Professional Practice and Computing Curricula 2001 Eric Roberts

Professional Practice and Computing Curricula 2001 Eric Roberts Professor of Computer Science Senior Associate Dean of Engineering Stanford University CPHC Milton Keynes October 25, 2002

Computing Curricula 2001 (CC 2001) Charter: To review the Joint ACM and IEEE/CS Computing Curricula 1991 and develop a revised and enhanced version for the year 2001 that will match the latest developments of computing technologies in the past decade and endure through the next decade. Final version of CS report released on December 15, 2001 http: //www. computer. org/education/cc 2001/ http: //www. acm. org/sigcse/cc 2001/

CC 2001 Task Force

CC 2001 Volumes

Coverage of Professional Practice in CC 2001 Professional practice is addressed in the following sections of the report: • Chapter 5 (Principles) • Chapter 9 (Completing the Curriculum) • Chapter 10 (Professional Practice) • Chapter 11 (Characteristics of CS Graduates) • Chapter 12 (Computing across the Curriculum) • Body of Knowledge areas SE and SP

Principle on Professional Practice 10. CC 2001 must include professional practice as an integral component of the undergraduate curriculum. These practices encompass a wide range of activites including management, ethics and values, written and oral communication, working as part of a team, and remaining current in a rapidly changing discipline. We further endorse the position articulated in the CC 1991 report that “mastery of the discipline includes not only an understanding of basic subject matter, but also an understanding of the applicability of the concepts to real-world problems. ” —CC 2001, Chapter 4 (Principles)

CC 2001: General Requirements • Mathematics – Discrete mathematics – Additional mathematics is required, but not constrained to calculus • Science – Students must be exposed to the scientific method – Science training can come from a wide variety of fields • Applications of computing – All students must study some area that uses computing in a substantive way • Communications skills – Writing – Oral presentation – Critiquing • Working in teams – Team work should begin early in the curriculum – All students should engage in a significant team project

Top Ten Criteria for Employers • • • Communication skills (verbal and written) Honesty/integrity Teamwork skills Interpersonal skills Motivation/initiative Strong work ethic Analytical skills Flexibility/adaptability Computer skills Self-confidence

Assessing Professional Practice • Outcomes-based assessment • Reviewing assignments, projects, and exams for appropriate inclusion of professional practice material • Critically reviewing and establishing sound measurements on student work to show student progress and improvement • Getting students involved in the review and assessment process so that they get a better sense of how it works • Employing professionals in the private and public sectors to help in assessing student project work • Using standardized tests to measure overall student progress • Taking post-graduation surveys of alumni to see how well alumni thought their education prepared them for their careers • Obtaining accreditation to demonstrate that certain education standards for professional practice have been met

Characteristics of CS Graduates Cognitive capabilities Technical capabilities Transferable skills Knowledge and understanding Modeling Requirements Critical evaluation and testing Methods and tools Professional responsibility Design and implementation Evaluation Information management Human-computer interaction Risk assessment Tools Operation Communication Teamwork Numeracy Self management Professional development

Information Technology is Different • As an academic discipline, Information Technology (IT) is different from most traditional fields. • Policymakers who attempt to generalize from other disciplines often make assumptions that turn out to be wrong when applied to computing, particularly in those subdisciplines requiring large-scale software development efforts. • Understanding these differences is essential to the task of formulating effective educational policy in the IT domain.

Field-Specific Issues in CS Education • The body of knowledge and the nature of practice change more rapidly in Computer Science than in other fields. • Computing faces chronic labor shortages in both industry and academia. • Individual variations in productivity are far greater in computing disciplines than they are in most professional areas.

Employment Patterns by Discipline Fraction of professionals with degrees in that discipline: Fraction of disciplinary graduates employed in that profession: SOURCE: National Science Foundation/Division of Science Resources Statistics, SESTAT (Scientists and Engineers Statistical Data System), 1999, as presented by Caroline Wardle at Snowbird 2002

Effects of Overproduction

Effects of Underproduction

Variation in Programmer Productivity • In 1968, a study by Sackman, Erikson, and Grant revealed that programmers with the same level of experience exhibited variations of more than 20 to 1 in the time required to solve particular programming problems. • More recent studies [Curtis 1981, De. Marco and Lister 1985, Brian 1997] confirm this high variability. • Many employers in Silicon Valley argue that productivity variance is even higher today, perhaps as much as 100 to 1.

Conclusions • We must make sure that education policy in Information Technology is informed by knowledge of the discipline by becoming involved in the policy-making process. • We must increase the number of computer science graduates. It will be impossible to satisfy all employers until we can satisfy a larger fraction of the demand. • At the same time, we must often make decisions on the basis of capacity rather than demand. • We must incorporate more professional practice into the curriculum, but cannot provide do everything ourselves. Some skills must be learned on the job. • The CC 2001 report can be useful in achieving these goals.

The End