Complete thesis - Murdoch University

ACS Core BoK for ITUntil the early 1990s, model curricula for undergraduate computing programmes were notdefined in Australia. Consequently the overseas programmes, particularly the ACM recommendations,precursor to the Computing Curricula efforts, were adopted and recommendedby the ACS in the design of tertiary computing courses in Australia.From 1992 onwards, however, increasing effort was directed to identifying a core BoK applicableto the Australian computing context. A report by Underwood (1997, bokpt1.htm),prepared for the Australian Computer Society (ACS),identifies the ‘Core Body of Knowledge’ in Information Technology which all I.T.professionals practising in Information Systems, Computer Science and ComputerSystems Engineering should be expected to have.Although the focus of the report is course accreditation, it attempted to establish knowledgeand skills core to the IT professions in Australia. This was defined as fourteen Areas ofKnowledge of which one, Systems Analysis and Design, relates to RE activities:This area develops basic systems analysis and design skills by examining commonlyused techniques and system development methodologies. A range of lifecyclemodels are considered including the classical waterfall approach and morerecent approaches such as prototyping and evolutionary development. The aimis to present a balanced overview of the process of analysing user requirements,designing computerised information systems to meet these requirements and atthe same time developing the necessary skills to apply the techniques to simpleproblems(Underwood, 1997, bokpt4.htm)2.5 Model curriculaAnecdotally, it has been suggested (Nagasamy, 2002) that most units in systems analysisand design (or similar) focus on design onwards, while RE (or software/systems analysis) hasreceived less treatment because of its ‘artistic’ nature. As a second pass, a discussion of thenotable model curricula that embrace aspects of education for software development providessome basis for the identification of elements which might comprise a REBoK.77