The Industry Relevance of an IT Transition Programme

TL;DR

This paper evaluates the relevance and effectiveness of an IT transition programme through graduate surveys, highlighting its strengths and suggesting specific curriculum improvements to better meet industry needs.

Contribution

It provides an empirical assessment of a specific IT transition programme's current value and offers data-driven recommendations for curriculum updates.

Findings

The programme is largely useful to graduates.

Adding content on continuous integration could improve the programme.

Adjustments to testing, concurrency, and project management topics are recommended.

Abstract

There is a shortage of qualified people in the IT industry in the world. To address this shortage, transition programmes are being created that help people change to careers in IT. To provide useful programmes, we need to know if the current curriculum provides value to its graduates. Moreover, as the IT industry undergoes continuous change, we need to regularly review what the industry needs and update any existing programmes as appropriate. In this paper we present the results of a survey of graduates of one such programme, the PGCertInfoTech at University of Auckland, with the view to evaluating the currency of the existing programme and to gather data on which to base decisions on updating it. Our conclusion is that our programme is largely useful to graduates, but could be improved with the addition of material on continuous integration, and some adjustment to the time spent on testing, concurrency, and project management. Our results will be useful to any other institutions having, or considering to have, IT transition programmes.