Teaching Information Systems Management Skills: Using IntegratedProjects and Case Studies.

University courses in Computer Science (CS) and Information Systems (IS) are often criticized by industry for concentrating on conceptual leaming while failing to provide their students with experience and grounding in managerial skills. This paper describes and discusses an innovative course structure which has been developed in order to ground the teaching of IS management theory in its local context by interlinking practical projects and case studies in local organizations. The student projects are used to generate a large "cross-sectional" case study which describes several IS management problems that are occurring simultaneously in the same organization. Students are required to integrate their analysis of the problems and to recommend an appropriate series of responses which will tackle all the situations. The paper describes the rationale and organization of the course, the results of an evaluation of its effectiveness, and discusses some of the problems that were encountered during its implementation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]