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The Use of Industry Advisory Boards at Higher Education Institutions in Southern Africa

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ICT Education (SACLA 2019)

Part of the book series: Communications in Computer and Information Science ((CCIS,volume 1136))

Abstract

An Industry Advisory Board (IAB) can provide useful feedback to academic schools or departments, relating to topics such as industry graduate requirements, IT trends, programme quality and curriculum development. Though the existing literature already provides general guidelines for the role and responsibilities, membership, composition and functioning of IABs, literature on the use of IABs specifically in southern Africa is limited, especially as far as best practices and perspectives for the use of IABs for Computer Science (CS), Information Systems (IS) or related IT departments (IT) are concerned. Hence, the question addressed in this paper is: How are IABs used by CS/IS/IT/ICT departments in higher education in Southern Africa? An IAB questionnaire was compiled and sent to the Heads of Departments (HODs) of 32 universities in southern Africa. Accordingly, feedback received from IABs could have a direct impact on the ICT curricula and could also assist ICT lecturers in their efforts to update relevant course contents in a continuously changing computing environment. This paper might also help academic CS/IS/IT/ICT departments to implement and maintain IABs and to follow the standards of best practice.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    For comparison see parts II-III of [17].

  2. 2.

    This aspect is also emphasised in [23].

  3. 3.

    More research might be needed on the optimal number of members.

  4. 4.

    For comparison: Most of the studies described in the literature also referred to 1–2 meetings per year, even though in [25] the average for 31 boards was 4–6 meetings per year.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Computer Science and Information Systems, North-West University, Potchefstroom, South Africa

    Estelle Taylor

  2. Department of Computing Sciences, Nelson Mandela University, Port Elizabeth, South Africa

    Andre P. Calitz

Authors
  1. Estelle Taylor
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  2. Andre P. Calitz
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Correspondence to Estelle Taylor .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. School of Computing, University of South Africa, Johannesburg, South Africa

    Bobby Tait

  2. School of Computing, University of South Africa, Jonannesburg, South Africa

    Jan Kroeze

  3. Department of Computer Science, University of Pretoria, Pretoria, Gauteng, South Africa

    Stefan Gruner

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Taylor, E., Calitz, A.P. (2020). The Use of Industry Advisory Boards at Higher Education Institutions in Southern Africa. In: Tait, B., Kroeze, J., Gruner, S. (eds) ICT Education. SACLA 2019. Communications in Computer and Information Science, vol 1136. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-35629-3_16

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-35629-3_16

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-030-35628-6

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-030-35629-3

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