The IT model curriculum

Abstract

The first complete draft of the IT model curriculum was posted on the ACM website in October 2005. Since then, a number of comments and requests for changes have been received, the most significant of which occurred in January 2007. In response to these comments, a number of meetings and discussions have been held. In addition, committee membership has evolved. During the review process it became clear that there were clarity issues in the writing, structural issues in the curriculum and also that the release of the CC2005 document included information that needed to be correlated with the IT document. In order to address these issues the following updates were integrated into the current revision, IT2008: 1. Potential areas of misunderstanding were revised. 2. The IT2008 was more closely tied to the CC2005 document. 3. Math was moved from the "rounding the curriculum" section to become part of the core and one of the Knowledge Areas. 4. Outcomes were fully aligned with ABET program outcomes for IT programs. 5. The relationship between the core IT material, the advanced material, and the overall IT curriculum was revised. 6. The concept of pervasive themes was integrated more completely into the overall document. 7. The curricular example was revised and another example was added. 8. The Body of Knowledge was updated structurally and the learning levels were revised. The purpose of this paper is to explain the reasoning and context of the revisions present in the IT2008 from the perspective of two participants in the process from its inception.