Alternative Approaches to Data Architecture and Data Governance: Graduate IT/IS Curriculum Considerations

With data architectures evolving from data warehouses to data lakes to data fabric, there is a pressing need for organizations to upgrade their data management and data governance strategies. A workforce gap appears inevitable as knowledge and skills in these emerging technologies is currently not emphasized in the IT/IS discipline. From an educator’s perspective, the question becomes whether we are preparing our students for this increasingly significant workforce need. A strategic curriculum model to determine when and how to incorporate new technology coverage into the curriculum was applied to the potential implementation of these emerging concepts into our curriculum. The authors examined the alternative approach to data architecture, data management, and data governance, and proposed a new certificate in Data Architecture and Governance to be inserted in the graduate IT/IS curriculum at their school.