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Teaching IT Project Management to Postgraduate Business Students: A Practical Approach
- Source :
-
Journal of Information Technology Education . 2005 4:153-166. - Publication Year :
- 2005
-
Abstract
- While most Information Systems (IS) professionals spend much of their time in the implementation or management of projects, the curriculum of university Information Technology (IT) courses does not always reflect this. While most university IT courses cover some aspects of project management, some do not go into this topic in any depth, and many make this a wholly theoretical exercise, particularly at the postgraduate level. We have found that students, even postgraduate students, often lack a practical frame of reference and so if the material is presented only in a theoretical manner, some of the nuances of project management issues escape them. In the paper we describe and advocate a practical approach to teaching IT Project Management to postgraduate business students from many different disciplines. In particular, we advocate the construction of student assignments designed to make use of project management software to handle the on-going management of projects as well as project planning, the use of online student exercises, and student class presentations as a way of achieving this. The paper outlines the approach used at Victoria University and relates some of the student feedback we have received. The paper is set out in five sections: (1) The Importance of IT Project Management. In this section we examine the importance of this subject area and the need to include it in postgraduate IT and other business courses; (2) Teaching IT Project Management Concepts. Next we discuss some of the teaching concepts and issues involved in relation to a learning model; (3) IT Project Management Subject Structure. This section describes the subject "IT Project Management" taught at Victoria University, detailing the content and the assignments. (4) Student Evaluation. Surveys have been conducted at the end of each semester for the last three semesters on what students thought of the subject and what they thought they had learned. This section describes and analyses this student feedback; and (5) Conclusion. Our approach to teaching "IT Project Management" involves both lectures and practical assignments. It gives particular stress to the use of project management software to plan, monitor and control a project. We conclude that it works well with both postgraduate IT and general business students.
Details
- Language :
- English
- ISSN :
- 1547-9714
- Volume :
- 4
- Database :
- ERIC
- Journal :
- Journal of Information Technology Education
- Publication Type :
- Academic Journal
- Accession number :
- EJ844489
- Document Type :
- Journal Articles<br />Reports - Descriptive