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
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