News & Updates: Fall 2014

Updates & News: Fall 2014

The Center of Excellence for Information and Computing Technology welcomes all our IT faculty, Workforce Administrators, and student to fall quarter 2014. The Center and a number of our faculty have been hard at work working on initiatives, projects, services, and products over the summer that we would like to share with you.

IT Program Marketing Initiative:

Our state’s CTC IT programs are accessible, affordable, provide excellent support, and are adaptable to new and emerging technologies. They provide a variety of options for students who want to pursue an IT career pathway ranging from certificates, to degrees (both two- and four-year) that need to be highlighted. As articulated by faculty from across our state during the IT Futures Summit (May 2014), awareness by students and parents about CTC IT program options is not where we want it to be.

Thus, the Center and a leadership team of IT faculty and administrators have created a plan to address this. The Center has developed, with the IT program marketing leadership team, an RFP to hire the services of a marketing/advertising firm to create an information and awareness IT program campaign.

The purpose is to ensure our state’s students, parents, and educators are aware of the wide variety of IT programs available to them. The rationale is to not only increase FTEs, but to increase the number of students getting a quality education in order to enter the workforce.

Please contact the Center to request a copy of the RFP to review prior to its publication late- September/mid-October.

The Ideal IT Student

Building an IT-Ready Washington: 2015 and Beyond outlines the in-demand technical skills and knowledge, including employability skills, IT students should become familiar with as they are required by prospective employees. The information, resources, and expansion on what these technical knowledge and skills are, and why they are important increases the probability the IT student will be prepared to meet their future employer’s job requirements and responsibilities. This report showcases and details a compilation of standards for IT students and educators in creating clearer expectations of what an IT program should be offering in terms of content. Essentially, these highly desirable attributes, as identified by a team of IT professionals, should be absorbed into the student’s lexicon upon graduation. There are six sections to this report, for a total of 48 pages. It is easy to read, easy to use, and provides you with the latest technology trends and curriculum recommendations based upon input from IT industry professionals and the latest in IT research.

• Introduction: Building an IT Career-Ready Washington: 2105 and Beyond
• < style=”text-decoration: underline;”>Section 1. For an IT graduate (whether a 2- or 4-year degree) about to enter the workforce, we asked our IT Professionals what are the top five IT courses and subsequent IT concepts/competencies they should have mastered? For example, networking, programming, database design/development, etc.
• Section 2. What new technology competencies should the IT graduate be anticipating and searching out to master either in college, a training program, opportunities provided online, or by self-mastery (reading a book, or IT content-specific website)?
• Section 3. Often, IT employers bemoan the lack of innovation and critical thinking in an IT graduate. Why do you think that is? What can a student do to “grow” their own capacity to innovate think critically?
• Section 4. When you are training and/or mentoring a new IT employee, what main things do you spend the most time on with them to improve their performance?
• Section 5: What Constitutes the Ideal IT Student? The IT professionals were asked, based upon their own IT experiences, to take the diagram below and write down which qualities would make up the ideal IT student. They were asked to think about this in the context of their IT expertise/specialization (i.e. web, programming, gaming, etc.)
• Section 6. Bryan Stevenson Talks about The Challenges and Opportunities of Creating the Ideal IT Career Pathway

IT Common Courses

IT faculty from around the state assembled in May 2014 at the Mercer Island Community and Event Center for the Creating IT Futures Summit 2014. They came to consensus on the six IT common courses they had been working on over the last two years.

• Here is a list of the final six courses, including naming and numbering conventions.
• IT faculty will continue with IT common course work with additional courses that they selected for the next round, as well as creating a statewide CTC IT program marketing plan that the Center will be funding.

In order to begin work on the next series of common IT courses, please complete this new survey (opens in a new window) by Friday, October 15, 2014.

• You will be reviewing four new IT common courses and providing any edits/suggestions/etc.
• Be asked to provide feedback, including proposing what the student might be able to do by the end of the course, as well as suggested prerequisites for the course.
• Is there a fifth course that should be included?
• The Creating IT Futures Summit is tentatively scheduled for May 14/15 at the Mercer Island Community & Event Center (Note: The Center will cover travel expenses for faculty traveling more than 75 miles), and we want you to save the date, as well as indicate if you can attend.

IT Applied Baccalaureate (BAS) Degrees

A resource section has been created on the Center’s website to house all things IT BAS. Colleges who would like to share resources, curriculum, proposals, etc. are invited to submit them to the Center. There has also been a decision made by IT faculty on the standardization of IT BAS degree titles, that the State Board will be adopting moving forward.

Look for more updates, including options for having your college’s IT program reviewed, two new summits, and information about a college consortium opportunity to participate in a MTA Microsoft certification subscription plan.

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IT Program Reviews & IT-Applied Baccalaureate (AB) Degrees

The Center will again be performing IT program (degree/certificate) reviews at no charge to a college. Two open spots remain for the free review. If you are interested, please contact the Center of Excellence.

Additionally, if your college is either planning to, or already engaged in offering an IT-Applied Baccalaureate degree, the Center also can review, perform research, or offer consulting services towards that effort.