Role of Professional Associations in Preparing, Recruiting, and Retaining Computing Professionals

摘要

The purpose of this preliminary study is to investigate an under-explored topic, specifically, the role of professional associations in preparing, recruiting, and retaining computing professionals. Drawing on relevant literature, we identified a comprehensive list of services that should be provided by professional associations in order to prepare, recruit, and retain professionals. Then we assessed several computing professional associations to determine whether they offer those identified services. Our findings show that ACM has better coverage of services, followed by IEEE-CS, AITP, and AIS. This study indicates that computing professional associations have considerable influences on higher educational institutes by establishing curriculum guidelines to prepare professionals, on organizations by organizing career fairs and placement websites to recruit professionals, and on retention by providing professional development opportunities. We propose that more research is needed to gain an in-depth understanding of the role of computing professional associations and to identify unique ways they can influence preparation, recruitment, and retention of computing professionals.