One encouraging outcome was that after students understood methods for dealing with the negative impact of outsourcing, no student considered dropping IS as a major. Even if their first two solutions didn’t work, only 17% of the students would consider dropping IS as a major. These results indicate that with such valuable information at hand most students would be confident about choosing IS as a major.

It is interesting to note that more students agreed that the job market should be fully determined by market forces (25%) compared to those who disagreed (13%), with 56.25% students being unsure. On the other hand, 43.75% of the students still believed the government should take action to protect IS jobs from being outsourced (with 37.5% disagreeing and 18.5% not sure). This may indicate that even though students rationally thought the job market should be fully determined by market forces, it would be human nature to sometimes let self-interest supersede logic, resulting in students essentially preferring job protection. Indeed, politicians may still have an opportunity to use this offshoring issue to create media controversy in the future.

A research project designed to cause students to construct their own conclusions was largely effective in terms of facing and dealing with the negative perceptions toward the potential of future opportunities in the IS field. Enrollment data from Ohio University’s MIS department by the end of 2005 showed that more than 70% of the IS majors were taking a double major with another business major. This indicates that most IS majors understand the value of broadening their major to make it more marketable.

The approach described here applies to students who are currently IS majors. The next step is to apply this approach to students who have not yet decided on a major or might be willing to consider adding IS as a major. OU’s IS department has completed a major curricular revision with a focus on integrating business analysis and systems development throughout the curriculum. All these efforts have reversed the recent decline in enrollment in the IS program and have increased enrollment in the major by 30% to date. Many factors may be contributing to this reversal including the revision of the curriculum and the recent turnaround in the job market. The approach outlined here could be an additional factor applied in the introductory IS course to allow all business majors to see that IS is a viable major.

In addition, this approach may be also relevant to a CS program. For example, those students might also consider the double-major as one possible choice as well, by taking some business courses or a project management course.

104 June 2008/Vol. 51, No. 6 COMMUNICA TIONS OF THE ACM

CONCLUSION

The challenge created by offshore outsourcing to IS and CS education programs is so huge that many such programs, if not all, have experienced serious enrollment decreases in recent years. Professional associations in the field have realized the importance of this challenge, and have called for effective and creative methods to deal with it.

This article described one potential method that has proven successful at Ohio University. We believe this method is also easily implemented in other IS or CS programs at other universities facing the same problem. It is our belief that the IS (or CS) enrollment decrease in recent years, partially due to IS outsourcing, is a temporary phenomenon, which should be faced seriously and can be solved by using creative and effective methods.

Our suggested approach is not a solution to all the problems related to IS enrollment decreases. Other solutions, such as meeting the challenges of the global economy, skills related to entrepreneurship and project management, knowledge, and experience related to global e-commerce and m-commerce [ 5], and overseas internship experiences are also important [ 1]. It is our hope the method presented here stimulates more creative methods and provide better solutions to this important issue in the near future.

REFERENCES

1. Aspray, W., Mayadas, F., and Vardi, M. Y., Eds. Globalization and Offshoring of Software: A Report of the ACM Job Migration Task Force (2006); www.acm.org/globalizationreport/summary.htm.

2. Drezner, D. W. The outsourcing boogeyman. Foreign Affairs (May/June 2004); www.foreignaffairs.org/20040501faessay83301-p0/daniel-w- drezner/ the-outsourcing-bogeyman.html.

3. Frolick, M.N. Supply and demand of IS faculty: The 2005–2006 job market update. Commun. AIS 16 (2005), 877- 879.

4. Gumpert, D. Doing a number on outsourcing statistics. Business Week Online (July 13, 2004); www.businessweek.com/smallbiz/content/ jul2004/ sb20040713_5522_sb0-35.htm?campaign_id=search.

5. Huang, W. W., Wang, Y.L. and Day, J. Global Mobile Commerce: Strategies, Implementation and Case Studies. Idea Group Publishing, 2007.

6. Patterson, D.A. Offshoring: Finally facts vs. folklore. Commun. ACM 49, 2 (Feb. 2006), 41– 42.

 

WAYNE WEI HUANG ( [e-mail]) is a professor in the
MIS Department of Ohio University’s College of Business, Athens,
OH.
JONATHON GREENE is an MIS graduate of Ohio University,
Athens, OH.
JOHN DAY ( [e-mail]) is professor and associate dean of the
College of Business at Ohio University, Athens, OH.

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