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Project Management (PM) capability continues to be a highly desired skill set in many for-profit and not-for-profit organizations across a range of industries. However, the PM field faces a talent gap, and one approach that may increase the interest in PM education is having a learner-centered pedagogy. A learner-centered pedagogy seeks to create a community of learners through the implementation of several initiatives namely, sharing power between the teachers and the students, providing multiple assessments and evaluation avenues, specifying clear feedback mechanisms, and articulating a rationale for the course by tying the course content to the learning outcomes. The goal of this research is to conduct a descriptive content analysis to examine the nature and content of the PM syllabi to gain a better understanding of how they reflect and communicate the attributes of a learner-centered pedagogy and thus help in improving the learning, teaching, and delivery of the PM curriculum. This study makes use of a sample of 76 PM syllabi gathered in 2018 from instructors affiliated with the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB) schools in the United States. The results have implications for the academy and the PM practice and call for improvements in the design and content of PM syllabi by including language and activities that foster the creation of a community of learners, mechanisms for offering periodic feedback, and consistent teacher-student interactions. Furthermore, it is suggested that the assessments and evaluations should be tied to the learning outcomes and incorporate "real world" experiential projects aligned with the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK) areas and process groups.

Research journals play a significant role in the generation, dissemination, and sharing of knowledge in an academic discipline. To a great extent, the editorial board members of these research journals manage and control the generation, dissemination, and sharing of knowledge. They also act as policymakers, gatekeepers, and trendsetters. In their latter roles, editorial board members can influence several factors in a discipline; namely, the research topics, the research methods, the research scope, and whose articles are published. The primary goal of this study is to investigate and report on the status of the editorial boards memberships in a set of 14 leading Information Systems (IS) journals. The study does this along the following three main diversity elements namely titles, gender, academic institution, and the geographical location of the editorial boards' members. The set of 14 journals include the IS basket of 8 journal list. Of the 14 reviewed journals, 7 are domiciled in the US and 7 in Europe. Results reveal a lack of common editorial board classification criteria whereby members of the editorial boards were categorized into different groups and referred to using various titles such as senior editors, associate editors, editorial board members, editorial review board members, and board of editors. Also, the results show that, as of June 2020, the 14 IS journals' editorial boards had 1214 instances (988 unique occurrences) of editorial board members who came from 44 unique countries. Of those 988 editorial board members, 253 (26%) were females while 736 (74%) were males. In addition, out of the 988 editorial board members, 48% were from US and Canada, 26% were from Europe, and 26% were from the rest of the world. The results also reveal the schools and faculty with the highest number of editorial board memberships. Having significant number of editorial board members from US and Europe (74%) fits with what Kubota (2019) called epistemological racism; a practice in which the Western world has an upper hand in determining and controlling knowledge and academic practices. Given the roles of the editorial boards in the review process and setting the research agenda for a journal, a more diverse editorial board might publish a more diverse research output. Furthermore, a more diverse editorial board is likely to have a repertoire of internal reviewers who speed up and lower the review process costs, which are challenges inherent in a less diverse editorial board. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigates the skill sets necessary for entry level systems analysts. Towards this end, the study combines two sources of data, namely, a content analysis of 200 systems analysts' online job advertisements and a survey of 20 senior Information Systems (IS) professionals. Based on Chi-square tests, the results reveal that most employers prefer entry level systems analysts with an undergraduate Computer Science degree. Furthermore, most of the employers prefer entry level systems analysts to have some years of experience as well as industry certifications. The results also reveal that there is a higher preference for entry level systems analysts who have non-technical and people skills (e.g., problem solving and oral communication). The empirical results from this study will inform IS educators as they develop future systems analysts. Additionally, the results will be useful to the aspiring systems analysts who need to make sure that they have the necessary job skills before graduating and entering the labor market. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]