Update on Computing Curriculum: Computer Science 2013

Steve Roach (IEEE-CS)

and

Mehran Sahami (ACM)

Steering Committee

ACM• Mehran Sahami, Chair (Stanford)

• Andrea Danyluk (Williams College)

• Sally Fincher (Univ. of Kent)

• Kathleen Fisher (Tufts)

• Dan Grossman (Univ. of Washington)

• Beth Hawthorne (Union County Coll.)

• Randy Katz (UC Berkeley)

• Rich LeBlanc (Seattle Univ.)

• Dave Reed (Creighton)

IEEE-CS• Steve Roach, Chair (UT, El Paso)

• Ernesto Cuadros-Vargas (Universidad Católica San Pablo, Peru)

• Ronald Dodge (US Military Academy)

• Robert France (Colorado State)

• Amruth Kumar (Ramapo College of NJ)

• Brian Robinson (ABB corporation)

• Remzi Seker (U. of Arkansas, Little Rock)

• Alfred Thompson (Microsoft)

CS2013 Charter

To review the Joint ACM and IEEE/CS Computer Science volume of Computing Curricula 2001 and the accompanying interim review CS 2008, and develop a revised and enhanced version for the year 2013 that will match the latest developments in the discipline and have lasting impact.

 

The CS2013 task force will seek input from a diverse audience with the goal of broadening participation in computer science. The report will seek to be international in scope and offer curricular and pedagogical guidance applicable to a wide range of institutions. The process of producing the final report will include multiple opportunities for public consultation and scrutiny.

Working Groups Since December

• Two conference call of whole committee

– Established regular monthly calls

• Divided existing Knowledge Areas from CS2001/8

– Created subcommittees for each area

– Chairs for each subcommittee is on steering committee

– Each subcommittee also includes two other steering committee members

– Committees empowered add additional members

• Many of them have already done so

Initial Knowledge Area Reviews

• Subcommittees tasked with an initial review of existing CS2001/8 Knowledge Areas

– Identify topics to update

– Identify needs for reorganization

– Identify new Knowledge Areas/topics

• Reviewed survey results with committee

– To understand uses of existing curricula documents

– To gain insight on need for new Knowledge Areas

Survey Background

• Developed survey to gather data for CS2013– Reviews usage of CC2001 and CS2008

– Rating of importance of existing knowledge areas

– Rating of principles (e.g., importance of stylized classes)

– Suggestions for new topics of import/knowledge areas

• Survey released at start of December as Google Doc– ~1500 US department chairs/directors of UG education

– ~2000 International department chairs

– 201 responses

Review Survey Results

Use of CC2001/CS2008

Anticipated Usefulness of CS2013

Importance of Knowledge Areas

Importance of Topics

Suggested Topics (% of suggestions)

First Face-to-Face Meeting of Comm.

• Working groups to discuss

– Uses of CS2013

– Constituents of CS2013

– Principles/Themes

• Provides top-down perspective

• Reviewed Knowledge Areas (subcommittee work)

– Google Docs as working documents for each KA

– Each subcommittee presented results of review

• Large variation in amount of work each area requires

• Also re-evaluating Learning Outcomes in each area

– Bottom-up persepctive

Principles

• Changes to CS2008– “fundamental skills and knowledge” and “sensitive to new changes in

technology” most important

– Drop CS2008 principles relate to “crisis” in computing

– Change “well defined models of courses” to “exemplars of courses”

– Change what students “must” know to “should” know

– Change undergraduate “curriculum” to “experience”

• New principles

– Diversity: curriculum should attract full range of talent to field

– Be outcome driven

– Providing realistic, adoptable recommendations that support new and innovative curriculum designs as well as support the evolution of existing curricula

Restructuring BOK Guidelines

• The notion of core and elective too restrictive

– Not every CS program covers every hour of Core

• Adopted three tier notion

– “Preliminaries”: Small set of absolutely essential material

• Generally, prerequisite material

• What every student must see

– “Foundations”: Set of important material, most of which is covered

• Preliminaries + Foundations = Core

• But allows local customization (not every hour of foundations need to be included in every CS program)

– “Electives”: Set of additional material to complete the curriculum

• Suggestions for alternative wording/terms?

Restructuring BOK Guidelines II

• “Learning objectives” “Learning outcomes”

– Adopting understanding of difference (more ABET consistent)

• Using simplified Bloom’s taxonomy to characterize depth of understanding

• Knowledge, Application, Evaluation

• E.g., Iteration

– Knowledge: know what it means

– Application: can write the code to use it

– Evaluation: can select the appropriate method of iteration in different situations

• Cross-references between topics in different Knowledge Areas

Key Issue: Programming Fundamentals

• Programming Fundamentals and Programming Languages

– Both Knowledge Areas still maintained

– “Programming Fundamentals” is not “Introductory Courses”

• There were substantial unresolved issues from CS2001/8

• Fundamentals reorganized across PF, PL, and AL

– PF: Language/paradigm independent concepts

– PL: Paradigm-specific concepts (e.g., OOP, Functional)

– AL: Includes more implementation rather than client usage» E.g., implementing hash table vs. using a map

Key Issue: Security

• Security and Information Assurance

– New Knowledge Area

– Cuts across multiple areas

• OS: Operating Systems

• AR: Architecture

• AL: Algorithms

• IM: Information Management

Key Issue: Systems

• Outcomes based review of OS, AR, NC to identify common themes

• Realized several themes cut-across all areas

• Creating new “Systems Fundamentals” Knowledge Area

– Incorporates “Preliminary” material from OS, AR, NC

• Net-Centric Computing Parallel and Distributed Systems

– New Knowledge Area will incorporate portions of

• OS: Operating Systems

• AR: Architecture

• AL: Algorithms

Planning the Strawman Draft

• Plan for Strawman draft by end of 2011

– First draft available for public comment

• Summer 2011 meeting to finalize Knowledge Areas

• Survey at SIGCSE-11 (in conjunction with panel)

• Draft will include

– Introduction

– Principles

– Characteristics of CS graduates

– Constructing a complete curriculum

– Preview of coming attractions (Course exemplars, Major changes from CS2008)

– First complete draft of Knowledge Areas (16 KAs)

Long-term Planning

• 2010 December Kickoff

• 2011 Feb Face-to-Face

• 2011 Aug Face-to-Face

• 2011 October Strawman Draft

• 2012 Feb Face-to-Face

• 2012 April Revisions to Strawman

• 2012 Summer Extended Committee workshop

• 2012 November Stoneman Draft

• 2013 March Ironman Draft (SIGCSE)

• 2013 August Final release

Additional Issues

• Need to launch web page for CS2013 effort

– Hosted on Ensemble

• “Computational Thinking”

– Not part of our charter to define

– Still, curricula document will speak to the role of computing more broadly (e.g., for non-CS majors and multi-disciplinary programs)

– I.e., It will be a chapter of text, not a list of topics

• Cognizant of needs of AP CS, liberal arts colleges, Two-year colleges

– Believe new structure (i.e., preliminaries, foundations) will help support work these areas

• External support for larger meetings (e.g., NSF)

Questions/Feedback