Using complex IT in specific domains: developing and assessing a course for nonmajors

Growth in the use of complex, domain-specific information technology (IT) applications by professionals in a number of non-IT disciplines, such as anthropology, chemistry, and sociology, has led to a demand for second-level IT courses that teach students who are not computer science majors how IT can be used to solve complex problems in specific professional domains. The authors provide and assess a solution to this problem by developing and evaluating a course in which complex IT concepts and tools are taught from the perspective of different disciplines. The course presents IT concepts through case studies of complex and specialized IT systems that are used to solve problems in well-defined domains. In this paper, the underlying ideas and design of this course are described. A pilot implementation of the course, with case studies in anthropology, sociology, and chemistry, is analyzed, and its impact on a variety of student perceptions about IT is discussed. The anthropology case uses a geographic information system with simulation capabilities to examine the expansion of tropical forest farmers and the accompanying deforestation in Central Panama. The sociology case uses advanced features of Microsoft Excel to examine and evaluate possible explanations for the shifts in occupational distribution that have occurred in the United States between 1980 and 1990. The chemistry case uses a molecular modeling system to examine methods for correlating measured physical properties of simple organic molecules with their structures.