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Details on Learning Outcomes of the BSc (ISM) Curriculum
We have identified eight 'learning outcomes' or skill sets that we believe are fundamentally important for our BSc (ISM) students. These learning outcomes form the foundation for becoming a competent, adaptable and innovative professional. The skills identified in the learning outcomes will serve you well in future years, whether you are an IT-enabled business professional, a business-oriented IT professional, or an entrepreneur. These core skills also provide a sound foundation for continuing with a wide range of post-graduate studies.
Note that the learning outcomes listed below do not share the same names as our BSc (ISM) courses, nor do they make reference to specific technologies or methods. The eight learning outcomes are intentionally crafted to highlight and emphasize more fundamental skills and more general capabilities that will endure and remain relevant over long periods of time. It is the experience accross all the courses in the curriculum that will contribute to the development of these eight learning outcomes.
The learning outcomes for the BSc (ISM) programme are:
(Updated as of March 2006)
1. Integration of business & technology in a sector context
2. IT architecture, design and development skills
3. Project management skills
4. Learning-to-learn skills
5. Collaboration (or team) skills
6. Change management skills for enterprise systems
7. Skills for working across countries, cultures and borders
8. Communication skills
The learning outcomes address the basic question of, "What's the purpose of taking all of these BSc (ISM) courses anyway? What competencies am I really trying to develop as a result of coming to SMU to do doing this degree programme?".
The learning outcomes also clarify the ideals of the BSc (ISM) curriculum. Ideals, especially notable and powerful ideals, are always hard to achieve in practice. For a variety of practical reasons, there will always be gaps and shortcomings with respect to these idealized learning outcomes, both on the side of the curriculum content and execution, and on the side of student performance.
Our learning outcomes provide a statement that gets to the essence of what we are striving to learn. They provide a clear benchmark for assessing our progress, and provide guidance for how to keep improving and moving forward towards these ideals. For the student, the basic questions are: where is my measurable progress with regards to these, and how do I get better developing these learning outcomes? For the School of Information Systems and its faculty, the basic question is: how can we continually redesign our curriculum in a way to enhance students' performance on these benchmarks?
We encourage all our undergraduate students to go beyond the standard exercise of planning the courses they need to graduate, and to think very seriously about these learning outcomes both inside and outside of the classroom. We encourage our SIS students to annually assess themselves with respect to each of the eight learning outcomes and to create plans to enhance thir capabilities in these areas.
We are also in the early stages of educating potential employers about these learning outcomes. Our hope is that, over time, companies and organisations that interview our SIS students for internships and employment opportunites, will refer to our learning outcomes as part of the student interview and evaluation process.
Details on each of the learning outcomes are given in the table below.
(Updated on 28 May 2008)
1. Integration of business and technology in a sector context
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1.1 Business IT Value Linkage skills |
Ability to understand & analyse the linkages between: |
a) Business Strategy and Business Value Creation |
b) Business Strategy and Information Strategy |
c) Information Strategy and Technology Strategy |
d) Business Strategy and Business Processes |
e) Business Processes or Information Strategy or Technology Strategy and IT Solutions |
1.2. Costs & Benefits Analysis skills
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Ability to understand and analyse: |
a) Costs & Benefits Analysis of the Project |
1.3. Business software solution impact analysis skills
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Ability to understand and analyse:
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a) How business software applications impact the enterprise within a particular industry sector
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| 2. IT architecture, design and development skills |
2.1. System Requirements Specification skills |
Ability to: |
a) Elicit and understand functional requirements from customer |
b) Identify non functional requirements (performance, availability, reliability, security, usability etc.) |
c) Analyse and document business processes |
2.2. Software and IT Architecture Analysis and Design skills
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Ability to: |
a) Analyse functional and non-functional requirements to produce a system architecture that meets those requirements |
b) Understand and apply process and methodology in building the application |
c) Create design models using known design principles (e.g. layering) and from various view points (logical, physical etc.) |
d) Explain and justify all the design choices and tradeoffs done during the application's development |
2.3. Implementation skills
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Ability to: |
a) Realize coding from design and vice versa |
b) Learn / practice one programming language |
c) Integrate different applications (developed application, cots software, legacy application etc.) |
d) Use tools for testing, integration and deployment |
2.4. Technology Application skills
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Ability to: |
a) Understand, select and use appropriate technology
building blocks, components and packages when
developing an enterprise solution (e.g. integration
middleware, portal, ERP, CRM, SCM and other
enterprise solutions)
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| 3. Project management skills |
3.1. Scope Management skills |
Ability to: |
a) Identify and manage trade-offs on Scope/Cost/Quality/ Time |
b) Document and manage changing requirements |
3.2. Risks Management skills
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Ability to: |
a) Identify, prioritize, mitigate and document project's risks |
b) Constantly monitor projects risks as part of project monitoring |
3.3. Project Integration and Time Management skills
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Ability to: |
a) Establish WBS, time & effort estimates, resource allocation, scheduling etc. |
b) Practice in planning using methods and tools (Microsoft project, Gantt chart etc.) |
c) Develop / execute a Project Plan and maintain it |
3.4. Configuration Management skills
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Ability to: |
a) Understand concepts of configuration management and change control |
3.5. Quality Management skills
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Ability to: |
a) Understand the concepts of Quality Assurance and Quality control (test plan, test cases, etc.)
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| 4. Learning-to-learn skills |
| 4.1. Search skills |
Ability to: |
a) Search for information efficiently and effectively |
4.2. Learning Methodology skills
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Ability to: |
a) Develop learning heuristics in order to acquire new knowledge skills (focus on HOW to learn versus WHAT to learn) |
b) Abide by appropriate, legal, professional and ethical practices for using and citing the intellectual property of others
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| 5. Collaboration (or team) skills |
| 5.1. Skills to improve the effectiveness of group processes and work products |
Ability to develop: |
a) Leadership skills |
b) Communication skills |
c) Consensus and conflict resolution skills
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| 6. Change management skills for enterprise systems |
6.1. Skills to diagnose business changes |
Ability to: |
a) Understand the organizational problem or need for change (e.g. Analyze existing business processes or "as-is process") |
6.2. Skills to implement and sustain business changes
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Ability to: |
a) Implement the change (e.g. Advertise / communicate the need for change etc.) and to sustain the change over time
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| 7. Skills for working across countries, cultures and borders |
7.1. Cross-national Awareness skills |
Ability to: |
a) Develop cross-national understandings of culture, institutions (e.g. law), language etc. |
7.2. Business Across Countries Facilitation skills
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Ability to: |
a) Communicate across countries |
b) Adapt negotiation and conflict resolution techniques to a multicultural environment
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| 8. Communication skills |
8.1. Presentation skills |
| Ability to: |
| a) Provide an effective and efficient presentation on a specified topic |
8.2. Writing skills
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Ability to: |
a) Provide documentation understandable by users (Requirements specifications, risks management plan, assumptions, constraints, architecture choices, design choices etc.)
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