An entrepreneurial stance towards education of information professionals

Elizabeth D. Liddy of Syracuse University talks about the courses, programs and experiences the iSchools offer to ensure that its students will succeed in the ever-evolving professional world. Traditional academic offering approval process includes faculty member proposal, department, school, senate, trustees, state and approval. But, the iSchools prefer agile academic approval process, which includes faculty member proposal, school and approval. Once these schools take an entrepreneurial stance as the optimal strategy for the iSchools, the author believes it essential for our schools to be actively creating enterprises themselves, for, with, and by our students, as well as our faculty. The schools also offer an inter-disciplinary, 18-credit minor in 'Information Technology, Design & Start-Ups' referred to as IDS, which prepares students with the knowledge and skills required to start and run their own information technology-oriented ventures.