Curriculum Recommendation Research Articles

Feasibility of a synthetic temporal bone for training in mastoidectomy: face, content, and concurrent validity.

To investigate the face, content, and concurrent validity of the synthetic Pettigrew temporal bone (PTB) for mastoidectomy training as compared with cadaveric temporal bone (CTB). A prospective evaluation study. Participants were invited to perform a step-by-step modified radical mastoidectomy using both bones and complete a 22-item, 5-point Likert scale questionnaire. The questionnaire is divided into 4 domains: face validity (FV), global content (GC), task-specific content (TSC), and curriculum recommendation (CR). Thirty-six experts and 89 trainees completed all tasks, 63 using CTB and 62 using PTB. The PTB median FV was 4 (IQR: 4-5), GC of 4 (IQR: 4-5), TSC of 4 (IQR: 3-4), and CR of 4 (IQR: 4-5). The CTB was rated significantly higher than PTB by both groups in all domains; CTB FV: 5 (IQR: 4-5), GC: 5 (IQR: 4-5), TSC: 5 (IQR: 4-5), and CR: 5 (IQR: 5-5), p < 0.001 for each. Trainees rated PTB significantly higher than experts in all domains. There was no statistically significant difference between experts and trainees in rating the CTB in all domains. PTB gives similar haptic feedback to CTB, allows the use of suction and irrigation, has the important landmarks painted for identification, and contains articulating ossicles. The facial nerve anatomy was found to be inaccurate around the region of the second genu. Participants found PTB to be valid for teaching some, yet not all, aspects of mastoid surgery, and experts agreed that it could improve global transferrable otologic skills. It is essential that the facial nerve anatomy is addressed before recommending this model.

The Need for Qualitative Methods in Undergraduate IS Education

Introduction curriculum for Information (IS) programs is in a flux presently owing to the much reduced enrollment across the nation. Students are simply shying away from IS programs. Even the prediction that there will be a great demand for IS-related jobs in the near future (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2010) failed to increase enrolment in IS program across the United States. IS departments re-examined their programs and in some instances re-packaged their entire program to make it more attractive to students. With the changes in the curriculum, IS departments might also want to re-examine non-IS courses in their curriculum. A course that should be given more consideration is the qualitative research methods course. IS students in and Analysis Design and Human Computer Interaction courses are ill-equipped to utilize qualitative methods to gather and analyze users' requirement. Gathering and analyzing users' requirements is a critical step in the whole system design life cycle. Failure to correctly gather and analyze the users requirements would result in costly delays or failure of the entire system or project. This exploratory paper examines the need for the inclusion of qualitative methods course in the undergraduate IS curriculum. Literature Review need for an IS curriculum is greater in the 1980s than when it was first outlined in the position paper by a committee of the ACM (Nunamaker, Couger, & Davis, 1982). Even though the curriculum recommendations have expanded over the years, the motivations for the 1982-revised curriculum built upon those that motivated earlier curriculum efforts. expansion takes into consideration changes in the importance of information systems, advances in technology, improvements in information systems analysis and development processes, and an increased need for information systems management skills. Nunamaker et al. (1982) stress that in order for the information systems community to face the current and future demands; the curriculum should address the basic goals of people needs, skill needs, and tool needs. Furthermore, the basic philosophy of the IS program is based on the premise that graduates of the program will be employed for major segments of their careers in positions involving organizational information systems. They will * Assist in defining and planning information systems * Elicit information requirements for applications and assist in designing the systems * Implement information systems applications * Manage information system development and operation. All aspects of the global computing field continue to face rapid and frequent changes. As a result, university-level Information curricula need frequent updating to remain effective. IS 2010 Curriculum Guidelines for Undergraduate Degree Programs in Information is the latest curriculum recommendation. IS 2010 Curriculum Guidelines has four broad key characteristics that shape the outcome significantly. First, the curriculum reaches beyond the schools of business and management. Second, the outcome expectations of the curriculum have been very carefully reevaluated and articulated first in the form of high-level IS capabilities and then in three knowledge and skills categories. Third, the curriculum is structured so that it separates the core of the curriculum from electives with the intent of supporting the concept of career tracks. Finally, the design of this curriculum includes enough flexibility to allow its adoption in a variety of educational system contexts. (Topi, et al., 2010. p. vii) IS 2010 Curriculum Guidelines states the following as one of its key principles that guided the report is that The model curriculum should be designed to help Information programs to produce competent and confident entry-level graduates well suited to workplace responsibilities or further studies of Information Systems (Topi, et al. …

High School Mathematics Curricula, University Mathematics Placement Recommendations, and Student University Mathematics Performance

Recent “math wars” have drawn attention to how well various high school mathematics curricula prepare students for college-level mathematics. The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between the high school mathematics curricula and students' post-secondary mathematics placement recommendation, specifically how students responded to the mathematics placement recommendations and the students' performance in the first college mathematics class. The results showed no relationship between students' participation in a particular high school mathematics curriculum and mathematics placement recommendation, or between student high school mathematics curriculum and students' responses to a university mathematics placement recommendation. However, students who took a more/less difficult class than what was recommended achieved significantly lower/higher grades than those who followed the recommendation. The findings have implications for high school mathematics curricula selection, post-secondary student placement, and future research in this area.

Perceived Importance and Resource Constraints of Graduate Information Systems Courses in Turkey

Education is an expensive process and the quality of an education program is largely affected by resources devoted to it. Availability of qualified instructors and physical amenities such as labs are the most important resources that determine the educational quality. Based on the graduate Information Systems curriculum recommendation of Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) and Association for Information Systems (AIS) this article investigates the perceived importance of each course taught in graduate Information Systems programs in Turkey. The perceived importance is also compared with the availability of instructor and technological resources for each course to get an insight into educational resources and constraints.

Invited editorial

Constant changes in courses and curricula seem to be a fact of life for computing programs. Having participated in several curriculum creation and modification efforts, and in two major curriculum recommendation projects [1,2], and also having observed and reviewed many curriculum development efforts by others during the past 20 years or so, I take this opportunity to offer some observations about computing programs and issues related to their evolution and maintenance. (The term computing is used here to include programs with a wide range of names such as computer science, informatics, information systems, and computer engineering.) Most of the observations and comments that I make have been made before by myself and others, and there is no intention to make this a complete discussion of such issues. Instead, I offer some observations that seem, to me, important and relevant for many of the problems that we face today.

Recursive algorithm with C++ program for floating-point arithmetic

Floating point Arithmetic is a topic included in virtually all textbooks for Computer Systems (CS 3: ACM's Curriculum Recommendation) or for Computer Organization (CS 4: ACM's Curriculum Recommendation). This paper presents a mathematical optimization model for the topic. The problem of converting real (float) numbers into binary equivalents is first modeled as a Zero-One Integer Programming problem. Then, a Recursive Algorithm is formulated for Floating-Point Formats. Computer programs are written in both C and C++ for a 32-bit floating-point format, using the recursive algorithm. [The computer programs are available at the email