Developing Measurable Cross-Departmental Learning Objectives for Requirements Elicitation in an Information Systems Curriculum

• Published in: Journal of information systems education Vol. 30; no. 1; pp. 27 - 41
• Main Authors: Ezell, Jeremy D, Lending, Diane, Dillon, Thomas W, May, Jeffrey, Hurney, Carol A, Fulcher, Keston H
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: West Lafayette Journal of Information Systems Education 2019; EDSIG
• Subjects: Activity programs (Education); Analysis; Behavioral Objectives; Career development; Classification; Cognitive biases; Computer aided software engineering; Curricula; Curriculum; Curriculum Design; Curriculum Development; Design; Education; Educational objectives; Information Systems; Interviews; Job qualifications; Job Skills; Learning; Learning Activities; Management information systems; Methods; Occupations; Requirements analysis; Requirements specifications; Scaffolding (Teaching Technique); Skills; Software development; Software quality; Students; Study and teaching; Success; Systems Analysis; Systems development; Taxonomy; Teachers; Teaching Methods; Textbooks; User needs; Visualization
• ISSN: 1055-3096; 2574-3872

The ability to elicit information systems requirements is a necessary learning objective for students in a contemporary information systems curriculum, and is a skill vital to their careers. Common challenges in teaching this skill include both the lack of structure and guidance in information systems textbooks as well as the view that a student's education consists of a disparate set of unrelated courses. These challenges are exacerbated by faculty who focus only on their taught courses and by textbooks that often promote an isolated, passing glance at both the importance of and the idea behind requirements elicitation. In this paper, we describe a multi-year, faculty-led effort to create and refine learning activities that are aligned to requirements elicitation learning objectives both within and scaffolded across courses in a modern information systems curriculum. To achieve success in developing this marketable skill within information systems students, learning activities were integrated across the entire information systems major in a process we call Bloomification, where learning objectives, aligned learning activities, and courses are related and connected across the curriculum. This cross-departmental process is presented and lessons learned by the faculty are discussed.