Curriculum for a Program in EM with IS-Focus - Thumbs up? Attitudes of Emergency Managers to Proposed Masters Programs in EM With an IS Focus

Information Systems (IS) increasingly are used in Emergency Management (EM), so it is prudent to include IS study in EM education. This paper presents the results of analyzing the responses to a survey that proposed potential courses for programs at the masteru0027s level. The survey was completed by 373 practitioners, academics and/or researchers with EM experience. All proposed courses were rated above 4 on a 7-point scale for how essential they are to the curriculum. However, there were disagreements. Qualitative analysis of volunteered comments indicate that some low ratings were due to disagreement with the content of the course as described, or with the need for an entire course to cover the topic. An unexpected finding was that a substantial number of respondents spontaneously expressed opposition to the use of IS for EM in general. The findings are discussed and a preliminary curriculum is proposed.