Pronetos

This is a great question! I've been wondering the same. It seems to vary considerably from institution to institution. At the primary institution where I teach (Edmonds Community College), I teach in Computer Information Systems (CIS) but we are in the Math/Science division. Our program covers CISCO networking, systems analysis, design and development and software/hardware support. Our Business Technology program, in the Business division, is only office applications (word processing, spreadsheets, etc.) and is called Business Information Technologies (BSTech). We also have a separate computer science program in the Math/Science division, and a Computer Electronics and Networks (CEN) program.

However, I'm also an adjunct lecturer at a 4-year university where I teach essentially the same courses (except they are 400 level) as part of a major in IT Administration and Management (ITAM), in the division of education and professional studies!

I believe that it's confusing for people trying to enter the field when we have so many different program names. It certainly causes confusion at Edmonds CC, since we have several different "computer" and "IT" programs within the same college. We're trying to figure out a better way to differentiate and market each of these programs so it's clearer to potential students.

I'm glad to see that I'm not the only one who's confused about how fragmented our discipline seems to be. My feeling is that long-term, and in the academic world it could easily be 20 years, we'll eventually start seeing colleges of technology at universities, just like we have colleges of business, education, liberal arts, etc. today. It just makes sense to capitalize on the unique contributions of different disciplines to an overall degree in technology, and then students could pick a concentration of computer science, information systems, information management, etc. Opinions?