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Practical Liability Issues of Information Technology Education: Internship and Consulting Engagements

Introduction A student intern at a large communications company is given access to the company's data collection software and accidentally damages a critical systems software component, disrupting vital communications and customer services for several hours. Another intern at a small glass products manufacturer inadvertently pushes a piece of heavy equipment into a row sliding glass doors, costing the company nearly $60,000 in ruined product and slowing deliveries. Still another, who is assigned to program critical system modules at a large petroleum firm, falters in his assignment and then conceals results of his failure until after the internship is over and he is gone, adversely affecting production and delivery schedules which result in losses exceeding $150,000. These examples are of real events precipitated by student interns and observed by the authors--all which had significant adverse effects on the companies that employed the interns. Faculty consultants have been responsible for similar debacles. Sponsored internships and consulting engagements, particularly those that are related to Information Systems (IS) and Information Technology (IT), are dramatically increasing in importance and number throughout the United States. For example, the National Association of Colleges and Employers reported that 61 percent of their survey respondents offer summer student internship programs, after which nearly half of these interns were offered full-time positions (HR Focus 1997). Another research organization found that nearly 80 percent of the firms surveyed employed student interns throughout the year (Sweeney 1997). Still another reported that 98 percent use internships to screen for possible permanent employees (Frazee 1997). Of these same firms, 70 percent required new hires either to have had internships, or some other form of on-the-job-training. Actual work experience, which includes internships, was ranked second only to academic major as an interview screening criterion for college hires. In addition, national trends indicate faculty internships and consultancies are also on the rise (Melinda Norris 1996). Directly correlating with that trend, most IS/IT employers in this area also offer opportunities to university faculty for updating and sharing of their skills and knowledge with industry (Sweeney 1997). These same employers frequently engage more experienced faculty as consultants in planning, research, and development efforts that are critical to their business (Peak and O'Hara 1998). Although both internship and consulting engagements, also called co-operatives and fellowships, involve temporary relationships between a university representative and a business, interning implies a different experience level than consulting. That is, interning generally involves a relatively inexperienced individual, while consulting features an experienced individual. Interns (a.k.a. "co-op students") can be either students or faculty, while consultants (a.k.a. "fellows") are almost always university faculty members. The Source of University Liability Businesses involved in university outreach relationships formulate business performance expectations based on how experienced or qualified they perceive the intern or consultant to be (Guttmann 1976). As a result, the university incurs liability that is conditioned by business clients' expectations. This article discusses the liability incurred by these university-sponsored relationships with the business community and gives practical examples, as well. General Expectations and Benefits Concerning Interns Interns are very different from consultants. An intern is expected to be a novice while a consultant is expected to be an expert, regardless of whether he/she holds student or faculty status (Kelley 1981; King 1995). Also, by definition, the internship exists so that the intern may acquire experience he/she is lacking (Melinda Norris 1996). …