Year

2022

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy

Department

School of Computing and Information Technology

Abstract

The employability of ICT graduates is a critical issue that needs to be addressed by Higher Education Institutions (HEIs). It can be argued that there are different challenges for higher education institutions, employers, and regulatory bodies around graduates’ readiness to join the modern workplace. The media and academic research is often critical on the matter of employability and continue to question the issues of (i) mismatches in the skills needed for and supply of ICT graduates; (ii) how faculty can keep themselves abreast with the changes in technology skills needed; (iii) how industry practitioners can be an integral part in the design and delivery of the curriculum that produces graduates with the global skills required by the workplace as demanded by Small Medium Enterprises (SMEs), Multi-National Companies (GNCs) and by the growing number of startups; and (iv) industry-academia collaboration for curriculum design and delivery. Typically, ICT remains the key driver and enabler of growth in all business sectors and is a recession-proof career; hence, all stakeholders should collaboratively design and deliver its curriculum.

This study seeks to investigate the challenges Higher Education Institutions face in designing and delivering an industry-driven curriculum that would satisfy the expectations and requirements of students, academics, regulatory bodies, and employers. It aims to address the gaps and identify the mismatches in the expectations of these stakeholders. The goal is to develop a sustainable framework for curriculum design that contains strategic and measurable provisions in curriculum delivery, ensuring that experiential learning is genuinely embedded in the ICT curriculum.

The research has achieved its research goal to develop a proposed framework from an extensive literature review and in-depth analysis of the findings obtained from online surveys and focus groups involving the different stakeholders – students, alumni, academia, and employers. This study contributes to the literature where minimal research is available on collaborative design and delivery of an ICT curriculum involving the different relevant stakeholders.

FoR codes (2020)

4608 Human-centred computing, 460803 Collaborative and social computing, 460804 Computing education

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Unless otherwise indicated, the views expressed in this thesis are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of the University of Wollongong.