Computer and Network Installation, Maintenance and Management — A Proposed New Curriculum for Undergraduates and Postgraduates

摘要

Edith Cowan University (ECU) was recently granted level 1 accreditation of its Computer Science Degree by the Australian Computer Society. Preliminary investigations, however, clearly indicated that, on completion of their studies, graduates could not perform first line maintenance on a Personal Computer (PC) to a professional standard with due regard to safety, both to themselves and the equipment. Nor could they install communication cards, cables and network operating system or manage a population of networked PCs to an acceptable commercial standard. Further, it was noted that the degree provides few options to study health & safety, ethical, legal or human resource management — issues that a graduate must address in preparation for a professional career in computer and network management. It appears that this may also be the case with computer science courses at other universities in Australia. Accordingly, this paper presents the case for a portfolio of units in Computer and Network Installation, Maintenance and Management both as an integrated stream within a computer science degree and as an articulated professional award structure to meet this market opportunity.