So all thanks to Mr. Berners-Lee in the world.  But in an interview recently he showed a lack of understanding about the information technology discipline.  In pushing for more computing education in the K-12 systems, he makes a plea against just teaching kids the basics of using standard software applications.

“It’s very important in education with this computer science, which is understanding the philosophy of computer and the mathematics of computing, and learning to really build stuff, it’s very different from the IT class, and I think making that distinction very clear and maybe early on in schools is very important.”

My assumption here, based on his previous comments in the article about going beyond teaching kids Microsoft Word, is just that Mr. Berners-Lee does not know there is an applied computing discipline out there called IT.  That he has simply mislabeled classes in the use of basic computer applicantions as IT.  This lack of knowledge about the IT discipline is something we IT faculty encounter often.

But it does not help the public’s understanding when our computer science brethren insist, or use slight of hand to suggest, that computer science is 1) the only computing discipline out there, 2) the only one that matters, or 3) best suited to educate all students wanting to go on to careers in the applied computing space.  Computer Science Education week is a great example of this, who’s website claims that Computer Science is:  Computing, Computer Engineering, Informatics, Information Technology, Software Engineering, Information Systems.

If the computing disciplines work together in helping the public understand the differences, students will be more likely to choose computing as a career and less likely to transfer out of computing altogether while in college.  After talking with students about their interests and career goals, I have suggested to some (even my own nephew recently) that computer science, information systems, or computer engineering may be the best fit for them and hope others do the same for IT.

Most any college student can press next or follow a step-by-step guide to get some computing technology to work.  But IT students need to troubleshoot problems, apply guides to their own specific environment, integrate technologies, apply security, optimize performance, and be able to quickly adapt to new or changing technologies.  They do this by possessing knowledge of the underpinnings of the computing technology.  As such, labs that I give students are more of a task list to complete rather than a step-by-step recipe.

IT students also need to learn to communicate about computing technologies within an organization and not have to do a Google search in the midst of talking to others (technical or non-technical) about these technologies.  Because of this, exam/quiz questions I give to students are not multiple-choice or true/false in nature.  Much to their chagrin, students are asked to describe some piece of computing technology, how it communicates with the network, how to secure it, and its implications for other services or devices.

Perhaps this is just my own tired bias against multiple-choice rearing its head.  As a student, I always thought multiple-choice questions fell into two categories; very easy or trick questions.  Knowing an exam was going to be multiple-choice resulted in a lack of studying on my part, assured that a decent grade was within my grasp just because of the exam format.  I tell my students that they will rarely get a multiple-choice question in the real world, and certainly not trick questions; instead they will need to be able to discuss and comprehend computing technologies.

With rising class sizes within my own department and no teaching assistants though, I worry about how long I will be able to sustain my favored assessments.  Can I determine if a student truly understands DNS (or any other type of computing technology) and be able to logically talk about it by using a more efficient grading mechanism?  Do I fail to see the strength of good multiple-choice questions?  What are your experiences?

My name is Mark Stockman, for the past eleven years I have served as a faculty member at the University of Cincinnati in the IT bachelors degree program. Prior to that, I worked in several computing capacities within industry (networking, software/web development, database management, systems administration, technical support, management). Also an active member of ACM’s Special Interest Group for IT Education (SIGITE) from its inception, I served as Chair of the SIG till summer of this year.

IT is an applied computing discipline. The membership of SIGITE has worked with ACM over the past several years to define the distinctiveness of IT within the spectrum of computing. In a nutshell, while computer scientists construct the software technologies and computer engineers build the hardware technologies, IT professionals develop strategies to deploy, integrate, secure, and administer computing technologies. For more details of how the disciplines are distinctive (and overlap) see the ACM Computing Curricula 2005, the ACM IT 2008 Curriculum Guidelines, or a summary produced by SIGITE.

My teaching revolves around the networking/systems side of IT rather than development, primarily teaching courses in the applied nature of system administration, cloud computing (server virtualization), cybersecurity, cyberforensics. The focus of my past research centered on the pedagogy of creating and delivering IT curriculum, specifically in the development and use of hands-on activities/labs.

More recently I have jumped into a cross-disciplinary academic path; now in the second year of a PhD program in Criminal Justice, specifically studying criminology and crime prevention with an emphasis on cybercrime. As a discipline that can impact many (most) others, IT research can move forward through domain induction like this. My hope is that this marriage of computing and criminology/crime prevention allows for substantial knowledge creation for cybersecurity.

Certainly, my background will influence what you will see from me on this blog. I hope you will speak up in the comments and/or through Twitter (@putrnrd). Discussion, even (especially) disagreement, is a great thing as we continue towards a common goal; the advancement and promotion of computing education.

Mark