NWCET Services > Consulting, BC

Consulting

Please call (425) 564 4215 or email: [email protected] to receive more information about the consulting packages which can be tailored to the individual college’s needs.

Most colleges have experienced a decline in enrollment for their IT related programs over the last several years. The underlying causes of this phenomenon need to be identified, along with a study of employment opportunities in the region for students pursuing studies in IT. To be successful, an institution should redesign their programs to offer the proper mix of IT programs and be responsive to their students and their local job market.

Institutions can choose one or several IT programs for review.

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We offer a base package and several add-on options:

Base Package:

1. IT Job Market Analysis. NWCET will gather information about the local IT job market through business surveys and also gather information from students, faculty, and K-12 representatives:

The data gathered will define the landscape of the IT job market from a variety of perspectives such as skills sough by employers, emerging training needs, current and future job market, experience with institution’s graduates and general feedback about the IT programs. The resulting data will be compared to statistical data to identify if the local trends reflect the national trends. Online surveys and phone interviews will be used with questionnaires for data gathering.

2. Comparison of IT programs to industry needs:

In order to create and maintain high quality and responsive IT programs and course offerings, a comparison of the IT programs with the Market Analysis will be performed. This will identify areas where skills taught are meeting industry demand, and to what degree, and areas that need adjusting.

3. Recommendations reporting:

NWCET will prepare a report outlining the following:

Synopsis of the market analysis study

Review of the current IT programs and courses

Present recommendations

Options:

There are several options to consider when configuring a consulting package to meet your institution’s needs:

1. In-Depth Industry Interviews – As a follow-up to the industry portion of the market analysis, NWCET will interview industry IT Managers to further investigate skills sought for their IT employees, hiring needs, upcoming technology training needs, and feedback of the IT program. This additional information will provide specifics about the survey answers and provide more insight into how to improve the IT programs to meet market needs.

2. In-Person Focus Group – NWCET will host an onsite focus group for industry and the institution’s faculty, Workforce Dean, and administrators. This includes the recruitment of participants, preparing the focus group questions and agenda, facilitating and compiling the data. NWCET will use other work by the NWCET, such as the IT Skills Standards, to further investigate the importance of employability skills, soft skills and gather feedback from industry on the importance in the local market. By providing an opportunity to become involved in the process, local IT Hiring managers are more likely to contribute to the institution by participating in curriculum committees, job shadows, internships, job fairs and other programs.

3. Articulation Interviews – NWCET will collect information from and interview 4 years schools and/or high schools in the area to determine the opportunities for articulating the college’s IT programs.

4. Creating Skills Standards-Based Curriculum- NWCET can cross-reference the current IT curriculum against the IT Skill Standards using the NWCET’s Curriculum Development Toolkit. This will provide the following benefits:

is modularized and designed for sharing

is delivered via a variety of media

clearly articulates learning outcomes

gives students clear criteria for assessing their performance

integrates technical and foundation skills/competencies into courses and programs

maintains a congruency between competencies, activities, and assessments

focuses on the demonstration of skills and application of knowledge (i.e., performance-based)

incorporates work-simulated activities and projects whenever possible

provides hands-on experience in the form of projects, scenario based tasks, labs and other activities

meets market needs

requires frequent program and faculty skills updates

The specified IT programs will be examined to determine the IT skills being taught and then compared to the NWCET Skills Standards to identify how well they map together. The employability skills sought by the IT Hiring Managers will be identified and infused in the new curriculum.


		NWCET is a division of Bellevue College, and is partially funded by National Science Foundation grants.