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IBM Corp. is partnering with the UA's business school on a new curriculum to put students on the leading edge of next-generation Web technology, tying entrepreneurial skills with computer savvy.

The first-of-a-kind collaboration between IBM and the University of Arizona's highly rated management information systems department will help students master Web 2.0 technologies, including blogs, online social networking and podcasting.

Businesses are looking to newer Web technologies to enable them to connect better with customers.

"It's a natural evolution of the Web," said Andrea Winkle, UA adjunct instructor and coordinator of early outreach for the MIS department. "They're going to have to turn to involve their customers more in their value chain and it's going to give those who do a competitive advantage."

The curriculum for the class, part of IBM's academic initiative, was built to combine an IBM technical expert and a classroom instructor.

"These kinds of technology like blogs and such are things that the next generation really uses," said Rawn Shah, community program manager at IBM developerWorks. "The idea is we would work with the university and build its course to train students how to become community managers."

Shah and Winkle jointly teach the 40-student class, which combines traditional lectures with virtual class sessions and experiential learning that puts the technology in the students' hands for real-world experience.

"If you're running a business, you need someone to be the controlling factor on your end," Shah said. "We're trying to educate students into a new job role that's emerging."

Students will maintain weekly blogs, create individual podcasts and groups of students will build their own "wikis" — Web sites that allow visitors to add and edit content.

For the final project, each student will work with a separate group of students from Howenstine High Magnet School to organize micro-communities online. The students will structure the online tools according to the needs of the high schoolers, just as a business designing online tools for clients, Winkle said.