Academia Updates

BMC Student Case Competition

Congratulations to Purdue University and all teams for such a fine competition!

The presentations at Fusion 11 were fantastic in content and presentation style. The audience was amazed again this year with the quality of information as well as the unique spin each team applied to the case and the judges had quite a difficult time judging due to the quality.

Thanks again to BMC for the generous support and we are all looking forward next year’s competition in Dallas! Attention all universities: Get your teams ready!

The objectives of the Academic Executive Subcommittee are to work with all portfolios represented on the itSMF USA Board to achieve the following:

• To ensure that ITSM is recognized as an academic discipline within the USA
• To ensure that ITSM curricula offered by academic institutions are consistent and appropriate for each level of course offered
• To ensure that ITSM is recognized as a profession and is sustained by a recognized set of career paths, supported by curriculum and courses that are aligned to these paths
• To promote the sharing of knowledge and networking amongst members of the academic community
• To identify and support research opportunities that facilitate a better understanding of ITSM and the way in which it is used in the industry

The Academic Executive Subcommittee is supported by three working groups:


Relationships and Communications
This working group will identify and develop key relationships with academic staff and institutions. This will be done at LIG level, to ensure communication and interaction at key locations; and at an organizational level, to ensure that the itSMF USA is part of key projects that will impact the direction and success of the industry as a whole. A key activity of this committee is the development and management of the Academic Forum. The Forum is an event held prior to the Fusion conference with the emphasis on Service Management in Higher Education.

Research
This working group is referred to as the ITSM Research Center of Excellence (IRCOE), and will work with professional researchers and institutions to identify research opportunities, potentially source funding for these projects and to provide access to research resources for studies.  It will also provide a means for the results of these studies to be published.

The research group has initiated a research program that should directly benefit ITSM members by soliciting project ideas from ITSM‐USA Platinum and Diamond sponsors. Those ideas will be used to solicit academic researchers to then propose a related research study. Once selected by the sponsoring organizations, the research will carry the words "Sponsored in part by itSMF‐USA" to advertise the organization. The research will be reported on at annual itSMF meetings. The first report should be provided in Fall, 2010.

The research group is also initiating a student competition to foster student activity in ITSM. This program will be initiated in 2010 with results expected for reporting at the Fall, 2011 Academic Forum.

Curriculum Development
This working group will work with academic institutions and individuals to support the development of consistent IT Service Management curricula which form part of academic programs.  They will also ensure that these curricula are tied to industry professional standards and continuous career development frameworks.

This group has developed a generic Service Management case study and exercises to be used to explore the various service management processes. Additionally, this group is expanding the use of the case student to interschool competition with the goal of bringing the competition to Fusion for review by the practitioner.

To join this group, contact academicforum@itsmfusa.org.