OEIS Model Curriculum: Introduction

OSRA Technological Solutions for Business

Organizational & End-user Information Systems

Curriculum Model

Introducing the Organizational and End-user Information Systems (OEIS) Model Curriculum

A dedicated team of information systems academics and practitioners have worked together to address the need for collegiate preparation of individuals who have skills related to being an information systems developer, troubleshooter, change agent, trainer, systems evaluator, and savvy business person. The Office Systems Research Association announces the publication of its four-year model curriculum entitled Organizational and End-user Information Systems.

Setting the Stage

The OEIS model curriculum underscores the notion that information systems at the desktop level are crucial to support organizational goals as well as bolster and sustain individual employees' needs to do their jobs well and grow in their careers. It is intended to bring the impact of high-level talk about business reengineering to the practical level of implementation at the desktop, where it counts most. Increasingly, the end-user, the individual who actually uses systems in daily work activities, plays a variety of roles in systems needs assessment, design, implementation, and evaluation (Regan and O'Connor, 1994).

Moreover, organizations are realizing they cannot get caught up in a particular tool or set of tools to solve all their information processing needs, and experts who are unbiased and can communicate with the ultimate end user are needed. In giving the 1995 ISECON keynote address, Paul Gillin, Executive Editor of Computer World, identified the need for I/S professionals with these skills, saying they were vital to the success of information systems departments. At that same conference, in receiving ISECON's "Distinguished Information Systems Educator, 1995" award, Milton Jenkins identified four key technologies that are changing the information systems field: multimedia, group decision support systems, video conferencing, and the Internet/WWW. Mary Boone, author of Leadership and the Computer, came up with a name for an individual who has a wide range of communications skills and has a wide view of what constitutes information systems technologies: a boundary person. In an interview reported in Investor's Business Daily, Boone defined a boundary person as "someone with very thorough knowledge of the business and the organization, someone who is trained to be a technology generalist. After all, there are plenty of technology specialists in the systems department."

Many I/S professionals working in end-user empowered organizations are finding role expectations related to that of the boundary person. They are learning that "there's more than one best way" to do almost everything, and appropriate choices in hardware, software, data communications, and the like, are complex and depend in large measure on factors outside traditional data processing boundaries, crossing into behavioral science domains such as job redesign, planned organizational change, and adult learning theory. Therefore, making sure that the right system is implemented at the right time for the right people in the right priority order involves a knowledge and skill toolkit beyond (but including!) technical expertise.

The Office Systems Research Association (OSRA) has again taken the lead in ascertaining the competencies that a boundary person needs to know. This 1996 model curriculum, a major update of OSRA's 1986 Model Curriculum, breaks new ground by emphasizing the technical aspects of multimedia desktop information systems along with organizational and individual factors that are vital to the success of any new system. The Curriculum Revision Group (CRG) included representatives from ACM SIG/OIS as well as the National Association for Business Teacher Education. The appendix includes a listing of CRG members.

The curriculum model that follows is designed to challenge students to understand their I/S role from an organizational viewpoint, the perspectives and needs of the individuals they support, and technologies used or accessed at the desktop. The curriculum is the result of group collaboration and we hope its innovativeness comes through to the academic community, our students, and the business communities we serve.

The Curriculum Model

The OEIS Curriculum is designed for a four-year college and best fits in a school of business where students have a liberal arts foundation and study the core business curriculum. However, it may be effectively implemented in other schools (e.g., education, computer science, technical studies) where the business common body of knowledge (accounting, economics, marketing, management, business law, business communications, and statistics) is included. In addition to the skills identified here, we recommend skills related to using a business application development language. Interpersonal skills, teamwork, communications skills, and ethical considerations are developed and practiced across the entire curriculum.

Stressing that a model curriculum must be flexible, courses and their titles are meant only to provide casings for competencies and instructional modules. The curriculum is presented in a framework of modules within semester courses. In actual implementation, it is expected that modules (groupings of course content) will be "mixed and matched" to fit other time frames (e.g., quarters or 1 or 2 credit courses) and course goals. Such alterations are considered consistent with the intent of this model. Seven core courses (OEIS 1-7) contain the competencies that are considered vital. The optional courses (OEIS 8-11) are suggestions for more in-depth work in specialty areas and/or field experiences. Universities can customize courses to meet the needs of their students and the mission of their schools.

The OSRA Curriculum Revision Group

page design by Preston Lathrop
last revised: December 23, 1996