Diversifying a master course to improve the student experience

The existing Master of Information Technology and Systems (MITS) was first offered in 2014. The cohort increased significantly to 1200 by 2019. This sudden increase has negatively impacted the student experience. Feedback on the MITS had been collated from numerous stakeholders, including students and industry. The existing MITS lacked diversity: 1) our student cohort with 99.8% international students, mostly from China and India; and 2) the course was too focused on one field of ICT and did not target the diverse range of career outcomes available to ICT graduates. As part of the postgraduate academic transformation, we addressed these concerns. Our approach would be of interest to a broad community. It involved a variety of methods to gather stakeholder concerns and extensive quantitative and qualitative data collection and analysis (AIIA, 2020; Deloitte, 2021; Herbert, Dermoudy, et al., 2013; Herbert, Lewis, & Salas, 2013). Our approach involved establishing a deep understanding of available graduate career outcomes particularly for international students (Department of Home Affairs, 2019; QLD Government, 2020; Herbert, Lewis, et al., 2013) and alignment with an industry skills framework (Herbert, Lewis, et al., 2013; von Konsky, 2016). The design of the course has taken a unique approach within the postgraduate architecture guidelines to allow the graduates the best opportunity to gain the necessary skills for employment. It has both technical specialisations in complex areas of ICT and professional specialisations in research and entrepreneurship. While it is not yet possible to measure the impact of our transformation as it will be implemented in 2022, initial indications are that it is attractive with many existing students enquiring about changing to a specialisation and interest shown from International agents.