A Strategy for Addressing the Workforce Needs of the Massachusetts Economy

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A Strategy for Addressing the Workforce Needs of
the Massachusetts Economy

• Rick Adrion
• UMass Amherst
• CITI

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CITI Strategy

• High Level Approach
• Broad Spectrum IT Education
• Multiple Entry/Multiple Opportunity Programs
• Goals
• Build an Information Technology-fluent workforce
  and citizenry
• Address the workforce demands of the New
  Economy
• Broaden participation in IT education and the
  workforce
• Attract and retain more Massachusetts high school
  graduates in IT education and the workforce

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Broad Spectrum
Grad UG HS MS PS
Literacy Fluency ITAC
CS/CE/CIS
cross-disciplinary IT
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cross-disciplinary IT educationmodels

• Basic
• Providing the technical fluency for students to
  combine with their own disciplinary studies.
• Extended
• Creating computing modules or core curricula that
  other disciplines can incorporate into their
  curricula
• Co-teaching cross-disciplinary courses that,
  perhaps, derive from interdisciplinary research
  projects
• Encouraging the introduction of computing skills,
  concepts, and capabilities, e.g., IT Across the
  Curriculum, in other disciplines

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cross-disciplinary IT educationmodels

• Within CS/CE/CIS
• Creating core computing curricula, as a basis for
  integrating the various computing disciplines
  (CS, CE, SE, IS, IT)
• Introducing cross-disciplinary material in
  traditional curriculum, i.e., developing and
  offering computer science courses that
  incorporate significant non-traditional content
  meant to endow students with non-trivial domain
  knowledge.
• Comprehensive
• Combining core curricula with cognates to form
  interdisciplinary educational programs
• Forming a coordinating administrative
  infrastructure (such as a College of Computing
  or Informatics) that enables cross-disciplinary
  programs that cross traditional academic
  boundaries.

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The UMass Amherst Experience

• Current programs
• Literacy general education courses
• fluency gap
• IT Minor
• BDIC, e.g. web design, animation
• cross-disciplinary gap
• CS/CE limited MIS
• Challenges
• find a bridge between IT minor CS major
• strengthen IT Minor core? Certification?
• IT/IS major?
• Cross-disciplinary majors?
• multiple entry/multiple opportunity strategy
• develop fluency courses

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Multiple Entry/Multiple Opportunity
K12 Associate /Bachelor Grad
Other Majors
Fluency
IT Minors
ITAC
X-Discipl. IT Majors
CS/CE/IS/IT Majors
AP CS

• Challenges
• Coordinated curricula
• Flexible curricula

Gap Progs
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Opportunities

• Build an Information Technology-fluent workforce
  and citizenry
• IT fluency ITAC
• Address the workforce demands of the New
  Economy
• Broad Spectrum IT education
• Broaden participation in IT education and the
  workforce
• Capitalize on the ITAC programs attraction to
  women and underrepesented minorities
• Combine with multiple entry/multiple opportunity
  strategy to increase diversity across K20 broad
  spectrum IT education
• Attract and retain more Massachusetts high school
  graduates into IT education and the workforce
• Ditto