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<div style="TEXT-ALIGN: left; MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class="MsoNormal" align="left"><font size="3" face="Calibri">A few weeks ago, I posted a request for information regarding the status of Computer Applications/Introduction to Computing courses in our schools.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I have compiled the responses and have summarized them into the major themes.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Thanks again to those individuals who responded.</font></div>
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<p style="TEXT-ALIGN: left; MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class="MsoNormal" align="left"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal"><font face="Calibri"><font size="3">Course Content:</font></font></b></p>
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<p style="TEXT-ALIGN: left; MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class="MsoNormal" align="left"><font face="Calibri"><font size="3">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.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></font></font></p>
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<p style="TEXT-ALIGN: left; MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class="MsoNormal" align="left"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal"><font face="Calibri"><font size="3">“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.”</font></font></i></p>
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<p style="TEXT-ALIGN: left; MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class="MsoNormal" align="left"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal"><font face="Calibri"><font size="3">“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?".”</font></font></i></p>
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<p style="TEXT-ALIGN: left; MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class="MsoNormal" align="left"><font size="3" face="Calibri">Additionally, some respondents indicated the need for students to have a basic level of proficiency in HTML, web design, and the social/mobile Internet.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Regardless of content, the course is aimed largely at reaching students at the freshman and sophomore levels.</font></p>
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<p style="TEXT-ALIGN: left; MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class="MsoNormal" align="left"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal"><font face="Calibri"><font size="3">Course Structure/Delivery:</font></font></b></p>
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<p style="TEXT-ALIGN: left; MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class="MsoNormal" align="left"><font size="3" face="Calibri">As expected, there is considerable variation about the approaches used among universities in disseminating the course content and evaluating students’ level of learning.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Most if not all of the respondents mentioned heavy utilization of web delivery for at least some of the course content.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>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.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Also, some respondents mentioned that they use either web content, which serves as a <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal">digital textbook</i>, or have created a textbook for their course.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Here is a synopsis of the variation in course structure:</font></p>
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<p style="TEXT-ALIGN: left; MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class="MsoNormal" align="left"><font size="3" face="Calibri">University A:</font></p>
<p style="TEXT-ALIGN: left; MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class="MsoNormal" align="left"><font size="3" face="Calibri">- There are 7 plenary lectures in the course of the year that cover theoretical background knowledge and practical demonstrations by the lectures</font></p>
<p style="TEXT-ALIGN: left; MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class="MsoNormal" align="left"><font size="3" face="Calibri">- 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</font></p>
<p style="TEXT-ALIGN: left; MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class="MsoNormal" align="left"><font size="3"><font face="Calibri">- There are 5 evaluations and 2 assessments, where </font><span style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Times New Roman','serif'; COLOR: black">Evaluations </span><i><span style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Times New Roman','serif'; COLOR: mediumblue">diagnose </span></i><span style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Times New Roman','serif'; COLOR: black">the skills level of the student at a given stage, the Entry Assessment is a </span><i><span style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Times New Roman','serif'; COLOR: mediumblue">benchmark </span></i><span style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Times New Roman','serif'; COLOR: black">activity, and the Exit Assessment determines the </span><i><span style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Times New Roman','serif'; COLOR: mediumblue">Module Mark</span></i></font></p>
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<p style="TEXT-ALIGN: left; MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class="MsoNormal" align="left"><font size="3" face="Calibri">University B:</font></p>
<p style="TEXT-ALIGN: left; MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class="MsoNormal" align="left"><font size="3" face="Calibri">Has switched from a course spread out over an entire term to a 1 week block type of course</font></p>
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<p style="TEXT-ALIGN: left; MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class="MsoNormal" align="left"><font size="3" face="Calibri">University C:</font></p>
<p style="TEXT-ALIGN: left; MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class="MsoNormal" align="left"><font size="3" face="Calibri">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.</font></p>
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<p style="TEXT-ALIGN: left; MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class="MsoNormal" align="left"><font size="3" face="Calibri">University D:</font></p>
<p style="TEXT-ALIGN: left; MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class="MsoNormal" align="left"><font size="3" face="Calibri">While such content (e.g., Excel, Access, HTML) is important, there is no standard course for teaching it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Students are expected to receive skills as part of their various courses within their degree program.</font></p>
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<p style="TEXT-ALIGN: left; MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class="MsoNormal" align="left"><font size="3" face="Calibri">University E:</font></p>
<p style="TEXT-ALIGN: left; MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class="MsoNormal" align="left"><font size="3" face="Calibri">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.</font></p>
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<p style="TEXT-ALIGN: left; MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class="MsoNormal" align="left"><font size="3" face="Calibri">University F:</font></p>
<p style="TEXT-ALIGN: left; MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class="MsoNormal" align="left"><font size="3" face="Calibri">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.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>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.</font></p>
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<p style="TEXT-ALIGN: left; MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class="MsoNormal" align="left"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal"><font size="3"><font face="Calibri">Reason for changes:</font></font></b></p>
<p style="TEXT-ALIGN: left; MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class="MsoNormal" align="left"><font size="3" face="Calibri">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).</font></p>
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<p style="TEXT-ALIGN: left; MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class="MsoNormal" align="left"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal"><font size="3"><font face="Calibri">Other Ideas:</font></font></b></p>
<p style="TEXT-ALIGN: left; MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class="MsoNormal" align="left"><font size="3" face="Calibri">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.</font></p>
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<p style="TEXT-ALIGN: left; MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class="MsoNormal" align="left"><font size="3" face="Calibri">A few respondents also offered their course resources to the IS community:</font></p>
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<p style="TEXT-ALIGN: left; MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class="MsoNormal" align="left"><font size="3" face="Calibri">John Gallaugher (Boston College) offers his resources at </font><a href="http://gallaugher.com/"><font color="#0000ff" size="3" face="Calibri">http://gallaugher.com</font></a><font size="3" face="Calibri">, which has open-source slide sets, podcasts, assignments, additional readings, etc.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Additionally, John has written an IS textbook, which is freely available<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal"> </i>online: </font><a href="http://bit.ly/ISbook"><font color="#0000ff" size="3" face="Calibri">http://bit.ly/ISbook</font></a><font size="3" face="Calibri">.</font></p>
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<div style="TEXT-ALIGN: left; MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class="MsoNormal" align="left"><font size="3" face="Calibri">Larry Press (Cal State University, Dominguez Hills) also has some interesting course resources via his blogs at </font><a href="http://computerliteracy3.blogspot.com/"><font size="3" face="Calibri">http://computerliteracy3.blogspot.com/</font></a><font size="3" face="Calibri"> and </font><a href="http://cis275topics.blogspot.com/2010/09/about-our-electronic-text.html"><font size="3" face="Calibri">http://cis275topics.blogspot.com/2010/09/about-our-electronic-text.html</font></a><font size="3" face="Calibri">.</font></div>
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<div style="TEXT-ALIGN: left; MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class="MsoNormal" align="left"><font size="3" face="Calibri">Regards,</font></div>
<div style="TEXT-ALIGN: left; MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class="MsoNormal" align="left"><font size="3" face="Calibri">Clay</font><br>-- <br></div>
<div>*********************************************<br><br>Clay Posey, D.B.A.<br>Assistant Professor of MIS<br>College of Business<br>University of Arkansas at Little Rock</div>
<div>2801 South University Avenue</div>
<div>Little Rock, AR 72204</div>
<div>Office: (501) 683-7139</div>
<div>Fax: (501) 683-7021</div>
<div><a href="mailto:mcposey@ualr.edu" target="_blank">mcposey@ualr.edu</a></div><br>