Board 28: Working with Business and Industry to Update Nationwide IT Skill Standards

Abstract The “IT Skill Standards 2020 and Beyond” National Science Foundation Advanced Technological Education (ATE) project is creating a set of employer-led and verified Information Technology (IT) skill standards for 8-10 of the most critical contemporary IT job clusters. It has been fifteen years since the national IT skill standards were updated. Because of the fast-changing nature of IT, they are no longer useful to employers, educators, or potential IT workers. Educators use skill standards to create relevant, current curriculum to prepare students for the workforce. Employers use skill standards to improve communications about job openings to hire the most qualified candidates. Students and graduates use skill standards to better understand realities of the job market. The final skill standard update will be presented in as user-friendly a way as is possible. The “IT Skill Standards 2020 and Beyond” ATE project builds on a successful business engagement model developed by a national ATE center of excellence. This model – known as the “BILT” (Business and Industry Leadership Team) – puts business and industry leaders in a co-leadership role that allows them to make continuous recommendations on program curriculum to ensure it aligns with workforce needs. The goal is to teach students the skills they need to know to get hired. The national ATE center of excellence’s BILT – which includes IT experts from national companies based in regions across the US – convenes quarterly to discuss emerging industry trends and provide program guidance. Each summer, the BILT uses a voting system to rank and update a list of IT knowledge areas that entry-level IT workers need to know. That updated list is shared with 69 colleges around the country that are members of the national ATE center of excellence’s community of practice. Those schools use the updated list with their local BILTs to keep curriculum aligned with workforce needs. The “IT Skill Standards 2020 and Beyond” ATE project expands on this BILT model. First, at least 50 IT strategists are finalizing the current proposed list of IT job clusters. That final list will be vetted by at least 150 other IT business experts. This finalization process will be under way when the ASEE conference convenes in February 2019. Once those job clusters are finalized, individual job cluster BILTs will be assembled of at least 150 IT experts per cluster. Those cluster BILTs will work together, first through smaller focus groups to develop a list of essential skills for that cluster and then later with larger groups to finalize and refine the list as needed through the modified DACUM voting process. Along the way, at least 20 IT educators will be recruited for each job cluster to answer pedagogical questions as they arise. The educators will also map the final job cluster skills to representative two-year and four-year degree outcomes. An important element of the “IT Skill Standards 2020 and Beyond” ATE project is a pilot program to develop a process – perhaps an online crowd-sourcing approach – to keep these standards current far beyond their publication.