Abstract: This article presents the results of research to explore the nature of changes in skills over a fifty year period spanning the life of Information Systems model curricula. Work begun in 1999 was expanded both backwards in time, as well as forwards to 2012 to define skills relevant to Information Systems curricula. The work in 1999 was based on job ads from 17 major national news papers. The ~3000 ads enabled generation of 37 skills and defined major areas of skills: software development, web development, database, operating systems and telecommunications, strategic organizational development, interpersonal and team skills, and project management. During the development of this research a ninth skill area was added: information and security assurance. The original 37 skills had been expanded to 69 skills, and within this effort, 69 additional skills were added. Analysis of the skills as of today suggested elimination of retired (24) and too new (13) skills. Of the remaining skills a set (35) of skills was common to all curricula, a large set of current skills (64) was abandoned by IS 2010 which added new skills (2). Deletion of programming as a requirement of IS 2010 accounts for a significant proportion of deletions.

Keywords: Information Systems, IS 2002, IS 2010, IS discipline, IS Model Curriculua, IS Skills

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Recommended Citation: Longenecker, B., Feinstein, D., Clark, J. D. (2013). Information Systems Curricula: A Fifty Year Journey . Information Systems Education Journal, 11(6) pp 71-95. http://isedj.org/2013-11/ ISSN: 1545-679X. (A preliminary version appears in The Proceedings of ISECON 2012)