Developing information technology specializations in growing IS environment areas

Abstract

As more and more businesses outsource information systems (IS) and information technology (IT) functionality, enrollments in college computer related programs in the U.S. will likely decline. A 2005 Gartner, Inc. report predicts that by 2010 information technology and/or information systems (IS/T) departments in mid-sized and large companies will be one-third smaller than they were in 2000. They further predict that, in order to keep their jobs, employees currently affiliated with an IS/T job function group in these companies will have to reorient themselves in roles that revolve around the relationships among business process and information. As a result, the size of IS/T departments will decrease within companies whose core business is not IS/T, and departments whose focus is a business process will take on more functions that once were the realm of IS/T. The National Workforce Center for Emerging Technologies calls this anticipated organizational shift IT infusion into other disciplines. Successful members of an IS/T infused business environment will have to be fluent in the conceptual bases behind core IS/T implementations and will also have to have a solid understanding of the processes of the core business. There may be no entry-level in-house training ground where freshly minted IS/T graduates can learn the core business while doing IT. Since college educators in professional programs partly measure their success based on employment statistics of their graduates, they need to respond by quickly finding a way to prepare their students for a core business. This paper will examine a strategy that is being implemented by one program in an urban research university. The strategy requires streamlining the commodity information technology content of the program in order to make room for specializations that focus on a core business. Of the core business specializations being considered at the institution reporting, some are being considered elsewhere and some are more unique.