Computer Science Curriculum and Industry Certification: Integrating Education with Practice

The curriculum of a typical computer science (CS) department gives
students a well-rounded, broad base with which they move into industry. However
without specific product skills many employers may be reluctant to hire CS
graduates. Employers often complain that job applicants and new hires are not
well prepared to work for them. An emerging need for industry is the qualification
for industry-based certificates. Credentialing for specific products has become
predominant. Academics typically resist the demands of the industry, in part
because some of them are for specific software tools, design methods, or
programming languages that might fade away with time. Under market pressure,
industry-based certifications are rapidly considered being complementary to and
may integrate with academic degrees.
In this paper integration issues are discussed and main integration models are
presented. Finally we present and discuss a case study to integrate industry-based
certifications with a CS curriculum.