Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Integrating the Development of Professional Skills Throughout an ICT Curriculum Improves a Graduate’s Competency

  • Conference paper
  • First Online:
Advances in Software Engineering, Education, and e-Learning

Abstract

The necessity to design a curriculum that improved the professional competency of graduates was a response to the growing concern that information and communication technology (ICT) graduates, while being strong in technical ICT skills, were weak in their professional skills, particularly in relation to communication and collaboration skills. To enhance the employability of graduates, an ICT curriculum was designed that integrated the development of professional skills, including communication, collaboration, creativity and critical thinking, alongside the development of ICT technical skills. This chapter reports on a longitudinal study from 2012 to 2018 that provided strong evidence that integrating professional skill development across an entire ICT curriculum significantly improved a graduate’s competency with professional skills without having a detrimental impact on their competency with ICT technical skills. This integrated curriculum can act as an exemplar to other ICT curriculum designers that the approach can lead to professionally competent employable ICT graduates.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Log in via an institution
Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD 139.00
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD 179.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info
Hardcover Book
USD 249.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

References

  1. P. Anderson, S. Heckman, M. Vouk, D. Wright, M. Carter, J. Burge, G. Gannod, CS/SE instructors can improve student writing without reducing class time devoted to technical content: Experimental results, in Proceedings of the 37th International Conference on Software Engineering - Volume 2, vol. 2, (IEEE Press, Piscataway, 2015), pp. 455–464

    Google Scholar 

  2. J. Burge, G. Gannod, M. Carter, A. Howard, B. Schultz, M. Vouk, D. Wright, P. Anderson, Developing CS/SE students’ communication abilities through a program-wide framework, in Proceedings of the 45th ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education, (ACM, New York, 2014), pp. 579–584

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  3. N. Herbert, K. de Salas, I. Lewis, J. Dermoudy, L. Ellis, ICT curriculum and course structure: the great balancing act, in Proceedings of the Sixteenth Australasian Computing Education Conference, vol. 148, (Australian Computer Society, Inc., 2014), pp. 21–30

    Google Scholar 

  4. T. Koppi, F. Naghdy, Managing Educational Change in the ICT Discipline at the Tertiary Education Level (Australian Learning and Teaching Council, 2009)

    Google Scholar 

  5. C. Bennett, T. Urness, Using daily student presentations to address attitudes and communication skills in CS1, in Proceedings of the 40th ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education, (ACM, New York, 2009), pp. 76–80

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  6. L. Blume, R. Baecker, C. Collins, A. Donohue, A “communication skills for computer scientists” course, in Proceedings of the 14th annual ACM SIGCSE Conference on Innovation and Technology in Computer Science Education, (ACM, New York, 2009), pp. 65–69

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  7. J. Börstler, O. Johansson, The students conference—a tool for the teaching of research, writing, and presentation skills, in Proceedings of the 6th Annual Conference on the Teaching of Computing and the 3rd Annual Conference on Integrating Technology into Computer Science Education: Changing the Delivery of Computer Science Education, (ACM, New York, 1998), pp. 28–31

    Google Scholar 

  8. I.I. Douglas Dankel, J. Ohlrich, Students teaching students: incorporating presentations into a course, in Proceedings of the 38th SIGCSE Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education, (ACM, New York, 2007), pp. 96–99

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  9. P. Hanna, A. Allen, R. Kane, N. Anderson, A. McGowan, M. Collins, M. Hutchison, Building professionalism and employability skills: Embedding employer engagement within first-year computing modules. Comput. Sci. Educ. 25(3), 292–310 (2015)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  10. J. Havill, L. Ludwig, Technically speaking: Fostering the communication skills of computer science and mathematics students, in Proceedings of the 38th SIGCSE Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education, (ACM, New York, 2007), pp. 185–189

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  11. M. Hoffman, P. Anderson, M. Gustafsson, Workplace scenarios to integrate communication skills and content: A case study, in Proceedings of the 45th ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education, (ACM, New York, 2014), pp. 349–354

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  12. G. McDonald, M. McDonald, Developing oral communication skills of computer science undergraduates, in Proceedings of the Twenty-fourth SIGCSE Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education, (Indianapolis, 1993), pp. 279–282

    Google Scholar 

  13. L. Pollock, Integrating an intensive experience with communication skills development into a computer science course, in Proceedings of the Thirty-second SIGCSE Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education (SIGCSE ’01), (ACM, New York, 2001), pp. 287–291

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  14. K. Anewalt, J. Polack. 2017. A curriculum model featuring oral communication instruction and practice. In Proceedings of the 2017 ACM SIGCSE Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education. ACM, New York, 33–37

    Google Scholar 

  15. B. Coleman, M. Lang, Collaboration across the curriculum: A disciplined approach to developing team skills, in Proceedings of the 43rd ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education, (ACM, New York, 2012), pp. 277–282

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  16. K. Falkner, N. Falkner, Integrating communication skills into the computer science curriculum, in Proceedings of the 43rd ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education, (ACM, New York, 2012), pp. 379–384

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  17. Association for Computing Machinery, Association for Computing Machinery Curricula Recommendations (2019), http://www.acm.org/education/curricula-recommendations. Accessed 15 Apr 2019

  18. M. Stevens, R. Norman, Industry Expectations of Soft Skills in IT Graduates: A Regional Survey (Australasian Computer Science Week Multiconference, 2016)

    Book  Google Scholar 

  19. M. Exter, S. Caskurlu, T. Fernandez, Comparing computing professionals’ perceptions of importance of skills and knowledge on the job and coverage in undergraduate experiences. ACM Trans. Comput. Educ. 18(4), Article 21 (2018)., 29 pages

    Article  Google Scholar 

  20. D. Finch, L. Hamilton, R. Baldwin, M. Zehner, An exploratory study of factors affecting undergraduate employability. Education + Training 55(7), 681–704 (2013)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  21. J. Coldwell-Neilson, Assumed Digital Literacy Knowledge by Australian Universities: Are students informed? in Proceedings of the Nineteenth Australasian Computing Education Conference, (ACM, New York, 2017), pp. 75–80

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  22. AIIA, Skills for today. Jobs for tomorrow (2017), https://www.aiia.com.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0020/81074/JOBS-FOR-TOMORROW-FINAL.pdf

  23. M. Hamilton, A. Carbone, C. Gonsalvez, M. Jollands, Breakfast with ICT employers: What do they want to see in our graduates? In Proceedings of the Seventeenth Australasian Computing Education Conference (ACE2015), Sydney, Australia, 27–30 Jan 2015

    Google Scholar 

  24. S. Palmer, J. Coldwell-Neilson, M. Campbell, Occupational outcomes for Australian computing/information technology bachelor graduates and implications for the IT bachelor curriculum. Comput. Sci. Educ. 28(3), 280–299 (2018)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  25. R. Al-Mahmood, P. Gruba, Approaches to the implementation of generic graduate attributes in Australian ICT undergraduate education. Comput. Sci. Educ. 17(3), 171–185 (2007)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  26. N. Herbert, T. Acuna, K. de Salas, E. Wapstra, A methodology to integrate professional skill development throughout an ICT curriculum, in 25th Annual ACM Conference on Innovation and Technology in Computer Science Education Conference, (ACM, New York)

    Google Scholar 

  27. N. Herbert, Reflections on 17 Years of ICT capstone project coordination: Effective strategies for managing clients, teams and assessment, in Proceedings of the 49th ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education, 21–24 Feb 2018, Baltimore, MD, USA

    Google Scholar 

  28. N. Clark, P. Davies, R. Skeers, Self and peer assessment in software engineering projects, in Proceedings of the 7th Australasian Conference on Computing Education, (Newcastle, 2005), pp. 91–100

    Google Scholar 

  29. M. Conde, F. Rodríguez-Sedano, L. Sánchez-González, C. Fernández-Llamas, F. Rodríguez-Lera, V. Matellán-Olivera, Evaluation of teamwork competence acquisition by using CTMTC methodology and learning analytics techniques, in Proceedings of the Fourth International Conference on Technological Ecosystems for Enhancing Multiculturality, ed. by F. J. García-Peñalvo, (ACM, New York, 2016), pp. 787–794

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  30. N. Herbert, Impact of student engagement on first year ICT performance, in 2017 International Conference on Computational Science and Computational Intelligence (CSCI), (Las Vegas, 2017), pp. 1085–1090

    Google Scholar 

  31. Social Science Statistics, Statistics calculators (2019), https://www.socscistatistics.com/tests/. Accessed 24 Nov 2019

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Tasmania, Hobart, TAS, Australia

    Nicole Herbert, David Herbert, Erik Wapstra, Kristy de Salas & Tina Acuña

Authors
  1. Nicole Herbert
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. David Herbert
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Erik Wapstra
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  4. Kristy de Salas
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  5. Tina Acuña
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Nicole Herbert .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Computer Science, University of Georgia, Athens, GA, USA

    Hamid R. Arabnia

  2. School of Computing and Data Sciences, Wentworth Institute of Technology, Boston, MA, USA

    Leonidas Deligiannidis

  3. Facultad de Informática - CIC PBA, National University of La Plata, La Plata, Argentina

    Fernando G. Tinetti

  4. Department of Computer Science, Southeastern Louisiana University, Hammond, LA, USA

    Quoc-Nam Tran

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2021 Springer Nature Switzerland AG

About this paper

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this paper

Herbert, N., Herbert, D., Wapstra, E., de Salas, K., Acuña, T. (2021). Integrating the Development of Professional Skills Throughout an ICT Curriculum Improves a Graduate’s Competency. In: Arabnia, H.R., Deligiannidis, L., Tinetti, F.G., Tran, QN. (eds) Advances in Software Engineering, Education, and e-Learning. Transactions on Computational Science and Computational Intelligence. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-70873-3_5

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-70873-3_5

  • Published:

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-030-70872-6

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-030-70873-3

  • eBook Packages: EngineeringEngineering (R0)

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation