Understanding the Social, Economic and Workforce Issues Associated with Information Technology

Citation

Pengelly, V. (2001), "Understanding the Social, Economic and Workforce Issues Associated with Information Technology", Library Hi Tech News, Vol. 18 No. 2. https://doi.org/10.1108/lhtn.2001.23918bac.001

Understanding the Social, Economic and Workforce Issues Associated with Information Technology

Vicki Pengelly

Understanding the Social, Economic and Workforce Issues Associated with Information Technology

Introduction

Are you concerned about "seed corn"? How about "green corn"? These sound like issues for an agricultural seminar, not a workshop on information technology. However, these are just two of the topics raised during this workshop. Each presenter offered food for thought while examining the issues from a slightly different angle.

Susan Fratkin, Principle, Fratkin Associates, served as emcee and provided a framework by outlining the broad issues and describing some efforts undertaken by the federal government to address the issues. Fratkin pointed out that national attention became focused on these issues with the publication of a couple of reports from PITAC, the President's Information Technology Advisory Committee. The first report, which came out in February 1999, pointed out numerous ways in which information technology is transforming society and then recommended several steps to be taken by the federal government to help address the issues.

Some of the transforming factors include the potential of information technology (IT) for democratizing society, our inability to produce software fast enough to keep up with the demand, the tremendous growth in the use of the Internet and its attendant challenges, and the fact that we are unable to take advantage of high-end computers to solve some of our technical research problems. The report calls upon the federal government to fund IT research, especially long-term projects, to help upgrade the knowledge and skills of the workforce, and to foster participation of under-represented groups in the IT arena.

Fratkin went on to outline a number of initiatives that have been undertaken as a result of the 1999 PITAC report. Bipartisan legislation was passed in 1999 to increase funding for the National Science Foundation (NSF) and to position NSF as the lead organization in an inter-agency program for Information Technology Research (ITR). Grants were already awarded for Fiscal Year 2000, the first year of this program, which sought to foster research in several areas:

• •

  advanced computational science;

• •

  human-computer interface;

• •

  information management;

• •

  IT education and workforce;

• •

  revolutionary computing;

• •

  scalable information infrastructure;

• •

  social and economic implications of IT;

• •

  software development.

Fratkin pointed out that the first four are probably most relevant to the workshop participants and members of their campuses. With regard to workforce development, efforts will be made to train students, develop methods to boost IT literacy and skills, and come up with new methods for educating people in IT areas. The social and economic area will include research into the ways in which IT tranforms and is transformed by society, along with topics related to the digital economy and Internet commerce.

The results were somewhat disappointing for the first round of proposals, Fratkin said, and for the coming year there are some newly designated areas to examine, including:

• •

  system design and implementation;

• •

  interactions between people and computers;

• •

  information management,

• •

  applications in science and engineering; and

• •

  scalable infrastructure for pervasive computing and access.

The initial deadline falls in November for the Fiscal Year 2001 projects, and the grants will be awarded at three levels:

1. 1.

   under $500K for single principal investigator;

2. 2.

   less than $1 million per year for up to five years for small groups; and

3. 3.

   less than $1 million per year for up to five years for large groups. Additional funding is being considered, and the NSF needs volunteers to review proposals.

Fratkin further elaborated on one of the social issues, access for underrepresented groups, sometimes referred to as "The Digital Divide." This topic is addressed in its own PITAC report, "Resolving the Digital Divide: Information, Access, and Opportunity," issued in February 2000. This issue was also raised on the international level at a G8 summit in July. Fratkin summarized the report's key points, which call for:

• •

  fostering policies to overcome the divide;

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  expanding basic connectivity;

• •

  building human capacity;

• •

  enhancing health care and quality of life; and

• •

  creating new opportunities for small and medium enterprises.

Other aspects of the framework were provided by Peter Freeman, Dean of the College of Computer Science at the Georgia Institute of Technology. Freeman discussed "The Supply of Information Technology Workers in the United States," an important study from CRA, the Computing Research Association. Freeman and his colleagues who undertook this study sought to bring greater clarity to the discussion of IT workforce issues by refining definitions, evaluating a wealth of data, examining the issue of supply and demand, and analyzing claims regarding the shortage of IT workers.

Freeman noted that we hear frequently of a serious shortage of IT workers. Some reports have indicated that we need 180,000 computer scientists right now to fill vacant positions, but that figure may be misleading. When the CRA looked more closely at this issue, they discovered the importance of drawing a distinction between an "IT worker" and an "IT-enabled" worker. Many occupations call for an IT-enabled worker, i.e. someone who uses technology to accomplish his or her job, such as a bank teller. An IT worker is someone who actually produces technology artifacts, for example, a programmer who writes code to produce an operating system. The report further refines the issue by classifying IT workers according to four categories: conceptualizer (e.g. research engineer); developer (e.g. software engineer); modifier/extender (programmer); supporter/tender (help desk consultant).

Do we really have a shortage of IT-enabled workers? Of IT workers? Of all categories of IT workers? The report examined a wealth of data related to these issues and concluded the federal data tend to be quite reliable, yet, even those figures have shortcomings based on such issues as fuzzy job titles, out-of-date job descriptions, and untimely reporting. What appears to be the case is that there are shortages but they are more serious in some job categories than others, in some geographic areas than others, and so forth.

Freeman also described the "seed corn" issue, that is, the loss of faculty to industry. This was occurring in the late 1970s and early 1980s, according to a paper by Peter Denning, and the concern is that once we deplete the ranks of those faculty, then who is left to teach and guide the next generation of students. The CRA report did not find a similar "seed corn" issue occurring at this time, partly because our academic facilities and research efforts are stronger than in the early 1980s (thanks partly to some NSF funding to address the issue), plus there is less difference between academic and industrial research now compared to the past. However, Freeman recommended vigilance in monitoring trends to see whether this issue might surface again.

The seed corn issue prompted a comment from the audience on the "green corn" issue. That is, we are now seeing students lured into industry jobs before completing their degrees and before achieving the levels of maturity they need to be professionals. Students may be getting good jobs creating Web pages right now, but what will they do when that entire process is automated? If the students are not well prepared, will they really be able to produce high-quality work?

The CRA report also addresses the issue of supply and demand. Freeman commented that we have some figures on the supply of IT workers (e.g. the number of students graduating with degrees in computer science), although these figures are often a couple of years out of date. But even more difficult is defining the demand. We don't have good numbers to assess the demand. For example, we might have a short-term demand, such as occurred with the Y2K conversion, but do we have those same needs over the long term? Furthermore, there is really a multi-faceted and multi-dimensional supply system. We have programs at four-year colleges and research universities, we have vocational/training schools, we have distance learning, and commercial educational institutions. A wide variety of majors and disciplines can supply workers to fill IT positions.

Thus, the CRA report is key in pointing out the need to define the issues more clearly. It concludes with several recommendations, from improving data-collection practices to revising occupational classifications, from boosting the skills of older workers to stepping up efforts by the federal government.

Institutional Initiatives

One way in which institutions are addressing the need for well-trained IT staff is to "grow" their own. Joseph N. Douglas, Jr, CIO/Director at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee (UWM), described the Student Technology Services program he established at UWM. He refers to the program as a "work-based learning organization" whose purpose is two-fold:

• •

  to prepare students for professional life; and

• •

  to get work done on campus.

For the year 2000-2001, over 300 students are participating in this program, which identifies promising students, provides them with extensive training, and places them in technology support positions on and off campus. In recruiting students for the program, Douglas looks for those with good interpersonal skills and a willingness to "learn fast and work hard." Students need not be majoring in information technology fields; in fact, participants come from a wide variety of disciplines, including health, art, and architecture, to name just a few that might not be expected.

The program is based on the beliefs that students are eager to learn and to develop their job skills and that they can be trusted to perform at a high level. Douglas quipped that each year there may be one or two students who set examples of what not to do and there are serious consequences for unacceptable behavior. Overall he has had excellent results, and he finds that students can be trusted with server administration and other tasks that traditionally have raised concerns about system security.

The program, with an operating budget of almost $2 million, is run entirely by students, who manage the budget, provide the training, and conduct performance appraisals. Once selected for the program, the students receive extensive and ongoing training, plus mentoring by more experienced students and by members of the full-time IT staff. Douglas indicated that about 40 per cent of the training focuses on non-technical topics, such as supervisory skills, teamwork, listening skills, and other "life" skills.

After the initial training, students are placed in IT support positions on campus or with local businesses. For example, 90 students cover the help desk and are expected to answer 90 per cent of the questions that come in; the 3.5 FTE full-time staff handle the other 10 per cent. Other positions include staffing the computer labs, developing and maintaining Web pages, developing multimedia applications, distributing and setting up audio-visual equipment, and several others. Students average about 16-18 hours per week on the job and are encouraged to move among various positions to gain skills in several areas. They also continue to receive training for two hours each week and are rewarded with pay raises for completing the additional training. Most students start at about $6.50 per hour and the current average is $7.30. Every student receives a performance appraisal every semester by his or her student supervisor.

Douglas sees numerous benefits of the STS program. The service provided to the campus by various IT departments has improved and new services have been added; user satisfaction is up and staff interruptions are down. Potential employers benefit because they can hire employees who are already partially trained and who can be productive quickly after coming on board. The students benefit from the excellent training and they enter the workforce as well prepared IT professionals. Douglas noted that he has recovered about a third of the permanent staff's time that was formerly devoted to issues now handled by the students. In addition, he is able to deliver some services at about 40 per cent of the cost of using full-time staff.

Plans are under way to expand the program to other educational institutions in Wisconsin, including technical colleges and the K-12 arena. In June of 2001 there will be an STS conference at UWM to promote the exchange of information about student employee development programs. Interested parties are encouraged to attend and bring student employees. More information is provided at the UWM Web site at the end of this report.

What farmer plants a crop and then neglects it, hoping it will yield a good harvest in spite of neglect? Similarly, who can expect children to grow and develop their gifts without nurturing? Yet the educational system sometimes fails to provide students with the knowledge and skills they need at a young enough age to encourage them toward careers in technology. Steven Gordon, professor at Ohio State University and Deputy Director of the Ohio Supercomputer Center (OSC), is addressing this issue.

Gordon works with students to boost their technology skills but his approach is different from the program at UW-Milwaukee. He pointed out that many students set the direction for careers as early as middle school, and they are influenced by their early experiences with math, science, and technology. His program, aimed at middle-school girls, attempts to stir up interest in science and math through a summer institute combining hands-on activities in the field (such as in-stream sampling for water quality), data analysis, and presentations by women with careers in science and technology.

Recognizing that many teachers have not been exposed to these same principles or teaching methods, the OSC program also provides training for teachers. The initial group consisted of 12 teachers but it quickly became clear that the program would not scale well to large groups. Thus the current plan is to reach more teachers by offering some of the material as distance learning classes. In addition, Gordon mentioned other issues that need to be addressed. For example, right now the technology provided in many K-12 classrooms is inadequate for use in this type of program. Further, the current focus on preparing students for standardized tests has a tendency to short-change the problem-solving skills that are emphasized during the Summer Institute and that are needed for working effectively in information technology fields. He concluded by referring to a similar program called "ASPIRE," conducted by the University of Alabama.

Industry Initiatives

Cisco Systems Education Market Analyst Stephanie Heier briefly discussed some of the training options offered by Cisco. Their training efforts grew from the recognition that there was a large and growing need for IT training that was not being adequately met.

Heier briefly outlined the Cisco Networking Academy program. Semesters 1-4 constitute the equivalent of 280 hours of instruction aimed at providing a basic foundation in networking through a combination of online classes, instructor-led classes, and hands-on exercises. Students who successfully complete this program are eligible to try for the Cisco Certified Network Associate certification. This program is available to students at both the secondary and post-secondary levels.

Semesters 5-8, also equivalent to 280 hours of instruction, are more advanced and are designed to lead to the next level of certification, the Cisco Certified Network Professional. This program is still under development and will most likely be offered at the post-secondary level because of the prerequisites and the type of equipment needed.

In response to a question from the audience, Heier explained that Cisco places high value on the quality of their course offerings and has hired or contracted with professionals in pedagogy to design the courses and develop the materials using information provided by technical experts.

Garret Stern, Policy Analyst with EDUCAUSE, covered "Working Connections," a program undertaken by Microsoft in conjunction with the American Association of Community Colleges (AACC). This program has four main goals:

1. 1.

   business and industry outreach;

2. 2.

   development of IT curriculum;

3. 3.

   workforce development; and

4. 4.

   faculty/staff development.

Around $7 million in grants will go to numerous community colleges to help with focused training for IT careers. Refer to the Web sites at the end of the article for more information on this program.

Stern pointed out that a proposed federal bill, currently on hold, would provide for raising the number of work visas issued to IT workers wanting to come to the United States from other countries. The pending legislation would raise the number of visas allowed to 195,000. This cap does not apply to foreign students attending graduate school in the US or to personnel who currently work at US universities. For more information check on S. 2045, H.R. 3183, and H.R. 4227.

Conclusion

Fratkin concluded by pointing out that the seminar workbook contains a list of relevant URLs, plus two articles, one on the legislation mentioned by Stern and one on IT workforce development written by the President of Rutgers University. All in all this was an enjoyable and informative workshop providing fertile ground for additional study. For more information refer to the following Web sites:

Cisco Networking Academyhttp://www.cisco.com/edu/academy

Computing Research Association"The Supply of Information Technology Workers in the United States": http://www.cra.org/reports/wits/cra.wits.html

Education Trusthttp://www.edtrust.org

National Science Foundation Information Technology Research Programhttp://www.itr.nsf.gov

Ohio Supercomputing Center's Programs Young Women's Summer Institute: http://www.osc.edu/ywsi/2000/

Computational Science Institute for High School Teachers: http://www. osc.edu/csi/

President's Information Technology Advisory Committee"Report to the President on the Digital Divide": http://www.ccic.gov/ac/#pres-2feb00"Information Technology Research: Investing in Our Future": http://www.ccic.gov/ac/report/

University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Student Technology Serviceshttp://www.uwm.edu/IMT/STS

Working Connectionshttp://www.aacc.nche.edu/Working Connections

Vicki Pengelly is Director of Client Services, University of Montana, Missoula, Montana. E-mail: pengellyv@mso.umt.edu