Analysis and Design: Assessing Actual and Desired Course Content

Authors

William J. Tastle, Ithaca College
Jack Russell, Northwestern State University

Abstract

A survey concerning the topics taught in the systems analysis and design course, how much time an instructor devoted to each topic and the perceived importance of the topics, was assembled from responses received from a posting to ISWorld list and the Information Systems Education Conference list of past participants. Using a consensus or agreement measure based on the Shannon entropy, the results are tabulated and ranked in order of entropy. Not all topics present in the "standard" textbooks are viewed as equally important, and some topics, like the creation of data flow diagrams and data modeling, while viewed as definitely important by IS educators, have a modest amount of time devoted to it by those same educators. Most topics could be grouped based on the agreed importance given that topic by IS educators and evaluated by the entropy measure. No agreement could be reached with regard to object-oriented technology.

Recommended Citation

Tastle, William J. and Russell, Jack (2003) "Analysis and Design: Assessing Actual and Desired Course Content," Journal of Information Systems Education: Vol. 14 : Iss. 1 , 77-90.
Available at: https://aisel.aisnet.org/jise/vol14/iss1/9