CIS Electives for Technical Support Analysts
Technical skills are critical for computer related professions. Unless computer information systems (CIS) graduates have the special technical skills that employers need, they may have difficulty in obtaining their first CIS related positions. Specific skills will often vary by job classification. Many CIS personnel acquire their necessary job skills from institutions of higher education. The research reported in this paper examines 16 technical CIS electives often recommended by CIS academia. A survey questions a sample of both system analysts and technical support analysts to determine the perceived importance of the suggested electives. The results show that the perceived important electives for system analysts are different from those perceived by technical support analysts. Both professions perceive telecommunications and database concepts as being important while their perceptions differ on information center concepts and management, CIS professionalism and ethics, software engineering, and advanced...