Future Software Training Needs: Contrast in Needs as Perceived by Business and Academia

Authors

Abbas Heiat, Montana State University Billings
Nafisseh Heiat, Montana State University Billings
Jan Spicer, Montana State University Billings

Abstract

Most educators agree that anticipating and accommodating continual curricula changes is essential to IS program success. This article reports results from a survey of business firms and higher education schools with undergraduate Information Systems programs. The survey asked the respondents to rank the most urgent hardware needs and software skills requested by employers. Results from the survey indicate that in some areas there was a significant perception difference between the academics and the business groups, Problem solving, PC skills multimedia networking, and Geographic Information Systems (GIS) were perceived by the businesses as the most urgently needed skills. In contrast, academia ranked Computer-Aided Software Engineering (CASE) tools, Windows, Unix, and Systems Analysis as the most requested skills. Comparisons are made between the results of this study and the Information Systems '95 model curriculum developed by the Joint Task Force of the Data Processing Management Association (DPMA), the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM), and Academy for Information Systems (AIS).

Recommended Citation

Heiat, Abbas; Heiat, Nafisseh; and Spicer, Jan (1995) "Future Software Training Needs: Contrast in Needs as Perceived by Business and Academia," Journal of Information Systems Education: Vol. 7 : Iss. 3 , 102-105.
Available at: https://aisel.aisnet.org/jise/vol7/iss3/4