A comprehensive survey of IS undergraduate degree courses in the UK

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Abstract

There is little conclusive evidence about the state of the IS curriculum in the UK. This paper presents the results of a detailed survey about the provision of Information Systems (IS) undergraduate degree courses in the UK using the newly developed IS 2010 curriculum guidelines as its basis. IS 2010 identifies three main categories of knowledge that underpin the essence of IS as an academic subject: IS Specific Knowledge and Skills, Domain Fundamentals and Foundational Knowledge and Skills. Our desire to offer a holistic and conclusive representation of the curriculum is supported by the development of an IS curriculum survey framework that caters for the mapping of every subject that populates the IS curricula of undergraduate degrees in the UK, including subjects that are generic or are derived from other hierarchical disciplines.

Highlights

► We surveyed 84 UK universities offering 228 IS courses with a total of 7475 fifteen-credit modules. ► We used the basic concepts of IS 2010 as the basis for the development of an IS course survey framework. ► The analysis shows that 60% of the IS curriculum is made up by modules classified as core or option subjects by IS 2010. ► 24% of modules are classified as part of the Business and Computing hierarchical domains. ► The remaining modules are devoted to the final year project and transferable skills.

Introduction

Information Systems (IS) is a relatively young, fast-changing discipline with no precise agreed definition (Kennan, Willard, Cecez-Kecmanovic, & Wilson, 2008). Its evolution is often driven by the dynamic forces that permeate the world of business and IT. While the IS research community has been undergoing a period of existentialism, debating the multidisciplinary nature of IS and its questionable theoretical underpinnings (Benbasat and Zmud, 2003, Hirschheim and Klein, 2003, Neufeld et al., 2007), industry has been calling for more relevant curricula and training that meet its needs (Kyootai and Mirchandani, 2010, Prabhakar et al., 2005, Zwieg et al., 2006). At the same time, universities have been experiencing problems in recruiting IS students (Choudhury et al., 2010, Walstrom et al., 2008), although, recent signs show a small improvement. Simultaneously the IS community, its professional, and accreditation bodies have been seeking to devise curricula that are both relevant to the needs of industry (Atchison and Gonsalvez, 2001, Ryker et al., 2008), and the expectations of the new breed of IS undergraduate students that is more technologically ‘savvy’ (Martz and Cata, 2008, Scott et al., 2009).

The issue of IS curriculum relevance is not new and can be traced back to the early 1970s when, according to Davis, the first attempts to develop IS curriculum recommendations were made (Davis et al., 1996). The latest set of recommendations are IS 2010 (IS 2010: Curriculum Guidelines for Undergraduate Degree Programs in Information Systems, Topi et al., 2010). The authors of IS 2010 argue that the ever-accelerating advancements in the fields of IT and business necessitate frequent reviews of IS curricula to ensure that they remain relevant to the needs of industry (Topi et al., 2010). Their argument, however, is not new. As early as 1993 similar questions were being asked: “Are colleges and universities responding fast enough to the business and technology changes that have redefined the role of information systems in today's organizations? Are we providing the right type of education for future information systems (IS) professionals?” (Trauth, Farwell, & Lee, 1993). These questions remain equally valid today and indeed (Granger, Dick, Luftman, Van Slyke, & Watson, 2007) have also stressed the importance of re-evaluating IS curricula to attract more students to the discipline, and (Bullen et al., 2007, Zwieg et al., 2006) have noted the importance of re-thinking curriculum and training development efforts. However, the data required to evaluate the relevance of current IS curricula and its alignment to industry needs is somewhat lacking, particularly in the UK. There are, however, notable exceptions, particularly relating to studies in the US (Benamati et al., 2010, Kung et al., 2006, Lifer et al., 2009, Pierson et al., 2008, Williams and Pomykalski, 2006).

This paper seeks to address the lack of foundation data about IS curricula in the UK. This data is argued to be necessary to inform debate and policy concerning IS courses and their alignment with academic and industry needs, especially in the light of the recent decline in undergraduate IS numbers. The paper presents findings from a comprehensive study of undergraduate IS courses based on a survey and content analysis of all IS courses in the UK. The IS 2010 model curricula (Topi, 2010) is used as the structural basis for the analysis. Modules are catalogued according to their content, analysed by year of study, credit size, core or optional, and contribution to either the core knowledge of IS or knowledge that is part of other hierarchical domains. Rankings are produced to capture the frequency of each subject. To contextualise the analysis of modules, entry-level qualifications are also considered.

It is hoped that this comprehensive survey and analysis of all IS courses and modules in the UK university sector, apart from its intrinsic value, will also provide the necessary foundation for further analysis by others, for example, to identify curriculum relevance, which has attracted much attention from IS academics and the business community, the skills embodied in the curriculum and their relevance to a rapidly changing environment, career tracks and their foundations, theoretical content, standards, course design, relationships to other knowledge domains, and so on. Particularly relevant at this time would be its use in further research to address the possible reasons for, and solutions to, the global decline in IS students. It is also likely to be relevant in support of accreditation processes, particularly in the light of the recent announcement of an IS accreditation scheme by UKAIS in partnership with IMIS (Institute for the Management of Information Systems) and SFIA (Skills Framework for the Information Age).

The paper is structured as follows, after this introduction the research into IS model curricula is described and in particular IS 2010 is described as it is used as the basis for the analysis adopted by this study. Then the research method and data collection for this study is discussed, followed by the approach to analysis of the data. The survey results are then presented, and conclusions drawn together with the identification of areas of future research.

Section snippets

Model curricula

IS 2010, is used as the foundation for this study. The aim of such models is to facilitate curriculum development through the contextualisation of IS topics, and not to prescribe how to design courses, i.e. they are not supposed to be prescriptive but rather provide support and guidance to help faculty design their own courses and programmes. The first curriculum model to receive noticeable attention by the IS community was IS’97 (Davis et al., 1996). IS’97 and its subsequent editions, IS 2002 (

Research method

As mentioned above, several studies have relied on the IS 2002 curriculum recommendations (Gorgone et al., 2002) to examine the level of alignment of IS courses to the model, producing findings that measured the popularity of subjects available to undergraduate students (Dwyer and Knapp, 2004, Lifer et al., 2009, Williams and Pomykalski, 2006). Similar empirical research methods are often used to conduct IS curriculum surveys which examine the correlation between graduate level skills and the

Survey analysis

The initial analysis of the data shows the distribution of core and option modules across universities. Overall, the ratio of core to option modules for the 228 courses was 1:0.65, giving an average of 33 core and 20 option modules. A total of 7475 modules made up the 228 courses, of which 62% or 4598 of all modules were classified as core, while the remaining 38% were options. The average number of modules per course was 33.

Admissions criteria

Entry to UK universities for undergraduate study is controlled by

Survey results

Fig. 5 offers a synopsis of the overall module findings. The chart plots the contribution of IS degree modules to the three subject categories: non-IS subjects, covering modules that belong to the combined FKS and DF categories; the Final Year Project which exists outside the three categories of ISSKS, DF, and FKS and IS 2010 core and option subjects combined together. As the chart suggests, we examined separately course modules offered as core from those offered as options, namely 4598 and

Conclusions

The work we present in this article is underpinned by the desire to support the IS academic community in the UK and elsewhere in its endeavour to devise increasingly relevant IS curricula. Although some similar studies have been carried out in the past, most of them were undertaken outside the UK. As a result, our efforts constitute an important first step in understanding the level of correlation between academic knowledge and skills imparted to IS students in the UK, and the skills that are

Angelos Stefanidis is responsible for managing the international partnerships and collaborations of the Faculty of Advanced Technology at the University of Glamorgan. His background is in software engineering and information systems design. He has spent 15 years teaching IS to undergraduate and postgraduate students. Over the last 9 years he has designed and delivered numerous professional training courses in computing. His research interests are concerned with Information Systems education and

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  • Cited by (0)

    Angelos Stefanidis is responsible for managing the international partnerships and collaborations of the Faculty of Advanced Technology at the University of Glamorgan. His background is in software engineering and information systems design. He has spent 15 years teaching IS to undergraduate and postgraduate students. Over the last 9 years he has designed and delivered numerous professional training courses in computing. His research interests are concerned with Information Systems education and more specifically, curriculum development in IS.

    Guy Fitzgerald is Professor of Information Systems at Brunel University. His research interests are concerned with the effective management and development of information systems and he has published widely in these areas. He is well known for his work in relation to development techniques and methodologies and is author, with David Avison, of a major text entitled Information Systems Development: Methodologies, Techniques and Tools. He is also known for his research in the areas of IS strategy and alignment, outsourcing, and executive information systems. He is founder and co-Editor-in-Chief of the Information Systems Journal (ISJ).

    Steve Counsell is a Reader in the Department of Information Systems and Computing at Brunel University. He received his PhD from Birkbeck, University of London in 2002 and his research interests relate to information systems, empirical software engineering; in particular, refactoring, software metrics and the study of software evolution. He worked as an industrial developer before his PhD.

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