Meeting the ABET Program Outcome for Issues and Responsibilities: An Evaluation of CS, IS, and IT Programs

摘要

There are nine common outcomes which apply to Computer Science (CS), Information Systems (IS), and Information Technology (IT) programs that seek accreditation by ABET. One of these is that the graduating students have an "understanding of professional, ethical, legal, security and social issues and responsibilities." ABET does not mandate how this program outcome is to be achieved, so programs can fulfill this outcome using a number of options from single to multiple courses from both inside or outside of the department. A research project was designed to determine how the three types of programs within the ABET Computing Accreditation Commission compare and contrast in fulfilling this outcome. The nine currently accredited IT programs were evaluated along with a randomly selected set of nine CS programs and nine IS programs. Data was gathered from publicly published Web sites, then analyzed for the course delivery method and timing. Commonalities and differences among the three types of programs are presented.