Judith L. Gersting

Shall we write

T he ability to express ideas well in written form is a recognized hallmark o f an educated person. Hardly an institution o f higher education exists in the United States that does not require either completion of a freshman English course or some demonstration on the part o f the student o f equivalent ability. In acknowledgment that such a requirement represents only a base level o f competency, many degree programs require one or more additional writing courses. Technical institutions and degree programs are no exception. In computer science, the latest draft o f the ACM/IEEE Computing Curriculum 2001 recommendations <http://www. acm.org/sigcse/cc2001 > states 12.4 Because of the importance of good communication skills in nearly all computing careers, computer science students must sharpen their oral and writing skills in a variety of contexts both inside and outside of computer science courses. In particular, students in computer science programs should be able to communicate ideas effectively in written form. The CSAB accreditation standards <http://www.csab.org> state: IV-t6. The written communications skills of the student must be developed and applied in the program.

A software engineering “frosting” on a traditional CS-1 course

INTRODUCTION The traditional introductory course for computer science majors is a programming course in some high-level language. The emphasis in such a course has shifted over the years away horn the details of language syntax and toward a broader emphasis on problem solving, and algorithm design and development, as well as implementation. Thus the course now typically encompasses some of the phases of a software development life cycle. Nevertheless, the major emphasis on software engineering in most departments is usually found in a one semester or one year “software engineering” course taken by students in their senior year [6]. Most such courses emphasize a group software project [5], and many experiences have been reported on the management and organization of project-oriented courses [1, 2, 4].

Content + experiences = curriculum

The academic curriculum in computer science has been proposed, reviewed, and modified in an on-going process for years [I, 2, 3, 41. The resulting curricula have packaged the subject matter of computer science in many ways. The end result of these studies has been a carefully designed coverage of academic material in a fashion that requires students to master core material and guarantees student exposure to appropriate additional material that insures both breadth and depth of knowledge. We suggest that describing the “material that must be covered” is an inadequate approach to curriculum design, necessary but not sufficient. Whether one is teaching in a liberal arts environment or in a more preprofessional environment, there are more aspects to an education than the content that is covered in required and elective courses. In this paper we propose an experiential aspect of the computer science curriculum as a complement to the content aspect. We urge those who are designing new curricula or revising existing ones to consider this aspect and evaluate their curricula with regard to experiences as well as the more usual content evaluation.

Experiences with ethical issues: part 2

one wonders whether students remembered anything six months later. We could question whether students could apply calculus to new problems, whether the course promoted problem solving of any kind, and whether the course reinforced the erroneous impression that mathematics consists of arbitrary rules without underlying ideas. Thus, the proposed manuscript seemed to contradict everything the Calculus Reform Movement represented.

Treating our students as adults

inroads – The SIGCSE Bulletin 21 Volume 35, Number 2, 2003 June Curriculum Guide, Draft 3.2, January 28, 2003, http://www.maa.org/cupm/welcome.html. [3] ACM/IEEE-CS Task Force on the Curriculum, Computing Curricula 2001: Computer Science Volume, http://www.acm.org/sigcse/cc2001/, December 15, 2001. [4] MAA Curriculum Foundation Workshops Reports, http://academic.bowdoin.edu/faculty/B/barker/dissemi nation/Curriculum_Foundations/

A course on professionalism in the undergraduate CS curriculum

What does a University typically characterize as its “professional” degree programs? Engineering, nursing, business, education; in graduate programs, certainly medicine and law. Why are these “professional” programs when other degree programs are not? One reason is that the “professional” programs fall under the jurisdiction of separate accreditation bodies. This usually occurs because of a licensing requirement to practice that profession, meant to safeguard the public’s health or well-being by assuring quality standards in the training and performance of the professionaL Also implicit in professional degree programs is that the student is intending to seek employment as a practicing professional. Should computer science be considered a professional degree program? It does have an accrediting agency, and there is no doubt that, given society’s increased dependence upon computer systems, an assurance to the public of quality training is appropriate, More concretely, it is also the case that most computer science majors intend to seek employment as practicing computer scientists. This alone should be stilcient to consider providing the students with some insights into professionalism in their intended field of employment. This paper describes a course intended to tilI this roll. The next section gives a course overview, and sections 3-6 describe parts of the course in more detail. Section 7 is a brief conclusion. An extensive bibliography is included.