This project organizes a curriculum workshop designed to bring industry and academic leaders together in order to explore the knowledge and skills needed to work effectively in large technology driven global organizations. It explores transformational models of industry-academic partnership providing practice-based learning, such as the Global Enterprise Technology (GET) curriculum that is currently being developed via a collaboration between Syracuse University and JPMorgan Chase & Co.
Participants of the proposed workshop include a diverse array of liberal arts, technical, research institutions and industry representatives from a number of global, technology-intensive enterprises. Findings from the workshop are disseminated through conference presentations, articles, a white paper distributed to participant and a summary of findings in a form that can be used by academic institutions to inform high school students of their participation in the GET community.
This one-day workshop promotes awareness of the expanding collaboration, explores industry educational requirements and seeks ways of broadening the reach and impact of the GET collaboration to new industry partners, as well as liberal arts, technical, and research institutions.
The one-day GET workshop was held to bring industry and academic leaders together in order to explore the knowledge and skills needed to work effectively in large technology driven global organizations; and to explore transformational models of industry-academic partnership providing practice-based learning. The Global Enterprise Technology (GET) curriculum developed through a collaboration between Syracuse University and JPMorgan Chase & Co., is such a transformational model of integrated, practice-based learning. Several additional companies (IBM, Cisco, GE) and universities (U. of Delaware, Rutgers) have begun to participate in the GET community. The objective of the workshop was to generate a deeper understanding of the state of the art in industry-academic practice-based learning through interaction between industry and academic participants. Intellectual Merit The GET curriculum is built on a foundation of practice–based learning theory, and designed around three themes found in the literature: relevance, integration of theory and practice, and academic-industry partnerships. Information technology curricula must constantly adapt to rapid changes in the workplace to ensure that students are prepared for the work world. Experiential, practice-based learning is intended to link classroom theory and the domain of practice. These attributes – relevance and integration – can be best accomplished by combining a work-based experience into the overall curriculum design (Carpenter, 2003). Thus the most successful experiential learning occurs in context of formal partnerships between businesses and educational institutions (Jackson 1996, Devier 1999, Sovilla, 1998). Broader Impact A second objective was to broaden the reach and impact of the GET collaboration to new industry and academic partners. This goal was achieved first through careful selection and invitation of workshop participants, that included academics who represented a diverse array of liberal arts, technical, and research institutions, and industry representatives from a number of global, technology-intensive enterprises. Findings from the workshop were disseminated through conference presentations, articles, a white paper distributed to participants, and a summary of findings in a form that can be used by academic institutions to inform high school students of their participation in the GET community. Finally, the impact of the GET collaboration was broadened by continuing the conversation begun at the workshop in an expanded, evolving GET community of like-minded employers and academic institutions. Central to this effort is a repository of GET curriculum objects, currently being funded by JPMorgan Chase, which is freely available to workshop participants.
