Institute Joins FITC Alliance in Assessment Role

To support the strategic goals of the FITC project, the Information Institute (Institute)team will conduct the Assessment Plan for the Florida IT Career (FITC) Pathways Alliance project by collecting and analyzing data that seek to document and describe North Florida’s IT career pathways including the K-16 education pipeline.  This FITC assessment plan is refined and built upon the research design and findings of the Institute’s ongoing four-year National Science Foundation Advanced Technology Education (NSF ATE) project.  The main goal of the NSF ATE is to investigate the educational and career pathways of individuals working as IT technicians who support broadband deployment in rural communities in Northwest Florida.  Preliminary results from the NSF ATE curriculum analysis; job posting analysis; and faculty, student, and employer focus groups form a starting point for the FITC Pathways Alliance study which includes curriculum alignment analysis, employer network growth, and potential expansion of career pathway support.

The FITC Pathways Alliance assessment plan provides an approach to satisfy the data collection/reporting requirements for the BOG and FSU, as well as to describe the IT and computing career pathways currently needed in North Florida. Describing the various pathways the students will take as they move into jobs and careers will provide significant insights on how each education tier can develop the academic programs that supporting computing careers, how to create effective workflows with all the various stakeholders.  The assessment report to be developed in June 2015 will describe assessment activities completed in Year 1, as well as offer an overview of assessment procedures and activities for Years 2-4.