IS Degrees - Sociotechnical or Technosocial?

摘要

It is widely agreed that information systems is a field requiring knowledge and competence, spanning business processes, information infrastructure and technical processes, uniting these to deliver information needs of organisations. In designing curricula which will educate new IS professionals appropriately, we are faced with a daunting range and volume of material. Despite attempts to structure and scope this, the problems remain and become worse with time. We revisit such a degree course, noting that many existing courses are based in management and business schools. We, however, are based in a computer science department. We have experience of convincing technologically focused students that understanding organisational and social issues is crucial to successful software engineering and students with an interest in organisations and people that they need technical understanding of information systems. We review some key proposals for IS model curricula and conclude with a proposal suited to the students we recruit.