Business Technology Education in the Early 21st Century: The Ongoing Quest for Relevance

Introduction The interplay--and sometimes conflict--between "theory" and "practice" in technology education is well documented (Becher, 1989; Cohen, 2002; Cougar, 1973; Drysdale, 1996; Hoffman, 2003; Lethbridge, 1998a, 1998b; Mehic & Al-Soufi, 1999; Reichgelt, Lunt, Ashford, Phelps, Slazinski, & Willis, 2004; Trauth, Farrell, & Lee, 1993; Verton, 2004; Wohlin & Bjorn, 1999). Scholars and practitioners have been writing about it for decades--and are likely to continue to do so. Many of these discussions have been about the roles that each community should play: educators should educate; practitioners should apply; educators should communicate principles; practitioners should train. But the relationship is far more complicated than the simple definition of roles. There are issues that surround the pace and trajectory of change in theory and practice. There are issues surrounding the evolving roles of "educators" and "trainers," and there are even issues surrounding the responsibilities that theory and practice have to their constituents: as careers get more difficult to build around academic technology majors steps should be taken to improve professional opportunities. The pace and trajectory of change is especially salient to the discussion here. The field of information technology (IT) is changing dramatically. Some would mark the beginning of the transformation with the crash of the dot.coms which began in 2000. Others would mark it as 2001 when annual IT spending declined dramatically after an almost ten years of steady annual increases. Others might even mark the beginning of the transformation with the publication of Nickolas Carr's "IT Doesn't Matter," the article that triggered a huge debate about IT as a commodity versus strategic weapon (Carr, 2003). Still others point to increases in near- and off-shore outsourcing as another indicator of change which as reduced the demand for U.S.-educated computer scientists who might want to enter the field of programming. The way we educate future technology professionals is also changing. There have been several curriculum changes and guidelines proposed over time that attempt to address the changes in technology and design optimal pedagogical approaches in response to these changes. One of the most recent changes recommends that five technology majors be developed to prospective students seeking professional careers in broadly defined computing and communications technology. This paper examines the direction of the changes in theory and practice with specific reference to relevance. The analysis presented here is based on survey data collected from 2001-2004 and upon on-going work of the academic professional associations' attempts to redesign technology curricula. The paper concludes that the gap between the practice and the education of IT is widening. Some recommendations are also made for shrinking the gap between theory and practice. The Practice of IT During the period from 2001-2004, an on-line survey sponsored by the Cutter Consortium (a technology industry research organization; www.cutter.com) collected data from Chief Information Officers (CIOs), Chief Technology Officers (CTOs), technology managers, Chief Executive Officers (CEOs), Chief Financial Officers (CFOs), technology consultants and vendors about the content of the field, the skill sets necessary to succeed, and the technologies most likely to be applied, neglected or decommissioned (Cutter Consortium, 2004). Over one thousand professionals responded to the survey. The survey data was subsequently presented to--and validated by--the Villanova University CIO Advisory Council, which consists of twenty-five Chief Information Officers from the Philadelphia region. The data suggested that the practice of the field is organizing itself around five layers and two flanks. Figure 1 presents the business technology layers and flanks that can be used to identify and describe the skills necessary to succeed in the early 21st century. …