Framing core and advanced competencies for undergraduate information systems program courses: Does the nature, level, complexity and audience of a course matter?

Abstract

This contribution reports on one of the cycles of an on-going, multi-cycle, multi-year effort to refine a learning outcomes framework designed and implemented for the Bachelor of Science (Information Systems Management) degree program offered by the School of Information Systems (SIS) at Singapore Management University (SMU). To further improve the within-course alignment and to further refine cross-course alignment for all courses offered within this program a set of competencies for each course of the program was derived and integrated into a program-wide yet course-level competencies framework. Subsequently, the competencies framework was integrated with Learning Outcomes Framework defined at the program level. Numerous challenges were encountered and several important insights were gained while extracting and framing competencies for all core and elective courses of the program. This paper describes the competencies extraction and definition process particularly focusing on the impact which the nature, level, complexity and the audience of an undergraduate course have on this process. In addition, this paper highlights the benefits which the implementation of the competencies framework brings to the School, students, teaching staff and potential employers.