Agenda: Slide Notes

Education is one of the primary means for both developed and developing countries to show a response, to offshoring, so their workforces can compete globally for IT jobs. In fact, education has been a primary enabler of offshoring in the developing countries. India has responded rapidly to the educational needs of its software export industry, especially through its private universities and training organizations.

The future, however, is one in which the individual will be situated in a more global competition. The brightness of the future for individuals, companies, or countries is centred on their ability to invest in building the foundations that foster innovation and invention.

ACM 5 Principles: Slide Notes

1. Page 32 2. Evolve computing curriculum at a pace with the changing nature of IT.--
In nations that are current recipients of offshored work consisting of programming and routine software testing and maintenance, for example, it may be desirable to focus the curriculum more heavily on the lower levels.

In countries that are seeing their commodity IT work being offshored, it will be desirable for the curriculum to prepare students for the middle and upper levels of IT work, where the ability to merge computer science and IT with applications and strategy are important. This is likely to lead to an increased emphasis on application knowledge and a reduced emphasis on programming skills. It should be stressed that in all cases, however, the predominance of a certain level of IT work in a certain nation or region is just a generalization; all levels will exist in all countries, and students will be needed to move into all of these levels. It is the distribution that will vary.

In general, IT professionals are more likely to work in an application-specific context than previously, and conversely, less likely to work on computer-specific areas such as compiler or operating system development. They are more likely to work on large software applications in teams that include applications specialists, and depending on the organization, also to collaborate with sales and marketing staff. They are also more likely to work in an environment where they are expected to be masters of certain software platforms and interoperability standards, and know how to reuse code. Thus in general, it will be increasingly important that a computer science or IT education involves training that enables the student to work on large-scale software applications, to understand important business, scientific or other application areas, and be familiar with the tools and platforms that are increasingly the standards in the international marketplace. It also is increasingly important that the education emphasizes teamwork and communication skills, especially as they are practiced in a geographically distributed fashion.
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1. Ensure computing curriculum prepare students for the global economy.-- It is increasingly likely that an IT professional will be working in a global context. This may include being part of a multinational team, or collaborating with customers or suppliers from other parts of the world. Thus, it will be increasingly important that an education in computer science and IT help prepare students for this global workplace. Education that acquaints students with different languages and cultures, whether through courses, study abroad, or other means, will be increasingly beneficial. Finally, to the extent that English is the common language of the IT industry, the ability of nations to educate their IT professionals to be fluent in English will be a major factor in determining their success in the outsourcing economy and in multinational endeavors.
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1. Teach students to be innovative and creative.
As the lower tiers of software and IT work become more commoditized, creativity and innovation will become even more important, particularly in countries that experience the loss of support and programming work. The creation of new products and new businesses will continue to lead to the greatest commercial and scientific successes, and even more, become the differentiator between organizations and between nations.
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1. Achieve a better balance between foundational knowledge of computing on the one hand, and business and application domain knowledge on the other.
Foundational skills help students remain current, and not become obsolescent, as the technology changes rapidly around them. Although the particulars of a new technology in the workplace may be different from what a student was taught in school, a basic understanding of computing principles and ways of addressing problems will remain current even as the particular technologies change. Of course there needs to be a balance between fundamentals and currently relevant technologies in the student’s education. In order to prepare students to be productive workers when they enter the job market, it also is important that the educational system pay attention to the current needs of business and industry and select the technologies it exposes students to in order to address industry needs. This goal can be achieved through respectful interchange between people in the academic and industrial/business worlds.
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1. Invest to ensure the educational system has good technology, good curriculum, and good teachers
Fortunately, personal computers are relatively inexpensive, software for them has been commoditized, and fast, inexpensive broadband communication is readily available most places in the world. Thus, the technology for training an IT workforce is within reach of much of the world. The model curricula that have been designed by the professional societies have been and should be used in many places around the world. There is probably value in developing a process by which these curricula can have greater business and industrial input and react more rapidly to changes in the way that IT gets used in the world