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STUDENT NEWS
Department of Information Systems Chair Mark Fuller and Assistant Professor Mauricio Featherman work with students in the MIS classroom.
Students Applaud New Mis Curriculum
One year after the information systems department
switched to a .NET-based curriculum, the verdict is in:
students are benefiting from the change.
In fall 2005, the IS department rolled out a new curriculum
based on Microsoft’s .NET framework, abandoning
classes on COBOL and JAVA software, and focusing instead
on a four-course sequence of Visual Basic C# and ASP.NET
using the .NET platform. The decision was based, in part,
on input from recruiters on the technical, systems, and
business skills needed by graduates in MIS.
“While graduates from our major go into a variety of
careers other than strict applications development—for
example as systems analysts—our curriculum gives them a
great skill set to draw on when analyzing business needs,
and then helping design systems to meet those needs,”
says IS department chair Mark Fuller.
According to IS Associate Professor K.D. Joshi, when
a number of different programming languages are taught
and used in courses, students’ ability to become proficient
at any one language and progress to more advanced levels
of expertise is limited. Consolidating the programming
languages allows students to concentrate on course content,
rather than repeatedly switching syntax. The resulting
courses can guide students to previously unattainable levels
of technical proficiency and practical understanding.
“This curriculum allows us to focus on how information
technology can help support business processes instead of
focusing on the various different integrated development
environments and language specific syntax,” says Joshi.
“The change in the MIS curriculum provides students
with a deeper understanding of the .NET framework,” says
Leah Knowles (’06 Business Administration/MIS), part
of the first group of students to experience the transition.
“Because students don’t need to learn different languages,
courses are more integrated and focused.”
“The migration to an integrated .NET environment
has been very beneficial to my learning experience at
WSU,” says Darren Bystrom (’06 Business Administra-
24 WSU College of Business