Identifying and evaluating information technology bachelor's degree programs

Abstract

This paper describes the process for identifying and evaluating Information Technology (IT) bachelor’s programs in the United States, in an effort to answer the question, how many IT bachelor’s programs are there in the US? Due to widespread variation in the names of academic degree programs, one cannot simply count those named Information Technology. At SIGITE 2011, a framework was presented for identifying IT programs and for evaluating their compliance to an accepted standard. This framework has been applied throughout this research. We first compiled a list of prospective IT programs to research. Each university on the list was researched by looking at their university webpage in search of a list of computing majors listed at that university. If, at a glance, these program’s required courses look similar to those required in an IT program, the program was evaluated and given a numerical score compliance factor, as compared to the standard, no matter the name of the major. This compliance factor is calculated using the assessment form that is included in this document. The results of this analysis are presented. General Terms Computing Programs, Information Technology