The Changing Information Systems (IS) Curriculum: A Survey of Undergraduate Programs in the United States

Abstract

The core curriculum of information systems (IS) is vital to the IS field. It serves as a base of knowledge that all IS graduates should possess. Within academic and practitioners' communities, there have been constant discussions about the content of the IS core curriculum. In this article, the authors used a direct survey strategy to examine all undergraduate IS programs offered by business schools in the United States. The survey presents the core curricula of undergraduate IS programs based on accreditation criteria and the most recent IS curriculum model, IS 2002. The authors also compared the current results with those obtained 10 years ago in a separate study (J. L. Maier & S. Gambill, 1996). The research established the current baseline of undergraduate IS curricula and showed how the curricula have changed in the past decade. Information provided in this article should be valuable to IS educators and curriculum designers, as well as IS practitioners, to better understand the foundational knowledge...