Abstract:

Computer science is a wide discipline. ACM/IEEE indicates five main knowledge areas in undergraduate education. They are: Computer Engineering (CE), Computer Science (CS), Information Systems (IS), Information Technology (IT) and Software Engineering (SE).

Universities should take into account the needs of employers when creating curricula. The strategies, principles and challenges of Higher Education (HE) should be consistent with the expectations of the labour market. Students' competence should enable them to easily enter the labour market with rapidly changing ICT industry needs.

Based on the latest ACM/IEEE documents, the undergraduate Computer Science curricula at the Lublin University of Technology (LUT) was modified. This process was carried out in close cooperation with employers. The university has many years of experience in cooperation with the local ICT market. Selected representatives of twelve Lublin ICT companies were involved. During the four meetings they presented modern ICT technologies currently in use, with an emphasis on the students' lack of competence in these fields. Curricula for four specialisations were created on the basis of the information collected from them and the ACM/IEEE undergraduate education model.

This paper presents the results of meetings and surveys carried out among the representatives of ICT industry in the region of Lublin, Poland. The surveys were based on the ACM/IEEE model. Presentations, discussions during the meetings, and surveys allowed to indicate the trends of change in undergraduate curricula in CS at the LUT. The study results presented here can be a clue for other universities when adapting curricula to the needs of the CS market.

Keywords:

Strategies of change in Computing curricula, University-industry cooperation, needs of ICT labour market.