Newsletter October 2009

Future of NACCQ.

From the discussion at the conference AGM many of you will know that a working group was established to look at the future role of NACCQ as we move into an environment that has seen the Metros depart ITP New Zealand and the remaining institutes forming a new organisation. One consequence of the restructuring of ITP New Zealand is that the ownership of the Bluebook qualifications will transfer from ITP New Zealand to NACCQ, and to enable this to occur, NACCQ will need to become a legally recognised entity.

Rather than modifying the existing structure of NACCQ just to enable it to assume ownership of the qualifications it was decided to revisit the goals and objectives of the organisation to establish how it can provide services that add value to CEOs, Faculty Deans, Heads of Schools, lecturing staff and students.

The working group identified a number of key activities that an organisation such as NACCQ should be involved in to help promote excellence in computing education within the tertiary sector. The activities were grouped into four main activity areas:

• Encouraging community of practice
• Research
• Quality Assurance
• Consultancy & Linkages

Consideration was given to the name of the organisation and it was felt that the current name NACCQ (National Advisory Committee on Computing Qualifications), did not fully reflect the new role of the organisation, which is much more than just qualifications. The working group looked at the vision and mission statement and rewrote them to reflect today’s environment and also looked at the management structure that would be needed to ensure that the organisation was run effectively and by people who represented the institutes that would make up the membership. A regional model was suggested which would see a smaller executive team consisting of an individual representative from both the Metros and the NZITP (one representative for the Metro group and one representative from NZITP group as elected by the CEOs), alongside five institutional members who would be nominated by institutes within five regional areas and four industry representatives.

The findings of the working group were presented and discussed at a meeting of the NACCQ working groups on Tuesday 13th October and were then discussed further at a meeting of the NACCQ executive on Wednesday 14th October. The executive meeting agreed in principle to the new proposed structure and agreed unanimously that the organisation that will replace the existing NACCQ should be known as CITRENZ or Computing and Information Technology Research and Education New Zealand. Consideration was also given to the type of legal entity that would best suit the needs of CITRENZ and it was agreed that a consortium, while being preferred by ITP New Zealand, was inappropriate and that a working party should seek legal advice to establish if a Charitable Trust or an Incorporated Society could best serve the needs of the new organisation. A working group was directed by the executive to consult with the ITP New Zealand appointed contractor to establish how the ownership of the qualifications could be transferred from ITP New Zealand.

It is intended to call a meeting of the Heads of Schools from each of the 19 institutes that make up the current membership of NACCQ and present the proposed model of the new organisation for consideration. Following the meeting a working group will look at how the existing NACCQ organisation can be re-established to create CITRENZ.