 0.9969 3.2941 1.1540 .000 .000 E-commerce 3.8133 1.1098 4.4036 0.9144 3.3400 1.0022 3.8000 1.1780 .007 .000 Datawarehousing 3.6687 1.0809 4.1627 0.9297 3.1176 1.0129 3.7647 1.0693 .001 .011 Networking(LANoriented) 3.7831 1.2065 4.2771 1.0008 3.1569 0.9459 3.3529 1.1104 .001 .000 Webdevelopment 3.6627 1.1886 4.1928 1.1647 3.1569 1.1895 3.1961 1.2332 .008 .000
She has published research on outsourcing and RFIDtechnology.
Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Ben Martz, Northern Kentucky University, Department of Business Informatics, AST379, Nunn Drive, Highland Heights, KY 41099,USA.
E-mail:martzw1@nku.edu
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APPENDIX
SurveyonInformationSystemPerspectives
Instructions:Weareinterestedingettingyourfeedbackonsomekeyareasintheworldofinformationsystems(IS)today.Pleasecircle yourlevelofagreementwiththestatementsprovidedbelow.PleaserespondwithNAifyouhavenoopiniononthetopic.
Question Agreement NA
OUT1.Becausejobsareoutsourced/sentoffshore,Ihave Low12345High NA bettervarietyinproductsasaconsumer.
OUT2.Becausejobsareoutsourced/sentoffshore,consumer Low12345High NA pricesforproductsarereduced.
OUT3.Becausejobsareoutsourced/sentoffshore,consumer Low12345High NA productsIpurchasearehigherquality.
OUT4.Ifeelthatanincreaseinoverallproductqualityisan Low12345High NA acceptabletradeoffforsomeoutsourcing/offshoring.
OUT5.Ifeelthatadecreaseinproductcosttoconsumersisan Low12345High NA acceptabletradeoffforoutsourcing/offshoring.
OUT6.Companiesshouldhirewhereverlaborcostsarelowest. Low12345High NA OUT7.Companiesshouldsacrificesomeprofitabilitytohirelocally. Low12345High NA OUT8.Becauseofoutsourcing,myprivateconsumer Low12345High NA information(suchashealthdata,financialdata,and
otherpersonaldata)aremoreatrisk.
PROF9.ISprofessionalsmustunderstandbusinessfunctions Low12345High NA (accounting,finance,personnel,operations,marketing,
sales,etc.)tobesuccessful.
PROF10.Ingeneral,jobscanbeproblemsolvingoriented Low12345High NA (applyingexperiencesinwaysotherthanthewaylearned)or
applicationoriented(applyingexperiencesinwaysinwhichthey werelearned).IScareerstendtobemoreproblemsolvingoriented.
PROF11.ISeducationprogramsshouldshifttheirfocusto Low12345High NA moremanagerial/projectmanagement/ITprojectsrisks,etc.
PROF12.IT/ISManagerial/projectmanagementjobsare Low12345High NA susceptibletooutsourcingpressures.
PROF13.Programmingjobsaresusceptibletooutsourcingpressures. Low12345High NA PROF14.ISprofessionalsneedtoimprovetheirpeople/ Low12345High NA communicationskills.
PROF15.ISisacareermoresuitedtomales. Low12345High NA PROF16.ISprofessionalsworkinteamsmostofthetime. Low12345High NA ACAD17.Ingeneral,ISacademicprogramsneedtobemorehands-on. Low12345High NA ACAD18.ISprogramsneedtobebroad-based(varietyof Low12345High NA IStopicsinintermediatelevel)ratherthanindepth(fewtopics
atadvancedlevels).
ACAD19.ISacademicprogrammustbeorientedtowardreallife Low12345High NA practice,thereforeco-opshouldbeanimportantpartoftheprogram.
ACAD20.ISclassesneedtobetaughtbyfacultywithreallifeexperience. Low12345High NA ACAD21.ISclassesneedtobetaughtbyfacultywith Low12345High NA conceptual&theoreticalfoundation.
ACAD22.ISresearchisanimportantpartofISclasses. Low12345High NA ACAD23.ComputerscienceandISarethesame. Low12345High NA
(appendixcontinues)
APPENDIX(cont.)
Pleaseuseascaleof1(low)to5(high)toprovideyourratingofeachcharacteristicconcerninghowimportantthatcharacteristicisfora successfulcareerinIS.Usetwotimeframes:NowandIn3years.
Characteristics Now In3years
Generalskills
Criticalthinking
Problemsolvingskills Writtencommunicationskills Oralcommunicationskills
Listeningskills
Generallegalknowledge Forecasting,predicting
Motivation
Ethics
Quantitativeanalysis Projectmanagementskills
Presentationskills
Teamworkskills
Leadership
Analytical/conceptualskills Businessprocessanalysis Computerliteracy
IS/ITspecificskills
Databaseprogramming(MYSQL,Oracle) Databaseadministration Programming(structural) Programming(objectoriented) Datacommunication(WANoriented)
E-commerce
Datawarehousingordatamining Officeworkflow(analysisandprogramming) ManagingtheISfunction Systemsanalysisanddesign ITandnetworksecurity Enterpriseresourceplanning Networking(LANoriented) Webprogramming(languagelevel:HTML,JAVA,PHP,etc.) Webdevelopment(applicationlevel:Frontpage) Obviouslytheselistsarenotexhaustive,pleaselistanyotherskillsyou feelareimportantforcoverageinanISprogram.
Demographics:
YearsasIS/ITprofessional:________yrs
Employeesincompany:Small,<10Midsize,11–500Large,morethan500
Company:PublicPrivate
Highestdegreeearned:NoneBachelor’sMaster’sPhD
Sex:MaleFemale
OUT=outsourcing;PROF=profession;ACAD=academic.
