1 Barry M. Lunt, Information Technology, 265 CTB, Brigham Young University, Provo, Utah, USA, luntb@byu.edu 2 Han Reichgelt, Information Technology, PO Box 8150, Georgia Southern University, Statesboro, GA, USA, han@gasou.edu 3 Tina Ashford, Information Technology, H113, Macon State College, Macon, GA, USA, TAshford@mail.maconstate.edu 4 Andy Phelps, Information Technology, 102 Lomb Memorial Dr., Rochester Institute of Technology, Rochester, NY, USA, amp@it.rit.edu 5 Erick Slazinski, Computer Technology, 1421 Knoy Hall, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN, USA, edslazinski@tech.purdue.edu 6 Cheryl Willis, Industrial Technology, 334 T2, University of Houston, Houston, TX, USA, clwillis@uh.edu © 2003 ICECE March 16 – 19, São Paulo, BRAZIL 3 rd International Conference on Engineering and Computer Education 1 AN EMPIRICAL COMPARISON OF BACCALAUREATE PROGRAMS IN COMPUTING Barry Lunt 1 , Han Reichgelt 2 , Tina Ashford 3 , Andy Phelps 4 , Erick Slazinski 5 , Cheryl Willis 6 Abstract – When a new academic discipline emerges, it is often difficult to distinguish it from the disciplines closely related to it. Information Technology (IT) is just such an emerging discipline. This paper outlines the emergence of the Society for Information Technology Educatioin (SITE), a definition of IT curriculum, and positions IT relative to similar disciplines by empirically comparing it to programs such as Computer Science, Computer Engineering, Electrical Engineering, EET/ Telecommuni- cations Engineering Technology, Information Science, and Management Information Systems, at a total of 12 institutions. Index Terms – academic disciplines, computing, curriculum, information technology, INTRODUCTION Recently, a number of Universities in the United States and elsewhere have started baccalaureate programs in Information Technology (IT). In addition to the universities with which the authors are affiliated, other institutions include Capella University, Illinois State University, Indiana University, Pennsylvania College of Technology, State University of New York at Morrisville, the University of Baltimore, and the University of South Alabama. Most of the institutions in question have added the baccalaureate degree in Information Technology to other computing-related baccalaureate degrees already in their portfolio, such as degrees in Computer and/or Electronic Engineering, Computer Science, Information Systems, Computer Information Systems, Management Information Systems, and so on. While some (e.g., Denning, 2001) welcome this development, others are less accommodating and argue that there is nothing that would make a baccalaureate program in IT sufficiently distinct from a baccalaureate program in an existing computing discipline to warrant a separate degree program. There are two popular methodologies that one can use to try to refute the proposition that there are no significant differences between a baccalaureate program in IT and other computing programs. The first one is to engage in a more philosophical debate about the nature of IT and to distinguish it theoretically from, say, Computer Science or Information Systems. While such debate is not without merit, the results are often inconclusive, and opinions that were closely held when entering such a debate are, in general, not likely to be modified. In this paper, we therefore adopt a second methodology that one might use in support of a particular position, namely an empirical investigation. The aim of this paper is to provide an empirical comparison between the structure of IT programs and the structure of other computing programs in support of the position that IT programs have a character of their own and are distinct from other computing programs. METHODOLOGY The problem with any empirical comparison is of course the measure that one uses. In this particular instance, the question is specifically how to determine the structure of a degree program. Courses that were required in each of the degree programs were classified into one of 7 categories, namely • Business related courses; • Courses concentrating on interpersonal communication; • Software related courses; • Courses on networking, web-related technologies or databases; • Electronics and signals; • Hardware; • Physics, mathematics or chemistry. Absent from the above categories are general education courses that were taken by all students at that particular institution because they are not unique to a given major, and therefore do not help define differences between majors. The reason for classifying courses in this way was not arbitrary. In December of 2001, 15 representatives from schools currently offering baccalaureate programs in IT attended the first Conference on Information Technology