Major IT research project announced
AUT Business School’s Centre for Research on Information Systems Management (CRISM) and the Institute of IT Professionals New Zealand (IITP) have announced a major research project exploring the key factors that drive IT professionals.
The joint initiative, intended to be the largest research project ever into New Zealand’s growing Information and Communications Technology (ICT) profession, will look into the critical factors that drive IT professionals today and led them to take up a career in the field.
The project is designed to sit alongside and tie together other research conducted by Government, Academia and industry and provide an ongoing source of meaningful data on the profession, to be released academically and in an annual ICT Stats Compendium.
AUT Business School’s Professor Felix Tan says, “The ongoing nature of this research will mean this won’t just be a snap-shot of the industry now. We’ll be able to track trends over the longer-term and gauge whether various initiatives and projects aimed at attracting smart people into ICT are working.
“The project will track key demographics such as gender, cultural and age diversity over the longer term and inform whether initiatives designed to address these gaps and perceived or actual barriers are working,” Tan said. “It will also allow direct comparison with similar research in other countries such as Australia and Singapore."
IITP chief executive Paul Matthews says, “This project will provide meaningful ongoing relevant data that will help inform Government policy, ensure the Institute can represent our profession effectively and steer future initiatives aimed at dealing with the ICT skills shortage and other issues faced by our industry.
“It will help answer a lot of questions about our industry in a meaningful and complete way,” Matthews said. “Following academic publication and the release of a ICT Stats Compendium, the results will be released to others to aid further analysis and research.
“We strongly encourage all software and IT Professionals to visit www.iitp.org.nz/research for more information and to take part in the initial survey,” Matthews said.
About the Institute of IT Professionals NZ
IITP is the professional body of IT Professionals, and as a non-profit incorporated society works with industry, academia, Government and the wider community to achieve its mission of increasing the education, standards, professionalism and innovation of the ICT profession.
About AUT CRISM
The Centre for Research on Information Systems Management (CRISM) is located in the Faculty of Business and Law at AUT University. It aims to foster research and educational initiatives in the broad area of information systems management.