[AISWorld] Responses to: Status of Your Institution's Fundamentals of IT / Computer Tools Course

[Michael Posey]

Hello all,

A few weeks ago, I posted a request for information regarding the status of
Computer Applications/Introduction to Computing courses in our schools.  I
have compiled the responses and have summarized them into the major themes.
Thanks again to those individuals who responded.

* *

*Course Content:*

* *

While some individuals still see this course as an introduction to office
applications such as those in the MS Office Productivity Suite—with a
particular focus on Excel and Access—others view this course as a way to
introduce students to the logic of computation and the transformation that
technology has had within and among organizations while also attempting to
drive interest in the IS field.



*“We no longer see this course as merely a matter of getting bumbling
novices to use a computer, but as an introduction into the logic of
computation – for non-computer science students.”*



*“About 6 years ago we restructured our pure skills course into one that's
half skills (Excel), the other half "First course in management taught
through the lens of technology" - big question approached is "How do you
compete when everyone can copy your tech and the competition is a click
away?".”*



Additionally, some respondents indicated the need for students to have a
basic level of proficiency in HTML, web design, and the social/mobile
Internet.  Regardless of content, the course is aimed largely at reaching
students at the freshman and sophomore levels.



*Course Structure/Delivery:*

* *

As expected, there is considerable variation about the approaches used among
universities in disseminating the course content and evaluating students’
level of learning.  Most if not all of the respondents mentioned heavy
utilization of web delivery for at least some of the course content.  Many
schools utilize tools such as SimNet, MyITLab, and SAM to deliver customized
training to their students for the traditional applications (i.e., Word,
Excel, PowerPoint, and Access)—some with only minimal or no face-to-face
interaction with students.  Also, some respondents mentioned that they use
either web content, which serves as a *digital textbook*, or have created a
textbook for their course.  Here is a synopsis of the variation in course
structure:



University A:

- There are 7 plenary lectures in the course of the year that cover
theoretical background knowledge and practical demonstrations by the
lectures

- 12 weeks are dedicated to self study where students perform a standard set
of practical exercises in their own time prior to the next evaluation period

- There are 5 evaluations and 2 assessments, where Evaluations *diagnose *the
skills level of the student at a given stage, the Entry Assessment is
a *benchmark
*activity, and the Exit Assessment determines the *Module Mark*



University B:

Has switched from a course spread out over an entire term to a 1 week block
type of course



University C:

Instructors take one class day for each of the application technologies to
introduce it and talk about the assigned project; however, students are
expected to learn how to use the technology based on the computer based
training tool or other external-to-the-class resources.



University D:

While such content (e.g., Excel, Access, HTML) is important, there is no
standard course for teaching it.  Students are expected to receive skills as
part of their various courses within their degree program.



University E:

It's a required course in the school and is taught with split teaching
loads—IS group teaches the IS portion, and Computer Science teaches the
Excel portion.



University F:

Offers an online MS-Office tools course that was developed locally, which is
now used by several departments as a replacement to a frontal course or lab.
The course contains teaching modules for MS-Word, Excel, PPT and Access
2007, including exercises. Students study these modules and are examined at
the end of the term. There is an online forum for Q&A with the course staff.
Faculty give 2 frontal lessons: one at the beginning of the term to
introduce the online course and another one towards the end of the term to
clarify more complex functions in Excel, such as vlookup, hlookup and pivot
tables.



*Reason for changes:*

For schools that have changed the course content in recent times,
respondents mentioned several reasons for the change, including an entire
remodel of IS program, plummeting IS enrollments, students becoming greatly
confused about what IS was—not just Office applications, students did not
understand the various career options available to them, and poor student
evaluations about course content (i.e., should not be teaching basic
productivity tools).



*Other Ideas:*

To help keep the course interesting, one faculty member stated that
contemporary web tools such as LinkedIn, Google docs, Wolfram Alpha, and
others assist in making the course interesting to students, especially as
they work through less exciting introductory material, definitions, etc.



A few respondents also offered their course resources to the IS community:



John Gallaugher (Boston College) offers his resources at
http://gallaugher.com, which has open-source slide sets, podcasts,
assignments, additional readings, etc.  Additionally, John has written an IS
textbook, which is freely available* *online: http://bit.ly/ISbook.


Larry Press (Cal State University, Dominguez Hills) also has some
interesting course resources via his blogs at
http://computerliteracy3.blogspot.com/ and
http://cis275topics.blogspot.com/2010/09/about-our-electronic-text.html.

Regards,
Clay
-- 
*********************************************

Clay Posey, D.B.A.
Assistant Professor of MIS
College of Business
University of Arkansas at Little Rock
2801 South University Avenue
Little Rock, AR  72204
Office: (501) 683-7139
Fax: (501) 683-7021
mcposey at ualr.edu
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