Title: The systems analysis and design course: a practitioners' assessment of the importance and coverage of topics

Authors: David P. Stevens; Brandi N. Guidry; Peter Aiken

Addresses: Department of Management, B.I. Moody III College of Business Administration, University of Louisiana at Lafayette, P.O. Box 43930, Lafayette, LA 70504-3930, USA ' Department of Management, B.I. Moody III College of Business Administration, University of Louisiana at Lafayette, P.O. Box 43930, Lafayette, LA 70504-3930, USA ' Department of Information Systems, School of Business, Virginia Commonwealth University, P.O. Box 84-4000, Richmond, VA 23284-4000, USA

Abstract: This study builds on research indicating significant variability among topics covered in the teaching of systems analysis and design, and identifies topics that practitioners consider important. Shannon's entropy is used to analyse the opinions and measure the agreement or disagreement among survey respondents. The findings indicate agreement regarding which traditional topics are not important and agreement among which object-oriented and structured analysis subtopics are important. The results indicate enough variance to cause concern that IS graduates may not have the knowledge, skills, and abilities desired by their potential employers. This analysis provides a basis for future comparisons.

Keywords: MIS education; systems analysis and design courses; structured analysis; object-oriented analysis; OOA; MIS curricula; entropy; topic importance; IS 2010 curriculum guidelines; practitioner perceptions; innovation; learning; management information systems.

DOI: 10.1504/IJIL.2013.054233

International Journal of Innovation and Learning, 2013 Vol.13 No.4, pp.353 - 374

Published online: 31 Jul 2013 *

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