Integrating Curriculum Across Courses in the Same Semester and Across Semesters Using a Service Learning Project

Abstract

Management Information Systems (MIS) departments are tasked with preparing students to successfully work for organizations in information technology (IT)related jobs. Accordingly, MIS departments develop a curriculum that provides both technical depth and business acumen. Typically, the business core provides the business acumen and the department’s curriculum provides technical depth. The courses that contribute to this technical depth include domains of programming, networking, database, systems analysis and design plus additional domains as electives. Each course is taught as a stand-alone course, and, although it may have one or more of the other MIS courses as prerequisites, integration across courses is minimal. The problem with this approach is that the different areas in MIS are tightly related. For example, programming a system requires an understanding of business requirements and design on which to write the programs. Programs that access a database using structured query language (SQL) statements require an understanding of the underlying data model, which is built based on functional requirements. At best, integration includes ensuring that prerequisites cover material needed for a particular course and discussing the interrelationships among the topics covered, often via a capstone course that ostensibly integrates all of the material from the previous courses. We propose and take an innovative, holistic approach to integration. Three faculty members teaching the systems analysis and design (SAD), the database management (DB), and the capstone database and development (CAP) courses integrated their courses using a common service learning project. This project consists of conducting a SAD, including a detailed database design and preliminary implementation during two courses in one semester. The following semester, the system is implemented in the third capstone course. Using an integrated project affects how the SAD and CAP courses are taught. Because analysis and design