ServicesCurriculum
From Services University
Abstract
Services Computing has been recognized as a new foundational discipline of the modern services industry. But there are few systematic guidelines for undergraduate and graduate programs. Services Computing Curriculum Initiative (SCCI) is an attempt to systematically integrate the best practices and result in the creation of Services Computing degree programs that are suitable for accreditation processes. Several such initiatives have been launched in a number of countries and regions.
The Technical Committee on Services Computing (TC-SVC) within the IEEE Computer Society is leading the SCCI, which are being contributed by a broad, internationally based group of volunteers and participants from industry, academia, and professional societies. It is the belief of this broad based community that an innovative and agile approach to curriculum creation to meet the fast emerging needs for educating and producing more future service-centric professionals must be employed in the 21st century. This paper presents the objectives, architectural framework, body of knowledge, guidelines, recommended methods for course composition, and future directions of SCCI.
Contents |
Introduction
As a foundational discipline of the modern services industry, Services Computing (SC) covers the science and technology of services innovations that leverage information technology (IT) and computing technology to model, create, operate, and manage business solutions, scientific applications, as well as modernized services. The underneath technology suite includes Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) and Web services, business consulting methodology and utilities, business process modeling, transformation and integration, and services delivery and management. The goal of Services Computing is to enable IT services through engaging, developing, and deploying computing technology with an eye towards computational efficiency and process effectiveness.
In the modern services and software industry there is a tremendous need for highly skilled professionals and graduates in the field of Services Computing. But there are few systematic guidelines for undergraduate and graduate programs for Services Computing today. The Services Computing Curriculum Initiative (SCCI) is designed to systematically integrate the best practices and result in the creation process of Services Computing degree programs that are suitable for the accreditation processes.
The Technical Committee on Services Computing (TC-SVC) within the IEEE Computer Society started the project entitled the Services Computing Model Curriculum in 2007 (for short, SC2007). The committee has been leading the recommendation efforts, which are being shaped by a broad, internationally based group of volunteer participants from industry, academia, and professional societies. While the leaders of this committee is fully aware of the conventional wisdom of curriculum recommendation through the old-fashioned channels and procedures, it is the belief of this broad based community that an innovative and agile approach to curriculum creation to meet the fast emerging needs for educating and producing more future service-centric professionals must be employed in the 21st century.
This paper presents the objectives, architectural framework, body of knowledge, guidelines, course composition and future directions of the Services Computing Curriculum Initiative. The primary purpose of the recommendations of the Services Computing Curriculum is to provide guidance to academic institutions and accreditation agencies about what should constitute an undergraduate and graduate education on Services Computing from the perspective of course creation and instructional delivery. A parallel project on Body of Knowledge on Services Computing (BoKoSC) has been progressing steadily so that it will serve as the foundation for the creation of such a curriculum.
Services Computing Definition
The word ‘service’ has been in existence for many centuries in human history. It refers to the work done by an individual or a group of individuals that helps another individual or a group in some way. There are many definitions for the word ‘service’ and some of them are discussed below.
James Fitzimmons [1] defines service as an ethereal experience that is perishable over time and carried out for a customer who is also a co-producer.
Christian Gronroos’s definition [2] of service is in the context of management. He defines service as an action or series of actions for solving a customer’s problems that are not tangible and usually occur during exchanges between the customer and person(s) who provide the service involving the resources or supplies and/or systems of the person(s) providing the service.
Though the above definitions are presented differently, they both involve a provider of service and a consumer of service. The latter offers the service while the former uses it. The service may be provided in online (real time) or offline mode. In the context of IT enabled services, the term service is defined in this book as below:
The term service refers to the association between supplier(s) of service and customer(s) that aims to realize a business objective or a solution to a problem.
The service provider is obliged to fulfill the required tasks and add value to the business of the customer through the lifecycle of the service. Both the provider and the consumer shall have the common aim of maintaining a healthy relationship and mutual trust during the course of providing the service.
An IT-enabled service business is a business that uses Information Technology as a tool and has two main features: a model that defines its operation and another entity that defines how the service is to be charged. Depending on the model, services can be provided in many diverse ways. An end to end model means the service is provided directly to the end consumers. Using Information Technology, services can be delivered in several innovative ways with the objective of improving the user’s experience as well improve the productivity of the providers. Some of these models are: hosted service, data centered outsourcing, service through online agencies, and business process outsourcing (BPO).
Just like operation of service, there are different models for the way the service is charged or paid for. Mainly there are 3 models for charging of services: models based on fees, models without fees (free of charge) and service provided to government agencies. In the model based on fees, the user pays a pre determined fees for the service, e.g., for an online payment service a fee based on each transaction is paid for. In the model without fees, no fees are charged by the provider like free online communication services through emails, instant messages or voice over IP. The service provided to the general public by government though free to the end user is actually funded by the taxes collected by the government.
Each service may consist of different levels depending on users’ need of quality and capabilities. The higher the quality of service and functionality, the higher the fee that the user needs to pay. A web hosting provider may have 3 plans viz. a platinum plan, a gold plan or a silver plan, the difference between them may be amount of storage space offered, rate of file transfer etc. Each plan will have different charge per month.
In conclusion, the subject of Services Computing is a basic discipline that encompasses the science, technology and research in the areas that provide innovative services, manage business solutions etc. using Information Technology as a tool. The basic architecture of services computing consists of service oriented architecture, business process modeling, a business consulting methodology, web services and integration of all of them as described in Figure 3. Services computing has a wide scope covering diverse areas such as innovation and research, modeling, creation, delivery, deployment, realization, discovery, collaboration, mentoring, optimization and management. The aim of services computing is to carry out business more efficiently and successfully using information and computing technology.
Creating a new Computing Curriculum to cover Services Innovations
Since computing technology keeps evolving from the capability and scope perspectives, other computing curriculums were expected in the field.
Most of the current computing education materials are focused on hardware, software, and organizational behaviors (business). For example, Electrical Engineering (EE) and Computer Engineering (CE) are directly related to the hardware area. Computer Science and Software Engineering have built the foundations for the software area. In Figure 1, software and hardware areas overlap mostly at CE. Information Technology (IT) and Information Systems (IS) address how information and technology are deployed and managed to improve an organization’s productivity.
Since 2003, Services Computing (SC) has been evolved as a new discipline that overlaps all aforementioned disciplines. As illustrated in
Figure 1, a new area called “Services” has been added to the landscape of computing education landscape. Services Computing (SC) is the formalized body of knowledge that leverages and enhances computing technology to address challenging issues and generate business values in the modern services industry. At this point in time, we envisioned that students in computer science, computer engineering, information technology, information systems, software engineering and other related areas have another opportunity to expand their knowledge and skills, mainly by taking some courses in the field of Services Computing, to meet the required qualifications for contributing to the fast growing services industry.
- ↑ Liang-Jie Zhang.Services Computing: A New Discipline, International Journal of Web Services Research (JWSR), "[1]" 2004.
- ↑ Liang-Jie Zhang and Hong Cai, Service HyperChain Architecture of Web X.o and A Case Study, Proceedings of the 2007 IEEE International Conference on Web Services (ICWS 2007), 9-13 July 2007, pp.968 - 975
