Many IT-based companies located in the greater Philadelphia area find the need to provide their employees, whose daily activities focus on IT-related responsibilities, with continuing education IT courses. One objective is to keep their employees up to date with the ever changing tools and technologies present and available in the IT workplace. In turn, the company benefits by having a highly trained and competent IT workforce. However, many of these companies find that the traditional forms of college-based continuing education graduate level programs inadequate to fulfill their needs in a timely fashion. Graduate level degrees often take many years to complete and do not provide a quick enough return on investment.To address these needs and concerns, LaSalle University has established and partnered with an external computer science advisory board (CSAB) comprised of top executives within the IT business community. One focus of the CSAB is to help steer the University in the creation of its IT Graduate Certificate Program. To this end, it was determined to implement the program in a phased approach bringing various certificate concentrations online as they are established. This paper discusses the ongoing process of working with the board to analyze industry needs and determining what courses and certificates to provide based on University resources.In addition, a questionnaire was distributed to a small number of students to evaluate what students consider to be important factors in both the IT and computer science curriculums. Ultimately, we as educators serve the students and their input is essential to meet their needs. Coupled with information as seen by the student, information as seen by Industry, and information seen by the University, all three perspectives should help to develop a useful and successful IT Graduate Certificate Program.

This research paper describes key information technology (IT) project management activities in terms of project scope, time, and cost management, namely the triple constraint. The authors contend that the ability to properly manage and execute these activities is the quintessential component that oftentimes drives whether projects succeed or fail. The literature shows that IT projects have a dismal success rate but successful projects have been on the rise. The authors attempt to determine if the increase of successful projects correlates to the increase in the number of certified project managers. Empirical evidence is presented that indicates certified project managers do not perform project scope, time, and cost management activities better than project managers without professional certification credentials.

The tools and techniques utilized in the technical communications profession are constantly improving and changing. Information Technology (IT) organizations devote the necessary resources to equip and train engineering, marketing, and sales teams, but often fail to do so for technical documentation teams. Many IT organizations tend to view documentation as an afterthought; however, consumers of IT products frequently base their purchasing decisions on the end user documentation's content, layout, and presentation. Documentation teams play a unique role in IT organizations as they help to build and create a public identity through end user manuals and the corporate website, as well as maintain intellectual knowledge through knowledge sharing and management. The technical communicator "makes sense" of complex engineering specifications by creating user-friendly manuals for the layman. The practitioner who compiles and records this complex information is a valuable resource to any IT organization. Therefore, on-going training for technical documentation teams is essential to stay competitive in the fast-paced technical market. Technical communicators in IT organizations who only write end user manuals are becoming a rarity. Research indicates a marked trend toward technical writers in multiple roles and varied responsibilities that include web design and development, and business systems analysis functions. Although these added roles and responsibilities require training on some of the newer software tools and 77 more complex programming tools, technical communicators are experiencing difficulty keeping pace with these tools. This article discusses technical documentation teams in IT organizations and provides an on-going training assessment to help technical documentation managers identify their team's strengths and weaknesses. In addition, measures and results from a study conducted at eight IT organizations, are provided to show the effect of how the integration of on-going training for documentation teams enhances individual competency and improves team performance.

Successful project management is primarily measured by the project manager’s ability to meet the classic triple constraint. What impact does certification and experience have on meeting project scope, time, and cost goals? This research study examines these factors by eliciting data from practicing project managers, with and without certification, and with various years of experience.

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