Presenter:
Cara Tang, Portland Community College, Portland, OR
The ACM Committee for Computing Education in Community Colleges (CCECC) has now fulfilled the 2011 directive by the ACM Education Board that a curricular task force be constituted to produce Information Technology curricular guidance at the associate-degree level. The resulting guidance, ACM Competency Model of Core Learning Outcomes and Assessment for Associate-Degree Curriculum in Information Technology (October 2014), was produced through a multiphase process of collaboration and debate among representatives from two-year college faculty, business and industry, and certification/standards bodies, with oversight by a team of experts in student assessment. During the three years of curricular development, two public drafts were disseminated for peer review and comment. The CCECC has engaged the MPICT community with sessions at prior MPICT conferences, gaining valuable input during the development of these IT guidelines. We are pleased to present the final product in this session, with time for discussion, and the opportunity for participants to highlight their IT degree or certificate program by submitting a correlation.
The core of the IT guidelines is a set of well-vetted student learning outcomes that express core IT competencies across all IT-related associate-degree programs. The 50 core learning outcomes span the first three levels of Bloom’s Revised Taxonomy. Each student learning outcome is accompanied by a three-tier assessment rubric, giving further clarity and meaningful evaluation for the outcomes. The assessment rubrics facilitate integration of the learning outcomes into competency-based curricula. To make the collection of student learning outcomes more accessible to various constituent groups, the CCECC has categorized them in accordance with a variety of existing ontologies and frameworks, including the U.S. Department of Labor Competency Model, the SIGITE 2008 “Curriculum Guidelines for Undergraduate Degree Programs in Information Technology”, the European e-Competence Framework, the Common Criteria for Information Technology Security Evaluation (in alignment with ISO/IEC 15408:2005), and CSTA Standards. Several organizations have championed the guidance, including MPICT, BATEC, CSSIA, CSTA, and CyberWatch; companies such as Cisco, Google, Intel, Microsoft and IBM; and colleges such as the Maricopa Community College District, Portland Community College, and Bluegrass Community and Technical College. Champions appreciate the importance of robust associate-degree IT programs, make a commitment to the academic foundations of IT students, and promote education that meaningfully prepares graduates as future employees and practitioners.
Examples of degree and certificate programs that align with the ACM core IT learning outcomes are part of a growing repository at CAPspace.org. These correlations demonstrate the adaptability of this competency-based curriculum approach to a variety of computing courses, certificates, and degree programs. The CCECC seeks additional correlations. See capspace.org/correlation/ for more details, including existing correlations and the web-based submission form for new correlations.
CREDITS:
-Music: www.bensound.com (Happy Rock)
