Tackling an IS Educator’s Dilemma: A Holistic Model for “When” and “How” to Incorporate New Technology Courses into the IS/IT Curriculum

To prepare their students for the rapidly changing and increasingly competitive job market, universities must constantly modify their Information Systems (IS)/Information Technology (IT) program curricula to incorporate relevant and emerging technologies in addition to computing fundamentals. The “haunting” conundrum that faces IS/IT educators is assessing whether an emerging technology is a “game-changing” development or something more transient. In addition, university curriculum approval proposals may be a barrier to timely incorporation of a new course. To solve the dilemma, the authors have developed a holistic model to provide strategic guidance for IS/IT educators to make a valid decision in terms of “when” to introduce a new course on emerging technology and “how” to incorporate the new course into an existing IS/IT curriculum. In addition, the authors present several examples demonstrating how the proposed models to IS/IT curriculum modification and new technology course insertion was useful in their curriculum decisions