Nowadays, Universities and other Training Institutions need to clearly identify the Information Technology IT skills that companies demand from IT practitioners. This is essential not only for offering appropriate and reliable university degrees, but also to help future IT professionals on where to focus in order to achieve better job positions. In an attempt to address this issue, this study rely on 102 Chief Information Officers, from Iberian large companies, to characterize current IT professionals and what is expected from future hirings. Results revealed that IT Technicians and Senior Analysts are the predominant positions and also that future hiring will request candidates with at least two to five years of work experience. The two most important skills found were core functions at the IT department: business knowledge and user support. In contrast, traditional competences such as web development and management of emerging technologies were less demanded.

IT Professionals: An Iberian Snapshot

Globalization is not only influencing social and economics perspectives of Society. It is also a challenge for higher education teachers. In the case of IT degrees, well known curricula models and proposals as well as specific studies are diminishing uncertainty in the area of technical knowledge and skills. But success in multinational IT professional environments strongly depends on deployment of non technical abilities (the so called soft skills) which should be promoted among students to enable graduates reach best results. But which soft skills are most important in this type of environments? This paper presents results of a specific survey among experts and students intended to contribute to the determination of a recommended set of skills to be promoted by teachers in multinational teams of students.

New challenge for teachers: dealing with soft skills in multinational environments

paper describes an ongoing action research study based on application of the principles of the cognitive apprenticeship model applied to a final year capstone unit of study involving Information Systems analysis (ISA) projects. The aim of the capstone unit is to develop students' expertise in information systems analysis by exposing students to projects set in realistic environments, working with supervisors experienced in systems analysis. Students are formed into teams and work in the role of information systems analysts with industry clients on real world organizational problems typically related to process improvement in information technology. The research for this paper is performed through the use of structured reflective journals where the students are required to answer a wide ranging set of questions. These questions are designed to encourage students to reflect on their understanding of both the project and the process of systems analysis. This paper reports on the journal submissions by students prior to starting the project in which students describe their understanding and expectations of the capstone project. The observations and views of two supervisors describe how initial interpretations of the role of supervisors by students can inhibit the interaction between students and supervisors.

Students Perception of Capstone Projects

This study tracked changes in skill requirements of information technology (IT) professionals in Hong Kong. The study coded representative job advertisements that appeared in the newspapers over a period of fourteen years – from 1990 to 2004. As there are many IT job titles, this study focused on three – namely, programmer, systems analyst, and IT manager. The coding results showed that there are changing emphases among three types of skills, vis-a-viz technical skills, business skills, and systems skills. Technical skills, however, remained the most important for programmers while business skills continued to be the most sought after for IT managers. Systems skills are marginally less important than technical and business skills for systems analysts. One discerning result concerning skill changes is that business skills appear to be increasing in importance for programmers and systems analysts. The study discussed the implications of the results.

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Patrick Chang

Papers

Information Technology Professionals' Skill Requirements in Hong Kong