Defining CISE for the Future

Defining CISE for the Future

White Paper prepared for NSF ICER Workshop (NE region)

Robert Aiken CIS Dept. Temple University October 21, 2005

The focus of this workshop is to expand our scope and thinking regarding what is CISE and what transformations are needed (for the purpose of this paper we will consider CISE as Computer and Information Science and Engineering Education). Certainly our primary goal must be to produce well-educated students who have a strong CIS base, can communicate effectively, and are flexible and agile in a workplace that is becoming increasing international. In addition, they need a better understanding of social and ethical issues related to the work they will perform. In support of this goal the following issues will need to be addressed. CISE can no longer simply be an acronym for Computer and Information Science Engineering Education – it must be considered in broader terms.

C is not just for Computer (Computing):

Collaboration must become a critical piece of key courses in the CIS curriculum. As graduates continue to find themselves working in teams on both small and large projects we need to teach them the skills to do so and that means working on team projects as undergraduates. There is already a comprehensive body of knowledge on how to effectively accomplish this and faculty need to embrace this aspect of teaching even more than they do now. For example, conferences such as the ACM SIGCSE and FIE Technical symposium have included a number of presentations on this topic. It is more than pair programming and simply forming teams of students to work on a capstone project. Effective collaborative activities take careful planning, constant communication and ongoing feedback.

Communication is paramount if students are to succeed in any employment. While we have recognized this for many years there are still too few programs that actively encourage (require) students to take public speaking and related courses that would give them the knowledge and confidence to make oral presentations and generally become effective orators. While nearly all students take writing courses, most need to improve their writing skills. Thus, we need to include oral presentations as well as term (research) papers as requirements in more of our courses.

I is not just for Information:

Interdisciplinary Courses and Programs: Many students are attracted to using computers but not to becoming programmers (which all too many equate with becoming Computer Scientists). Computer and information Science programs need to develop outreach strategies to encourage students from other disciplines to take courses in computing and to consider taking a minor in CIS. This option will be even more attractive and successful if CIS faculty collaborate with colleagues in other departments to develop and team-teach a few courses. For example, with all the interest in and wide impact of GIS research it is possible to develop at least one, if not several, GIS based courses with faculty from CIS and disciplines as diverse as Geography, Archeology, Sociology, etc. Courses that explore computer gaming might involve colleagues from department such as Art, New Media, and Mathematics. (See the following web sites for examples): http://www.eecs.cwru.edu/courses/lego375/

http://xdesign.ucsd.edu/feralrobots/

http://www.jhu.edu/news_info/news/home03/jan03/legos.html

http://www.indiana.edu/~legobots/

The key here is that CIS faculty need to be flexible and agile – they must be willing to experiment and to find dynamic colleagues in other disciplines who have an interest in technology and are willing to invest time and energy in building courses with an interdisciplinary melding of technology and interesting applications and concepts from diverse fields.

Innovation: In a forthcoming column in CACM (November 2005) Denning and McGettrick write about the importance of innovation in computing curricula (http://cne.gmu.edu/pjd/PUBS/CACMcols/cacmNov05.pdf). They suggest (among other things) that we need to re-think the idea that all our courses need to be 3 (or 4) credits and imagine instead some “half-course” modules. This would provide more flexibility and possibilities to offer more innovative topics. This might also fit in with the previous point regarding the team teaching of courses with CIS faculty in collaboration with faculty from other disciplines, since it might be easier to explore developing courses of a more focused and shorter duration. One of the critical points is to set the material in an appealing context.

Internationalization: Students need to be exposed to the economics of the increasingly dynamic international arena in which many of them will be working. We need to find ways for them to better understand the global forces that are at work; possibly by integrating more economic examples and case studies into our courses as well as encouraging students to take appropriate economic (and business) courses as electives.

S is not just for Science:

Scaling up from small to large problems is a particularly difficult aspect to teach, yet we must continue to explore ways to do so. Other than bemoaning our students’ lack of communication skills the biggest concern we often hear from our colleagues in industry is that students do not know how to attack large, unstructured, complex problems. Our biggest challenge has to do with teaching students how to build, test, and maintain commuter models for systems that others are going to use to solve information gathering (data collection and analysis) and decision making problems. Perhaps finding ways to at least provide them an appreciation of the difficulties involved in such endeavors is a good way to begin.

E is not just for Education (nor Engineering):

Ethics must be taught: As technology becomes more pervasive and as society becomes more mobile the possibility for the misuse of technology grows almost exponentially due to the increasing numbers of people who can more easily wreak havoc. It is beholden on us to provide students the understanding of the limits as well as the strengths of technology. They need to discuss social and ethical scenarios; they should explore privacy and security issues. In short, they need to understand how what they do can have a major impact on many lives – both for good and harm. But first we need to convince and educate our colleagues of the importance of these issues, possibly with a series of funded summer workshops, panels at major CIS Education meetings, etc.

As we discuss what advice to give NSF on moving CISE forward we need to explore ideas that not only include, but go beyond funding strategies. Often perception is more powerful than reality and we need to grapple with the image of CISE as well as the many problems facing it. Publicity of the right type – for example, a series of success stories disseminated widely and effectively might do more to help recruit good students - both males and females – than any other plan we might propose. The NSF Showcase presentations (such as at ACM’s SIGCSE Technical Symposia) provide a good example of one type of activity that might help to accomplish this goal. As the composition of this workshop indicates it will take the combined efforts of colleagues from many diverse backgrounds and constituencies to most effectively move our field forward. Perhaps we will experience a revolution in CISE where a concentrated, structured, “industrial” exposure consisting of a combination of internships, coops, practicum, etc. is included for all majors!

Acknowledgments: I would like to thank Peter Denning and Frank Friedman for useful suggestions on a previous draft.