As described in previous columns, the International Federation for Information Processing (IFIP) is a federation of IT societies. ACM is a member of IFIP, and SIGCSE sponsors ACM's representative to the IFIP Technical Committee on Education (TC3). This column provides a summary of some recent and upcoming IFIP activities.

I serve as ACM's representative to Technical Committee 3 (TC3) of IFIP, the International Federation for Information Processing. TC3 is concerned with education relative to computing, and ACM's representative to TC3 is supported by SIGCSE. SIGCSE Chair Henry Walker has suggested that as one step in fostering mutually beneficial activities between SIGCSE and TC3, it would be beneficial to include some information in Inroads about IFIP and its TC3. This column is the first of a series that is intended to acquaint SIGCSE members with IFIP and TC3, and we begin with an overview of IFIP.

The issues associated with the accreditation, certification, and licensure of software engineers are, or at least should be, of great concern to the software engineering community. Perhaps as a result of publicity about safety-critical software disasters in the news media, some state legislatures have considered regulating the practice of software engineering, and some professionals believe that accreditation, certification, and licensure are inevitable. Yet there is no agreed-upon body of knowledge for software engineering on which to base accreditation, certification, or licensure, which makes implementing them difficult at best. In addition, it is not clear that these processes and possible mechanisms to support them are well understood within the software engineering community. This paper surveys how these three processes are conducted in other professions, summarizes the processes as they currently exist for computing in general, identifies some issues that are involved in implementing the processes for software engineering, and suggests possible actions that can be taken by the software engineering profession. The implications of accreditation, certification, and licensure for education are also discussed.

Most of the development of informatics curricula has focused almost exclusively on the technical content of the courses in a curriculum. More recently there has been increasing attention paid to pedagogical and nontechnical subject course material. This paper surveys some of the trends in informatics education relative to pedagogical and nontechnical aspects. Some observations are made on current trends and the importance of these aspects relative to more traditional curricular concerns.

In the late 1980s there was a widespread belief in the informatics education community that informatics curricula were maturing and that the rate of change would slow down. However, the rate of change in informatics programs is as rapid as ever. In this focus group paper we examine the current state of informatics education and identify some of the stimuli for change and hindrances to change as well as future trends within and impacting informatics education.

article Free AccessComputing research programs in the U.S. Authors: Robert Geist Clemson University Clemson UniversityView Profile , Madhu Chetuparambil Clemson University Clemson UniversityView Profile , Stephen Hedetniemi Department of Computer Science, Clemson University Department of Computer Science, Clemson UniversityView Profile , A. Joe Turner Clemson University Clemson UniversityView Profile Authors Info & Claims Communications of the ACMVolume 39Issue 12Dec. 1996 pp 96–99https://doi.org/10.1145/240483.240505Published:01 December 1996Publication History 22citation513DownloadsMetricsTotal Citations22Total Downloads513Last 12 Months22Last 6 weeks0 Get Citation AlertsNew Citation Alert added!This alert has been successfully added and will be sent to:You will be notified whenever a record that you have chosen has been cited.To manage your alert preferences, click on the button below.Manage my AlertsNew Citation Alert!Please log in to your account Save to BinderSave to BinderCreate a New BinderNameCancelCreateExport CitationPublisher SiteeReaderPDF

The National Research Council's Computer Science and Telecommunications Board (CSTB) chartered a two-year study on the scope and directions of computer science. As part of this study, ACM was asked to provide input on three important questions, the answers to which could have significant impact on the future direction of our discipline and profession.

A summary is given of a report that had the following goals: to describe computer science in a way that emphasizes fundamental questions and significant accomplishments; to propose a teaching paradigm for computer science that conforms to traditional scientific standards, emphasizes the development of competence in the field, and harmoniously integrates theory, experimentation, and design; and to give a detailed example of an introductory course sequence in computer science that is based on the curriculum model and the disciplinary description. This task was extended to encompass both computer science and computer engineering. This summary encompasses: paradigms; the role of programming; a description of computing; a curriculum model; an introductory sequence; laboratories; and accreditation.

Continuing education is a major concern for most professional societies. This is especially true for ones like ACM, whose members are working at the leading edge of technology - both in research and within numerous application areas. ACM, through its Education Board, sponsors several different activities to assist members in their quest to keep abreast of the latest technical developments. This panel has several purposes. On the one hand it will serve as a means for disseminating more widely information on our current projects. In addition it will allow us to receive feedback from the membership with respect to how they perceive theses activities, what changes they might like to see, and what new projects we should be considering. Among the topics that will be discussed are Self Assessment Procedures, Professional Development Seminars, Tutorial Weeks, and accreditation efforts, and Institute for Certification of Computer Professionals (ICCP) activities. After these activities are briefly described, the remainder of the session will be devoted to answering questions and soliciting ideas from the audience.

It is ACM's 40th year and an old debate continues. Is computer science a science? An engineering discipline? Or merely a technology, an inventor and purveyor of computing commodities? What is the intellectual substance of the discipline? Is it lasting, or will it fade within a generation? Do core curricula in computer science and engineering accurately reflect the field? How can theory and lab work be integrated in a computing curriculum? We project an image of a technology-oriented discipline whose fundamentals are in mathematics and engineering — for example, we represent algorithms as the most basic objects of concern and programming and hardware design as the primary activities. The view that “computer science equals programming” is especially strong in our curricula: the introductory course is programming, the technology is in our core courses, and the science is in our electives. This view blocks progress in reorganizing the curriculum and turns away the best students, who want a greater challenge. It denies a coherent approach to making experimental and theoretical computer science integral and harmonious parts of a curriculum. Those in the discipline know that computer science encompasses far more than programming. The emphasis on programming arises from our long-standing belief that programming languages are excellent vehicles for gaining access to the rest of the field — but this belief limits out ability to speak about the discipline in terms that reveal its full breadth and richness. The field has matured enough that it is now possible to describe its intellectual substance in a new and compelling way. In the spring of 1986, ACM President Adele Goldberg and ACM Education Board Chairman Robert Aiken appointed this task force with the enthusiastic cooperation of the IEEE Computer Society. At the same time, the Computer Society formed a task force on computing laboratories with the enthusiastic cooperation of the ACM. The charter of the task force has three components: Present a description of computer science that emphasizes fundamental questions and significant accomplishments. Propose a new teaching paradigm for computer science that conforms to traditional scientific standards and harmoniously integrates theory and experimentation. Give at least one detailed example of a three-semester introductory course sequence in computer science based on the curriculum model and the disciplinary description. We immediately extended our task to encompass computer science and computer engineering, for we came to the conclusion that in the core material there is no fundamental difference between the two fields. We use the phrase “discipline of computing” to embrace all of computer science and engineering. The rest of this paper is a summary of the recommendation. The description of the discipline is presented in a series of passes, starting from a short definition and culminating with a matrix as shown in the figure. The short definition: Computer science and engineering is the systematic study of algorithmic processes that describe and transform information: their theory, analysis, design, efficiency, implementation, and application. The fundamental question underlying all of computing is, “What can be (efficiently) automated?” The detailed description of the field fills in each of the 27 cells in the matrix with significant issues and accomplishments. (That description occupies about 16 pages of the report.) For the curriculum model, we recommend that the introductory course consist of regular lectures and a closely coordinated weekly laboratory. The lectures emphasize fundamentals; the laboratories emphasize technology and know-how. The pattern of closely coordinated lectures and labs can be repeated where appropriate in other courses. The recommended model is traditional in the physical sciences and in engineering: lectures emphasize enduring principles and concepts while laboratories emphasize the transient material and skills relating to the current technology.

Article Computer Science Accreditation and Liberal Arts Programs Share on Authors: Robert L. Cannon University of South Carolina University of South CarolinaView Profile , Robert D. Cupper Allegheny College Allegheny CollegeView Profile , John F. Dalphin Norwich University Norwich UniversityView Profile , Greg W. Scragg Williams College Williams CollegeView Profile , Ted Sjoerdsma Washington and Lee University Washington and Lee UniversityView Profile , A. Joe Turner Clemson University Clemson UniversityView Profile , Editor: Gerald L. Engel University of Connecticut University of ConnecticutView Profile Authors Info & Claims CSC '86: Proceedings of the 1986 ACM fourteenth annual conference on Computer scienceFebruary 1986 Pages 399–402https://doi.org/10.1145/324634.325466Online:01 February 1986Publication History 0citation101DownloadsMetricsTotal Citations0Total Downloads101Last 12 Months2Last 6 weeks0 Get Citation AlertsNew Citation Alert added!This alert has been successfully added and will be sent to:You will be notified whenever a record that you have chosen has been cited.To manage your alert preferences, click on the button below.Manage my AlertsNew Citation Alert!Please log in to your account Save to BinderSave to BinderCreate a New BinderNameCancelCreateExport CitationPublisher SiteGet Access