Business Information Technology Degree Courses: A Progress Report

Abstract

Business Information Technology (BIT) is a relatively new and still developing concept, which is offered as an under‐graduate programme of study at an ever‐increasing number of educational institutions. Kingston Business School has been at the forefront of such developments and offers a four year ‘thick’ sandwich BSc (Hons) BIT course, which has a one year industrial period and consists of the following three central study themes: — Business Strategy, Operations and Environment — Information Systems/ — Information Technology (IS/IT) — Quantitative Decision Methods and Analysis This paper concentrates on the Business and IT aspects of the course and considers the experiences and lessons learnt over the last six years in order to attempt to answer the question: ‘what exactly is BIT?’ It concludes that the essence of BIT is the close integration of the above study themes in order to produce knowledgable, adaptable graduates, who have the technical and inter‐personal skills to work successfully in a rapidly changing business environment. The author is involved in course development, collaboration with business partners and a significant amount of BIT course teaching, particularly on the final year.