The objective of this ATE project is to help increase the pool of qualified information technology (IT) workers thereby addressing the severe national and statewide shortage for such workers that is projected to persist well into the 21st century. Our project will serve both traditional and returning students. The project aims to provide a 2+2+2 seamless transition for students from their junior year in high school, through an associate degree at the community college level or at the University of Cincinnati (UC), to a Bachelor of Science (BS) degree in Information Engineering Technology (IET) at UC's OMI-College of Applied Science (OCAS). A newly proposed Associate Degree (AD) of Applied Computer Science at OCAS could offer (starting September `99) one more avenue for students to prepare for joining the IT workforce or pursue a BS degree in IET. Articulation agreements between all partner institutions should pave the way to achieve this goal. Industrial partners will serve a crucial role in the success of the project by updating the partner educational institutions on the current and future IT skills desired of workers by the IT industry. They will also provide co-op opportunities for students and employment opportunities after graduation. This ATE project will comprise four components: 1. Articulation agreements between partner institutions 2. Course and Curriculum Development 3. Faculty Development 4. Industrial co-op/internship opportunities for students Course and Curriculum Development at all levels will use as its blueprint an IT Competency profile that will be developed by March `99 under the guidance of a recently established Ohio Information Technology Task Force. The IT Competency profile will follow the Tech Prep model and will be developed through extensive collaboration between technical and academic educators with industrial partners.
Faculty Development will be achieved by a series of Summer Institutes and Workshops and will show the evolutionary nature of the project: course and curriculum material will be updated on a yearly basis "vertically" across all partner institutions. This updating will result in the transfer of course materials from the BS level to the AD level as well as from the AD level to the US level via Summer Institutes and Workshops. New courses will then need to be developed at the BS level that will in turn migrate to the AD level during the following year. Such a dynamic program should be more responsive to industry demands as it will involve updating the skills of both instructors and students on a yearly basis.
Evaluation of the project will be conducted via semi-annual feedback from all participating educational institutions and IT employers. An Advisory Board for the project will also be established to provide feedback and guidance to the project development and goals. The Advisory Board will comprise members from both academia and industry. Another measure of success for the project will be to successfully recruit an increasing number of students at all levels, as well as job placement for an increasing number of graduating students, each year. Dissemination of the project results will be achieved through the Summer Institutes and Workshops, through presentations at other educational institutions in the State of Ohio, and through publications in conferences and journals as well as on the project's Web site. This project stands to benefit the State of Ohio as a whole by spearheading the implementation of the IT Competency profile and by its deliverables in course and curriculum development material. It can thereby pave the way for other institutions around the State of Ohio, and nationally, to duplicate its outcomes thereby helping to alleviate the expected shortage of IT workers.
