Toward a Framework for Understanding Information Systems Degree Program Sustainability

Abstract

This paper considers a new perspective on the changing landscape of Information Systems (IS) education: the sustainability of IS degree programs. Some IS programs have struggled to balance uneven student enrollments with evolving employer needs. They are often misunderstood or mistaken for other computing degrees, and some are 1n business colleges whose deans consider them less important than other business degrees. Many IS programs have successfully confronted such challenges, but there are fewer IS programs in business schools now than there were a decade ago. Some have been eliminated, merged with other programs, reconceptualized, or moved to other colleges, and the continuance of others 1s at risk. Program sustainability frameworks have emerged in other fields to understand why some programs are more durable than others. In this paper, we explore the potential of using a sustainability framework developed for healthcare as a starting point for developing a program sustainability framework for IS education. We show that even modest modifications to the framework's assessment tool can shed light on factors related to IS degree programs" long-term success and that some of the framework's sustainability determinants may apply to IS programs. Some of the work needed to develop a framework and assessment tool for IS education is described and some of the ways a framework and assessment tool might be used by programs and IS education researchers are identified.