As part of the 2011 program redesign, what was known as MIS120 was completely redesigned in the spring of 2011 and renamed MIS2501 – Enterprise IT Architecture. The work done on this course has been recognized by the Center for Innovation in Teaching and Learning with an Innovation in Teaching award. The class has been transformed from a class which had used traditional lectures, traditional textbooks, and traditional exams to a new format which challenges students to learn independently, think critically, and articulates the value of technologies from the perspective of the capabilities the technology provides as well as the business case for investing in a technology.
In the fall of 2014 we introduced “Hands-on Tech Challenges” to MIS2501. In the past, students learned a great deal about technology by researching and analyzing technology but not through enough hands-on experience with technology. In the fall of 2014 we changed 25% of the course so that it includes the development of hands-on technology skills. Students create virtual machines, install server operating systems, configure disk subsystems, install and configure database servers. The last exam of the semester is a pure hands-on exam. Students must demonstrate that they have developed basic competency with all of the technologies we worked with in the Tech Challenges.
In the fall of 2014 we introduced “Hands-on Tech Challenges” to MIS2501. In the past, students learned a great deal about technology by researching and analyzing technology but not through enough hands-on experience with technology. In the fall of 2014 we changed 25% of the course so that it includes the development of hands-on technology skills. Students create virtual machines, install server operating systems, configure disk subsystems, install and configure database servers. The last exam of the semester is a pure hands-on exam. Students must demonstrate that they have developed basic competency with all of the technologies we worked with in the Tech Challenges.
In the fall of 2015 we pushed the idea of “Hand-on Tech Challenges even further and we expanded on this idea and updated the curriculum so that 50% of the student’s grade will come from new “Tech Challenges” where students are challenged to build out the infrastructure for a fictitious start-up using cloud services provided to us through a grant from Microsoft. Students create domain controllers, file servers, configure users, groups, security and login scripts. Students configure disk subsystems, install and configure database servers, web servers and network monitors. Basically, the provide a complete technology platform for their fictitious start-up. Two of the exams are pure hands-on exams. Students must demonstrate that they have developed basic competency with all of the technologies we worked with in the Tech Challenges.