The Need for Qualitative Methods in Undergraduate IS Education

Introduction The curriculum for Information Systems (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 Systems 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 The 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. The 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 Systems curricula need frequent updating to remain effective. The IS 2010 Curriculum Guidelines for Undergraduate Degree Programs in Information Systems is the latest curriculum recommendation. The 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) The 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 Systems programs to produce competent and confident entry-level graduates well suited to workplace responsibilities or further studies of Information Systems" (Topi, et al. …