IT Program invited to symposium.
The IT program was invited to join four other institutions--Claremont-McKenna, George Mason, DePauw, and North Carolina State--at a symposium in May to develop a set of best practices for systemic IT across the curriculum (ITAC) programs. Each of these institutions has a successful ITAC program, although the approaches differ from ours substantially.
IT Capstone wins funding.
CITI, the Commonwealth Information Technology Initiative, awarded the IT Program $23,000 through a competitive RFP process. Funds will be used to hire faculty to develop course materials for an exciting new team capstone course that will be offered this fall, and to perform a formal assessment of the course experience. Faculty will be hired with expertise in needs assessment, design, project management, writing and presentation, team building, legal and ethical issues, and community service learning.
IT Program in new collaboration.
UMass Amherst will partner with Worcester State College, Salem State College, and Bristol Community College to strengthen IT across the Curriculum (ITAC) programs across the state. The partnership will 1) develop internship and recruitment relationships with Massachusetts industry for IT Minor students; 2) develop IT Minor recruiting materials based on employee profiles and employment opportunities that rely upon the integration of IT and another field; 3) and develop a proposal to share selected online ITAC courses across institutions statewide. This project will be funded by CITI.
IT Minor Enrollment Growing.
Enrollment in the IT Minor during the Fall 2004 semester was up 86% over the previous fall. Approximately 200 students have enrolled in the IT Minor in the two plus years since its start. An demographic assessment this enrollment is underway.
Community Service Learning IT Capstone.
Thanks to funding from the UMass Office of Community Service Learning at Commonwealth College, the IT program is developing and capstone course to be piloted Fall 2005. Seven faculty members, representing a broad cross section of departments, are developing the curriculum to support multidisciplinary student teams serving the community with IT-related projects.
Renewed CITI funding.
Thanks to an anonymous private donor and matching funds from the Board of Higher Education's Pipeline Fund, the Commonwealth Information Technology Initiative (CITI) has renewed funding. CITI played a primary role in the formation of our campus' information technology program and other similar efforts statewide. This new funding will focus on building and enhancing "IT Across the Curriculum" efforts at public higher education institutions in Massachusetts, and it will fund regional collaborations promoting this broad view of IT education in middle and high schools.
Learning Commons to come to UMass
The Information Technology Task Force is playing a key role in a campus-wide effort to develop infrastructure to support our IT Across the Curriculum objective. The most exciting component of this is the Learning Commons, a technology-infused learning environment, that is in planning stages. Visit the Learning Commons website for more information on a recent event the IT Task Force co-sponsored.
IT Minor selected as model interdisciplinary minor!
The Reinvention Center, a national center focusing on undergraduate education at research universities, has selected our Information Technology Minor as one of five models of innovative interdisciplinary minors. For details, see their website (select "Spotlight").
First IT Minors finish!
More than two dozen students have finished the coursework for UMass Amherst's new intercollegiate IT Minor.
The students are among 100 in an array of majors from seven of the University's nine colleges and schools who are enrolled to complete the IT Minor.
A second class of students will be enrolled this Fall 2003.
IT Club debuts.
Almost 100 students expressed interest in a new Information Technology Club in its debut meeting.
The objective of the club is to encourage students to study and to pursue careers in information technology.
Planned events included a trip to the New York Stock Exchange and IBM Headquarters in New York.
The Club is accepting ideas for future meetings and activities. The club is open to any student with an interest in information technology. For more information, e-mail itclub@som.umass.edu.
IT Minor Applications Available
September 2002 - UMass Amherst students are encouraged to submit applications for admission to the campus' new Information Technology Minor by Tuesday, Oct. 1.
Applications are available by contacting the chair of the UMass IT Task Force.
A limited number of students admitted to the program will begin their formally-recognized work for the Minor in Spring semester -- but students may count work satisfactorily completed toward the Minor, including classes to be taken this Fall. Formal admission to the program will occur this Fall, in time for students to register for classes for next semester.
The UMass-Amherst Faculty Senate approved the campus-wide undergraduate Information Technology Minor in May. See news release.
The Minor was proposed by an interdisciplinary group of faculty, administrators and staff organized through the campus Information Technology Task Force. The Minor ultimately is expected to be open to any student, in any major. Because of the budget challenges facing the University, the Minor will be implemented on a small scale first, without new University resources.
The Minor is expected to be open to about 50-75 students for each semester.
The measure was supported by faculty and administrators from across the University, in all nine colleges and schools.
The Minor is the first of its kind, in that it draws on faculty in disciplines across the University to produce a campus-wide program, intended to produce information technology generalists across all academic fields.
The campus' Information Technology program began developing in 1998, and received a boost in 2000-2001 through course development grants from the Commonwealth Information Technology Program, funded by the Massachusetts Board of Higher Education. The grants funded a variety of courses for the program.
20 IT Courses Offered in 2001
August 2001 - Thanks to a Commonwealth Information Technology Initiative (CITI) grant from the Massachusetts Board of Higher Education, 20 undergraduate IT courses are being offered at the University of Massachusetts Amherst -- 12 during the Fall 2001 semester. Many of the new classes have never been offered before. Short descriptions of them may be found on the courses page.
Pushing Ahead: A Status Report
August 2001 - With support from students, University faculty, staff and administrators are preparing to ask the Faculty Senate to approve an IT program as part of a formal, university-wide curriculum. The filing is expected in September.
Spring 2001 - Little more than a year after the first formal discussion, the Information Technology Program at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst is rapidly taking shape. Recent developments highlight an ambitious effort with potential to reach 177,000 students in Massachusetts' three public higher education systems. The program may rank among the Commonwealth's most important educational initiatives.
Read: "Pushing Ahead: An IT Program Status Report
(PDF format, 60K, requires Adobe Acrobat Reader)
CITI Administrative Director Appointed
Dec. 4, 2000
Brenda Philips has been appointed to fill the position of administrative director for the Commonwealth Information Technology Initiative (CITI). Cora Marrett, provost and vice chancellor for academic affairs, announced the appointment. Philips began work November 15.
The Commonwealth Information Technology Initiative is a comprehensive program to address the information technology industry's needs for an educated workforce. This initiative is housed at UMass Amherst and has been funded by the Board of Higher Education at $1.7 million for the first year of the three-year initiative. The goal of the CITI is to enhance and strengthen the academic information technology programs in all of public higher education (the 29 community colleges, state colleges and universities) in the state.
Philips comes to UMass with more than seven years of experience in creating and managing complex education programs. Among her activities, she was director of the Lemelson National Program at Hampshire College. She helped establish and manage Hampshire College's $4.5 million innovation and entrepreneurship program. In addition, she helped create the National Collegiate Inventors and Innovators Alliance, an organization that disseminates the teaching of innovation and entrepreneurship to schools nationwide.
In her most recent position, she was executive director of EntreNetwork where she created a new consortium that develops high-impact, collaborative programs promoting entrepreneurship in Western Massachusetts. The consortium sponsored the recent conference "The Internet Economy Comes to Main Street" which was opened by Governor Cellucci, and featured many national speakers. She also created the award winning website entrenetwork.com. She has a BA and MBA from Yale University.
In addition to working with Marrett, who is also the principal investigator of CITI, Philips will work closely with Drs. Jim Kurose (department head of Computer Science) and Joe Goldstein (dean of Engineering), co-investigators of CITI.
Significant Funding for New Program
November, 2000 - The Massachusetts Board of Higher Education (BHE) has awarded $1.68 million to develop a comprehensive program to expand IT-related course offerings in all academic disciplines; enhance faculty skills and modernize curriclum in computer science, computer engineering, and information technology; and promote collaboration in the IT area across the Commonwealth's three systems of public higher education. The program is named "Commonwealth Information Technology Initiative" (CITI).
Download PDF file of CITI Initiative
(65 K, requires Adobe Acrobat Reader)
All-Campus IT Workshop: Developing an Information Technology Curriculum
On October 13, 2000, over 110 faculty and administrators from the UMass Amherst campus participated in an interdisciplinary workshop to help define components of a new IT minor. During break-out sessions, participants sought to identify a common set of courses that might be offered as an IT minor across all academic disciplines. The workshop concluded with discussion of a request for new course proposals, to be funded by the CITI grant, to flesh out elements of the new minor. The program:
8am Registration
8:30 Welcome and workshop goals (Auditorium) Bill Israel, Department of Journalism
8:35 Introduction (Provost Marrett)
8:50 Two perspectives A View From the Field: An Alumni Perspective (20 minutes) (Cheryl Harris, Chief Experience Officer, OMNIENT) A Faculty Perspective (10 minutes) (Charlie Schweik, Department of Resource Economics and Center for Public Policy and Administration)
9:20 Summary of last year's workshop (Joe Goldstein, Dean of Engineering) Overview of the System-wide BHE/CPIP Grant (Jim Kurose, Chair, Computer Science)
9:50 The initial IT curriculum Overview on IT steering committee work (Les Ball, Assoc. Dean, School of Management) Initial minor design and an overview on core courses (Seshu Desu, Head, Dept. of Electrical and Computer Engineering)
10:05 Coffee break and brainstorming (8th floor)
10:15 Breakout sessions - How would the IT minor work in my College/School or Department? Breakout sessions will occur in several meeting rooms on the 8th floor of the Campus Center. Participants will find their designated breakout room assignments on the "Breakout Group" handout given at registration.
12:00 Lunch (Amherst Room, 1009)
12:30 Lunch speaker: Chancellor Judith Gill, Board of Higher Education
1:00 Report back and discussion (Auditorium) 2:00 Introduction to the local request for proposal process (Provost Marrett)
2:05 Presentation: Course proposal guidelines (Seshu Desu) RFP process: (Criteria for evaluation, How $ will be allocated, Timeline, Contact person or persons for questions) Question and answer
3:00 Concluding comments (Provost Marrett)
Workshop Keynote Address by Dr. Cheryl Harris
The topics that have been addressed so far today are ones to which I've also given a lot of thought over the past several years, as I've interviewed and hired literally dozens of new and recent graduates to work with me at several different internet companies in NYC and California. I've also spent a great deal of time investigating emerging programs in IT, e-business, new media, etc, at universities across the country in the hope of finding a single source for promising new hires, and have been consistently disappointed. There just doesnÕt seem to be - yet - a higher education curriculum that takes into account the disciplinary overlaps and shifts of the last several years. So, I've definitely fantasized about my "ideal information worker" and jumped at the chance to talk about that with you. However, I'm not saying that there is an expectation that colleges and universities operate as vocational schools. I feel very strongly that the most important criteria for success in this or any industry is the ability to think critically and effectively.
First, a couple of disclaimers, in the interest of fairness.
My perspective is anecdotal, based on my own experiences running internet companies and talking to colleagues in similar positions around the country. Also, the internet business isn't yet a culture receptive to research, which is one of the things I want to talk about today, so lots of facts and figures on its employees and general context are lacking.
Second, I'm afraid my futuristic visionary muscles may have atrophied a bit while working in an industry that rarely looks ahead or behind more than 12 or 18 months. I realize that universities need a far greater range of motion than that, but I hope I can shed some light, at least directionally, on likely trends.
Having said all that, I have to admit that I strongly believe that the way in which universities are traditionally organized is a hindrance to their ability to step up to the challenge of the "information worker" era. Particularly, I think an embedded assumption of the industrial age is that education (and learning) terminates with the award of a degree. Industrial age workers with equipped with most of what they needed to know at the beginning of their careers, and the world held still long enough not to challenge that too much.
Now, of course, that assumption is a dreadful error. Organizing around that thought led to the idea that deep preparation in single subject - "the major" - within a immersive, temporary learning environment was the best response, and it was, in former times. These concepts are smashed to bits now, but universities cannot easily mobilize around what I think are the two most pressing needs:
1. Learning that is lifelong
2. Profoundly inter - and cross-disciplinary training
Since arguably every new graduate is destined to "knowledge work" for their lifetime, these would be the greatest gifts that we could bestow - the ability to move fluidly between many interrelated disciplines and ideas, and a taste for continued learning and growth.
Yes, I'm saying that departments and majors in their present form are anachronistic. As a former academic myself, and hopefully I will return to teaching one day soon, I know thatÕs subversive, even blasphemous, but please bear with me a few moments and I'll explain how I came to that conclusion. It was the result of some painful personal lessons and observations:
"Knowledge Companies" (or in my perspective e-business concerns) have experimented with two different work models. One is notably more successful than the other. The first is assembly-line, functionally organized, 'throw it over the wall' production. This is more of an industrial age model. The second requires fluid teams which form around projects or goals, and which are highly collaborative and iterative, and in which functional boundaries are thrown out. The impression is more of a 'swarm of brainpower' brought to bear simultaneously on a problem. The model is closer to the notion of a distributed computing model where linked machines set to work on a problem are exponentially more powerful than a series of sequential units.
This second model works much more effectively and efficiently but it is very difficult to teach this method to people because our educational experiences do not generally reward this kind of behavior. In schools and universities, students are rewarded for working alone and for individual achievement, not group achievement, and for solving problems in a linear fashion. The second model also only works if all members are effectively cross-trained. Cross-training is foiled by the immersive "major course of study" emphasis of traditional universities. Students generally have little more than superficial exposure to disciplines outside their major coursework, and within the major courses there usually is not a lot of emphasis on making connections to concepts that might be related within other disciplines.
I love to teach, but overcoming those two challenges in a fast moving business are daunting. I have to winnow out people who are intolerant of the new way of working and learning, simply because there is so little time to re-train on the job.
The loosely defined functions in internet companies sound new but they are aggregates of disciplines that should have corollaries in existing university curricula, but currently do not. Internet companies divide along two lines, in general, and both camps must have intimate knowledge and appreciation of the other.
These are:
USER EXPERIENCE
TECHNOLOGY (Includes: Information Architecture Design Marketing)
STRATEGY Strategy shifts constantly seek to align the two general functions.
Technology requires great conceptual thinkers, because retooling is constant, so flexibility in thinking and learning is a must.
User Experience is the "holy grail" and leads all efforts - it is what internet users see, perceive and experience - but it is a challenge because, providing just one example, user experience has to do with everything that contributes to optimizing interaction between technology and people. To do it well, realistically a person needs to know media theory (how images are "read"), research methods (to know how to match people's needs to solutions in a rigorous way), cognitive psychology, social psychology, art and design theory, taxonomy principles (such as those taught in library and information sciences), how the brain works, and what is known about human factors, usability, and interface design from decades of previous technological development. This brief list of desirable skills and knowledge pretty much crosses all the disciplinary boundaries of a university, and or course, it is unlikely that a student would have deep preparation in more than one or two of these. That is one of the reasons so much internet design/development is disjointed, difficult, and problematic at present.
Furthermore, effective strategic planning, so important in forward-looking technology fields, is produced only by good critical thinkers, MBA's or no, who can link or synthesize diverse paradigms, and who know the historical context of what they're looking at, and who are not constantly re-inventing the wheel just because they can.
So, for me, the ideal world would be a truly cross-disciplinary program that produced a paragon with all these virtues. I joked with Glenn Gordon when he first mentioned this initiative to me that I would certainly hire every one of these paragons that your future program could produce, but I'm afraid I would have to get in line with a lot of my colleagues if you succeed in developing a program even close to the one I described. I truly look forward to participating in this effort with you, and to our further discussion today. Thank you.
Preliminary Report from the IT Task Force Curriculum Committee
Spring 2000
Members of the Committee: Seshu B. Desu, Dave Barrington, Charlie Schweik, Graham Gal, and Harlan Sturm
The committee focused on developing core curriculum for a minor in information technology (IT). The emphasis for the core curriculum was such that any student irrespective of their background should be able to take these courses and be able to get a minor. Although a minor only requires only five (3-unit) courses, the committee decided to develop several courses in order to provide choices for students with different interests.
The list of courses the committee decided on are:
1) Introduction to Information Technology
The objective of this course will include: teaching students the concepts of modern computer information systems with an emphasis on the key concept of information; teaching the rudiments of modern electronic technology. This course will also prepare the students technically so that they can succeed in other IT courses. Several faculty members from different departments may be involved in developing this course. Computer Science Department currently offers couple general courses. These courses may be used as a basis for developing this course.
2) Principles of Object Oriented Programming
The course will provide students with the necessary background in object-oriented design and programming. The students will be exposed to object oriented design strategies and language features & constructs that support the object environment. Upon completion of the course, students will be able to apply system development principles using an object-oriented language, show how object-oriented techniques increase productivity of complex systems. This course will be jointly developed by both CS and ECE departments.
3) Representing, Storing and Retrieving Information
This course will provide an introduction to the representation, storage, retrieval, manipulation, analysis and display of information. This course includes an introduction to data structures, design principles of databases, database models and database management systems, architectures, database analysis and design, and database administration. Topics such as heterogeneous collection of data and effectiveness of various search engines will also be included. Prof. Barrington (CS) is taking the lead in developing this course, which will be available for Fall-00. CS will be underwriting the development cost.
4) Introduction to Internet Technology
The objective of the course is to develop a familiarity with the concepts, vocabulary and tools of internet technology as well as enhance studentsÕ written and oral presentation skills. Prof. Ganz (ECE) is currently developing this course and will be offered in Fall-00. ECE is underwriting the development cost.
5) Multimedia Systems
This course introduces students to the systems issues in multimedia, providing a unified view of the way that multimedia applications are implemented as well as specific details on the design of various multimedia system components. Students will use various web-based tools to learn the various engineering issues in multimedia (e.g. network performance, compression algorithms, errors). The course will present simple intuitive explanations of multimedia systems, avoiding the advanced mathematics required for a thorough understanding, but providing sufficient depth to understand the multimedia issues in larger IT systems. Prof. Burleson (ECE) is currently developing this course and will be offered in Fall-00. ECE is underwriting the development cost.
6) Political and Social Impact of Information Technology
This course discusses issues such as free speech versus censorship, privacy, ethics, intellectual property, cybercrimes versus security, liability, safety and electronic government. Prof. Schweik (Pub. Pol) is looking into developing this course. However, we need to find financial support for developing this course.
7) The Political Economy of Information Technology
The course deals with the various political and economic theories related to IT. Issues such as information transport, information content, information markets, electronic markets, government intervention, electronic communities and changing urban economies. In addition to examining the macro indicators and trends, the course will also examine the microeconomics and politics of specific arenas such as software industry, telemedicine. Currently, we neither identified leaders nor found funding for developing this course.
8) Management of Information Technology in Organizations This course deals with the issues of information technology management in public and nonprofit organization. Topics include, information management concepts, organizational applications and issues, and strategic planning of IT. Prof. Gal (SOM) will be looking into developing this course.
The courses 3, 4 and 5 are being developed currently and will be offered in Fall-00 for honor students as a pilot. The detailed course descriptions are attached for each of these courses. Honors College may be able to pay $5,250 per course, which will cover part of the cost of instructor expense for teaching the course.
Enclosures:
1) Sample layout of Courses leading to a Bachelor of Science degree in Information Technology from RPI.
2) List courses offered by the School of Information Science and Technology of Penn. State
