The committee is looking for a CIS student representative. If you are a BS-CIS and are interested in being on the committee, please email neelam AT cse.
Spring: |
(Meetings on Thursdays at 1:35pm-2:30 pm in DL 298.) Apr. 18; Apr. 4; Mar. 28; Feb. 14; |
Fall: |
(Meetings on Thursdays at 4:00pm-5:00 pm in DL 298.) Oct. 25; Oct. 11; Sept. 27; Sept. 13; |
Thanks to Paul Sivilotti for the detailed notes on the meeting.
This term there are about 250 applications. the major. Last term, we had 31 applications, and the previous term (summer) we had 135, for a 1-year total of about 415 applications. For the same 12-month period last year, we had a total of 297 applications. The year before that we had 273.
Because of this dramatic increase (which is in line with national trends so it can be assumed not to be a one-time aberration) and because increases to the GPA cut-off require a 12-month notification period before taking effect, the cut-off has to be raised now in order to manage course enrollments. UGSC will probably meet again this semester to discuss this.
Performance on various versions of a Math 366 question involving quantification and predicates was poor.
Performance on various versions of a database question was poor, despite the observation that students can do the same question well in the context of a final exam for the course.
The recommendation was made to report the performance of each group of students on the set of questions that are identical amongst the different versions. That way it would be easier to calibrate whether difference in performance on other questions may be related to differences in the populations of students taking the different versions.
With the new semesters curriculum, there are more "pick list" courses, meaning that more questions on the POCAT will be optional. The recommendation was made to divide the instrument into two parts: questions related to the core, and questions related to picklist courses and/or popular electives. Since every student must take at least one of two courses from a pick-list for each category (eg AI or graphics) it seems reasonable to group the questions the same way and request students answer at least one of two for each category.
Going forward, assessment will also be required for our BS CIS and BA CIS programs. The recommendation was made to have a separate POCAT exam for the BA students since the core is different enough.
The meeting was adjourned at 2:30 pm.
Next meeting: ??
Multiple junior project courses: There was a detailed discussion of the junior project courses. One important question that came up during our discussion was that of students taking multiple 390X courses and counting the additional courses (beyond the required one) toward their tech electives. While these additional courses would seem to be valuable, there was concern that allowing students 4 credits for such additional courses may be too much; or, more precisely, would reduce the breadth and depth that the tech electives are supposed to result in. One idea was that perhaps these additional courses should be allowed but each one should only be counted as *two* (rather than the nominal four) hours toward the TEs. This idea had been previously discussed during the semester transition but we had not put it into effect. The consensus in the committee was that we should do so. Neelam will ask for faculty approval by e-mail. (After the meeting, Neelam did send out a message about this to the faculty.)
One problem that Nikki (who missed this part of the meeting) pointed out after the meeting was that DARS may not allow such splitting of hours. So if we want to do this, we will have to figure out some mechanism for implementing it, such as shadow courses.
Capstone courses: The capstone courses under semesters seem to be going smoothly. The most popular one is 5911 (Software systems). The others are 5912 (Games), 5914 (Knowledge-based systems), and 5915 (Information systems). One course that is on the books is 5913 (Animation project); Rick Parent used to teach the course (682) under quarters but since he has retired, we did not offer it in '12-'13. It is not clear when and whether it will be offered again.
Evening classes: One question that came up was the possibility of offering additional evening classes. We do offer evening sections of a number of our courses, mainly those that can be taught by outside instructors. Our fulltime faculty, for the most part, do not want to teach evening courses. Because of this, and because of the relatively small percentage of students who work fulltime and can take only evening courses, we will probably not consider expanding our evening offerings.
Facilities: Several students at the forum expressed concern about the computing facilities. The main computing labs (in Caldwell) are apparently often overcrowded. Moreover, they are in the middle of the building with no outside walls/windows. The lab in Baker 310 is somewhat better but is used mostly for the service courses for business majors. Room 174 in Dreese is available to CIS and CSE majors but it is relatively small and usually quite crowded. Compared to the facilities that, for example, ME students have, ours are really quite terrible. It was not clear how to address this problem. One idea was to try to persuade some company such as Microsoft or Google to contribute toward improving the existing facilities. While this would help, there doesn't seem to be a good solution for the underlying basic problem which is that the facilities are much too small given our student population (including the students who take the service courses). We should work with the college to identify additional spaces. (One suggestion was, maybe we should try to get some space in Koffolt Lab when Chemical Engineering moves to its new building (being currently built) ...
The meeting was adjourned at 2:30 pm.
Next meeting: ??
Srini and others have been working on developing such a program. The CS portion of the program would be similar to our major program but will be lighter. Specifically, the required courses would be Software I, II; Foundations I; Systems I; Databases I, II; Data mining; and Professionalism and ethics. A number of statistics courses (still being discussed, and yet to be developed) will be required. In addition, 12 hours of tech electives (combination of CS and stats courses) will be required. Some suggested "tech elective tracks" will use the tech elective hours to strengthen the CS portion.
The consensus in the committee was that this was a reasonable program to develop/offer. But the program is not yet ready for approval by faculty. For one thing, the stats courses still need to be developed. For another, the question of vwhere students will be "housed" (in the CSE Dept., in the Stats Dept., or in both and if so how) needs to be discussed. When some of these details have been worked out, Srini will come back to the committee for one more discussion.
The meeting was adjourned at 2:20 pm.
Next meeting: ??
The meeting was adjourned at 2:20 pm.
Next meeting: ??
The meeting was adjourned at 5 pm.
Next meeting: ??
The document at http://www.cse.ohio-state.edu/ugrad/techelecoptions.shtml provides some useful information that students can use to select their tech elective courses. But it needs considerable revision and 6000-level courses need to be included (with the caution that students may have to go through an elaborate process to register for those courses). We will work on this.
The meeting was adjourned at 5:00
Next meeting: Oct 25.
The meeting was adjourned at 5 pm.
Next meeting: ??
Briefly, the program works as follows: It consists of a set of four courses offered in an intensive manner over a period of 8-10 days at the start of Spring semester (i.e., early January) in a residential setting. The topics for the courses are: Effective communication' IT enabled innovation and change; Enterprises system strategy and architecture; Professional experiences in GET. Senior CIS and CSE students have to apply for admission to the program, the minimum requirements being a 3.0 gpa. They also have to be interviewed by one more of the companies in GET and be accepted as interns. Following the intensive courses at the start of the semester, students spend the rest of the semester as full-time interns at the company. Students register as full-time (12 cr hrs) students at OSU (and OSU reimburses Syracuse for the tuition money), these being independent study hours with Rajiv. Roughly 4-6 OSU students successfully complete the program each year.
Under the quarter system, students who satisfactorily completed the program were allowed to count it as 9 cr hrs toward their tech electives. The question was, how the program should be treated under semesters. The following was proposed: students who complete the program satisfactorily should be allowed to count it for 6 cr hrs toward their tech electives; of these 6 hours, 2 hours will be counted as "CSE hours", the remaining will be counted as "non-CSE hours"; hence these students will have to complete 9 more hours of tech electives of which at least 6 hours must be CSE courses. (Recall that both CSE and CIS students are required to complete 15 hours of tech elective courses of which at least 8 must be CSE courses, the remaining being a mix of CSE and non-CSE courses approved by the advisor.)
After a brief discussion, the proposal was approved. Rajiv was asked to give a report to the committee at the end of year to keep us updated on how it was functioning.
The meeting was adjourned at 5 pm.
Next meeting: Sept. 27.