The main topic of the meeting was to arrive at a list of agenda items. We came up with the following list:
[Additional info from Neelam: There was a meeting of the Engineering Core Committee on 10/4 at which this topic was discussed in some depth; not the detailed contents of the report, but how Engineering should respond. Some of the concerns expressed included the apparent `veto power' that ASC has (and will continue to have?) over GEC curricula of other colleges; the recommendation in the GEC report that all undergrad programs be required to have 15 hours of free electives (as apparently required by Faculty rule 3335-7-6); etc. It looks like this will be a major topic in the Core committee (provided CCAA approves -- Core committee is a subcommittee of CCAA).]
In general, we should probably look at all of the assessment and feedback mechanisms we use in the CSE program to see if we want to make any changes. And we need to make sure that we continue to carry out all the associated tasks. One item that was mentioned was the annual undergraduate forum (which we did not get around to holding last year). It was proposed that winter quarter would be a good time for the forum -- perhaps on an afternoon in the sixth or seventh week of winter.
The meeting adjourned at 1:30 pm.
Next meeting: TBA.
Notes added after the meeting: Stu and/or Marty have talked to Peg about the lounge. The bottom line is that the department is experiencing a severe space shortage with the increasing size of the research program. As a result, the possibility of an undergrad lounge seems remote.
The OSU-NT student group IS fairly active. Rick Parent is the advisor.
Topic: The topic of the meeting was to reevaluate the GPA required for admission to the CIS/CSE majors.
Background: Over the last few years, the demand for the majors had gone up steeply. As a result, we were forced to raise the GPA required for admission to the majors to 2.4 (effective Au '98), then to 2.8 (effective Au '99), 3.0 (effective Au '00), and 3.2 (effective (Sp '02).
Current situation: There seems to have been a noticeable drop in the demand for the CIS and CSE majors (and this seems to be a national, not just an OSU, trend). As a result, the number of students admitted to the major in the three quarters that the 3.2 requirement has been in effect has been much lower than we had expected. We had expected that about 180 students would be admitted over a 4-quarter period; we seem to be admitting about 130 instead. So it seems clear that we should lower the gpa requirement.
Based on the grade distribution curve we have used in the past, and given that we are admitting 130 students with the gpa requirement at 3.2, if we lowered the gpa requirement to 3.1, we would have 150 admits over a 4-quarter period; at 3.0, we would have 174; at 2.9, we would have 197. Based on our current faculty size, and the size of our grad program, we should be aiming for 194 admits.
Discussion: There was an extended discussion in the meeting. On the one hand, as described under "current situation", one could argue for reducing the gpa requirement to 3.0 or even to 2.9. On the other, there were two factors that concerned the committee in making such a drastic reduction: First, for the last several years, we have been admitting 50 or more students each year than we should have been (based again on our faculty size), and these students are still in the pipeline. Second, while reductions in the gpa requirement can be instituted with little or no advance notice to students, if we want to raise it back again, we can do so only after giving students sufficient notice (of three quarters). Hence, a "go-slow" approach of reducing the gpa to 3.1 seemed attractive.
The following three-part motion was made:
The meeting adjourned at 1:30 pm.
Next meeting: TBA.
1. CIS 680/Math 566: Math 566 is now required for CSE majors. But it looks like there is considerable overlap between the material in that course and CIS 680. David agreed to work with Rafe Wenger and the appropriate Math people to see how this can be addressed; David will report back to the committee.
One possibility would be to add Math 566 as a pre-req for CIS 680 and revise 680 appropriately. The problem with this is that Math 566 is not currently required for CIS majors. It was suggested that perhaps Math 566 could be required for CIS majors, while simulatenously removing Math 254 from the requirements. (CSE majors would still be required to take Math 254 since that is required for all engineering students). Doing this would not only allow us to strengthen 680, but also free up two hours in the CIS program. It was suggested that one of those hours could be used towards CIS 601 (which is another course that CSE but not CIS majors are required to take). The other hour could be added to the list of technical electives in the CIS program.
There was a brief discussion/listing also of other changes that we
might want to make in the programs, there being two such changes: the
University and Engineering GEC committees might (or might not) propose
changes in the GEC requirements or number of GEC hours; we had
previously talked about adding CIS 677 as a required course for both
CIS and CSE majors, we need to look at this seriously.
2. Engineering 181/183: CSE majors (like other engineering majors) are
required to take Eng. 181 and 183. Bob Gustafson had suggested
(unofficially) that we might want to consider requiring pre-CSE majors
to complete these courses before being admitted to the major. We felt
that while it is appropriate to recommend pre-CSE majors to take these
courses in their freshman year (as we already do), i.e., before they
are admitted to the major, it does not make sense to require them to
do so since the topics in these courses are not directly related to
computing.
3. Engineering capstone design course: An Engineering committee has been looking at how capstone design is being handled across the college. Gustafson and Mardi Hastings would apparently like to talk to each department about some ideas they have been considering, in particular about a "pre-capstone principles of design" course. We decided that we will invite them to a UGSC meeting to tell us about their ideas.
The meeting adjourned at 1:30 pm.
Next meeting: TBA.
1. Feedback on our students' preparation: The Engineering Career Services occasionally receives feedback from on-campus recruiters. Recently we received feedback from a recruiter from Microsoft. This person expressed concern that our students did not seem familiar/comfortable with pointers and linked lists, that their self-assessment of their C/C++ proficiencies were out of line with their actual abilities, and they did not seem to have brushed up on syntax of C/C++/Java prior to the interview.
There was an extended discussion. The consensus seemed to be that we need to continue to ensure that our students acquire a solid grasp of, and abilities in, good software development principles; and have a thorough understanding of basic computing concepts, including such low-level mechanisms as pointers. And that different parts of the curriculum will -as they do now- emphasize one or the other to a greater or lesser extent. But that there is no reason to consider wholesale changes in our curriculum based on one recruiter's comments. Bruce volunteered to contact the Microsoft recruiter to better understand his concerns.
2. Response to (university) GEC committee's report: The university GEC
committee has produced a voluminous report (available at:
http://senate.ohio-state.edu/GECReport.pdf
on the current state of the general education curriculum along with a
number of recommendations. We had a preliminary discussion on this
topic.
Prior to the meeting, Stu had expressed some opinions. He made
three points:
a. Wouldn't it be reasonable to include an information technology
requirement as part of the GEC for all students in the university?
b. Wouldn't it be reasonable to require or at least allow,
business-related courses to be part of the GEC, given the kinds of
feedback we have got from various constituents?
c. Wouldn't it make more sense to state the GEC requirements in terms
of credit hours [rather than courses, as recommended by the GEC
committee], given that all other requirements are stated in terms of
credit hours?
There was general consensus in UGSC with respect to (c). With respect
to (a), the general feeling seemed to be that allowing an IT course
(such as CIS 101) to be included amongst a list of courses that
students could choose from as part of a GEC category would be more
appropriate than requiring such a course of every student in the
university. We didn't discuss (b) extensively but there was general
agreement that indeed it would be useful, at least for engineering
and other technical [such as CIS] majors to take business courses as
part of the GEC.
There is also a subcommittee of the Engineering College's CCAA that is working on possible changes to the GEC, in response to the university committee's report.
We will continue this discussion at our next meeting on November 21 before deciding on what we should say in our response to the GEC committee [the response is due December 6].
The meeting adjourned at 1:25 pm.
Next meeting: Nov. 21.
1. GEC proposals: We continued our discussion of the university GEC committee's report. The discussion was inconclusive, at least in part because the recommendations in the GEC report were not really very clear. For example, the "Summary of the UCRC [Undergraduate Curriculum Review Committee] Report on the GEC" claims, at its very beginning, that there will be a seven hour reduction in the GEC requirement for BS students in MAPS (this includes our CIS majors); but the detailed table comparing the current and proposed GEC curricula shows no such difference. In fact, it is not clear what the number of GEC hours is in the proposed curriculum since (some of) it is stated in terms of courses, not credit hours. But if we assume that most GEC courses will be 5 hours as they currently are, there is no difference in the number of hours between the current and proposed requirements according to the table in the summary. Further, much of the justification/explanation contained in the long response from the UCRC to questions about the proposed GEC from the ASC Curriculum Committee, was also unclear. For example, at one point the response states, "... since there is such a loose connection between credit hours [in a GEC course] and work done or benefit derived, we should not cut hours to graduation ..." We were puzzled as to how a loose connection between credit hours and benefit derived can be the reason to not cut hours.
Given this confusion, we couldn't arrive at anything beyond what we had already reached in our previous discussion, i.e., first, it would be useful to include a course in computing/information technology as part of GEC; second, it would be reasonable to make it possible to include one or more business courses as part of GEC; and third, the GEC requirements ought to be stated in terms of hours, not number of courses. Given the current state of affairs, it is not clear that there is any point in the department's providing any response to the UCRC.
The meeting adjourned at 1:30 pm.
Next meeting: Dec. 5.
1. Bob was an invited guest at this meeting to tell us about a college-wide pre-capstone course that an ad-hoc committee appointed by Dean Williams has been exploring.
Background: Dean Williams appointed an ad-hoc committee to consider
the possibility of a college-wide course related to engineering students'
capstone design experience. The main concerns had to do with students'
multi-disciplinary team working skills, and their understanding of the
design process as might be practiced in industry, as well communication
skills, etc. The committee considered four possibilities.
a. Mobile option: Require students to take a capstone design
course in a field other than the one they are majoring in.
b. Co-operative: Have two or more departments develop a joint
capstone design course that students in each of the departments would
be required to take.
c. College-wide capstone course: Develop a single
college-wide course that all students would be required to take as
their capstone design course.
d. College-wide pre-capstone course: Develop a single
college-wide course that would develop students' skills, which would
then be applied by the students in capstone design courses in their
own specific departments.
The ad-hoc committee apparently felt that the first three options were not very workable and has concentrated on the fourth option.
Some details: Bob passed out a sheet outlining the possible
topics for the pre-capstone course. There were five sets of topics:
Discussion: There was an extended discussion. It was noted that a number of the issues, especially those having to do with team-working and design process, come up in CIS 560. The consensus seemed to be that once students have encountered these issues in 560, the discussion in the proposed course will make a lot of sense to them since they will be able to relate it to their 560 experiences; and that following the detailed discussion of these issues in this course, they will be able to apply the ideas more conciously (and more conscientiously) in the the capstone course. One idea that was suggested was that the course should rely heavily on case studies so that students can see the ideas as applied in practice (or conversely, the results of not applying the ideas). Overall the committee felt that the course seemed worthwhile and, given the set of topics, will help the CSE program better meet the ABET accreditation criteria. There were also some questions about who would teach the course (if all engineering students are required to take the course, that amounts to about 700 or more students each year), budgetary implications, possibilities of getting help from faculty in other colleges (for example, Business) with some of the topics in the proposed course, etc.
The meeting adjourned at 1:30 pm.
Next meeting: Winter quarter.
1. GPA for admission to the CIS/CSE majors: The demand for admission to the CIS and CSE majors has reduced considerably from the very high level it was at until last year. Hence in October '02, UGSC had recommended, and the CIS faculty approved, the lowering of the GPA threshold for admission to the majors to 3.1 (from 3.2 which had been in effect for the previous three quarters). The demand continues to moderate and the question before the committee was whether the threshold should be further lowered. [At its meeting on 10/21/'02, at the same time that the faculty approved the lowering of the threshold to 3.1, the CIS faculty also gave permission to UGSC to lower the threshold to 3.0 this quarter if we felt that it was necessary and appropriate to do so.]
The general consensus was that the demand had indeed moderated quite a bit from its highest levels and that it would be appropriate to lower the threshold to 3.0. The arguments in favor of leaving the threshold at 3.1 were two-fold: Over the last several years, we admitted many more majors than our capacity (given our faculty strength), and these students are still in the pipeline. Second, once the threshold is lowered, raising it again, as we would have to do if the demand were to start upward again, cannot be done as quickly since we would be required to give sufficient notice to students who might be affected.
Despite these admittedly legitimate concerns, the general feeling was
that it would be appropriate to lower the threshold to 3.0, and the
committee voted unanimously to do so. The new requirement will go into
effect immediately.
The meeting adjourned at 2:20 pm.
Next meeting: TBA.
1. Engineering 181/183: CSE majors (like all other engineering majors) are required to take Eng. 181/183 as part of their engineering requirements. The question was, at what point should they take these courses. Currently the students take these courses either as pre-majors or after they admitted to the CSE major. The college had suggested that it might be useful to have the students take the courses as pre-majors.
Here are some of the reasons that were mentioned for requiring students to take Eng. 181/183 as pre-majors:
The committee also felt that requiring students to take Eng. 181/183 as pre-majors would create some definite problems for our students:
The conclusion was that for now we will not require CSE students to
take these courses as pre-majors. If the courses are revised in the
future to address the concerns noted above, we will revisit the issue.
We also decided that, given the Engineering College's interest in
having students take these courses early,
we will add a note to the Undergraduate Brochure suggesting to
CSE students that they should try to take Eng 181/183 as early in
their program as possible.
2. Undergraduate forum: The committee discussed plans for organizing
the annual Undergraduate forum. The tentative date/time for the forum
that we came up with was Tuesday, Feb. 25, at 6:00 pm [This may be
moved to Wednesday, Feb. 26, at 6:00 pm since several CIS classes seem
to meet on Tuesday evenings]. Pizza and pop will be provided by the
department. The plan is to have several CIS faculty as well as some
of the advising staff attend the forum.
The main point of the forum is to seek ideas from the students. It was suggested that it would be useful to come up with a specific list of topics and publicize it in advance so that students can think about them and come with ideas to present at the forum. Faculty will try to answer any specific questions that students raise but the main point again was to seek input from students [which will be considered and discussed in detail in later UGSC meetings and elsewhere in the department]. We generated the following list of topics:
The meeting adjourned at 2:20 pm.
Next meeting: TBA.
1. Math 566: David and Rafe have been looking into the overlap between Math 566 and CIS 680. This is an important concern since Math 566 is now required for CSE majors (but not for CIS majors). The main topics of overlap had to do with recurrence relations, asymptotic notation, elementary graph theory, and minimum spanning trees.
They proposed that Math 566 be required also for CIS majors and be added as a prerequisite for CIS 680. CIS 680 can then be revised to reduce the coverage of recurrence relations and elementary graph theory to a brief review; and coordinate coverage of other topics with the the Math faculty, so that all relevant topics are covered without unnecessary repetition.
The following proposal was made:
After some further discussion, the committee approved the proposal unanimously. This will have to be approved by the CIS faculty; and assuming that approval is forthcoming, it will then have to be approved by the MPS Curriculum Committee. Also, Rafe and David will work with the mathematics faculty on coordinating Math 566 and CIS 680.
2. Linguistics minor targeted to CIS and CSE majors: The Lingusitics have been interested in offering a minor targeted to CIS and CSE majors. They had presented a preliminary proposal to us last year (see minutes). They have now made a formal proposal. Students who want to pursue this minor will be required to take 25 hours of courses in Linguistics from the following list:
The committee felt that this would be a good option for CIS and CSE students. Neelam will write a letter expressing our concurrence with the Linguistics proposal.
The meeting adjourned at 2:10 pm.
Next meeting: TBA.
1. Students expressed a number of ideas, concerns, and suggestions at the undergraduate forum (see report). The agenda for this meeting was to discuss the points raised at the forum.
The meeting adjourned at 2:30 pm.
Next meeting: Spring quarter.
1. Agenda items for the quarter: The main items are:
2. Math 254 in the CIS program: In our meeting of February 25, we had decided to recommend to the faculty that we replace Math 254 as a required course in the CIS program with Math 566 (and also add CIS 601 as a required course). Since then, we have had some email discussions with some people in the Mathematics department. Perhaps not surprisingly, they have expressed some reservations about our proposal. Their main concern was that Math 254 helps develop important intuitions that students would find valuable for courses on probability & statistics and linear algebra. The purpose of today's discussion was to see if we wanted to make any changes in our recommendation, in light of the points raised by the math faculty.
The general consensus in UGSC was that while Math 254 is undoubtedly valuable, discrete math is essential for our students. Therefore, it seems rather unreasonable to devote 20 hours (Math 151, 152, 153, 254) to calculus and only 3 hours (Math 366) to discrete math. Replacing Math 254 with Math 566 would help address this imbalance somewhat, while still devoting over twice the number of hours for calculus as for discrete math. Hence we felt that even with the points raised by the math faculty, our original recommendations make sense.
One concern is that Stat 427 has Math 254 as a prerequisite. It is not clear why this is. Indeed, our student reps, Davis and Erin, noted that Stat 427 uses hardly any calculus, certainly nothing that is in the course material of Math 254. If the idea of the prerequisite is to ensure that students have math maturity, that can presumably be ensured by having students take Math 366 and possibly 566 before taking Stat 427. Another concern was that Math 568/571 both currently have Math 254 as prerequisite. Since many of our students take these courses as electives, this could pose a problem. We have not heard from the math people directly involved with these courses; we have to check with those people to see why vector calculus is needed for the linear algebra courses; here again if the question is one of math maturity, Math 366/566 may perhaps serve as reasonable alternative prerequisites.
Our conclusion was that we should recommend to the CIS faculty the
changes that were proposed in our Feb. 25th meeting and to work with
the Statistics faculty to have the Math 254 pre-req for Stat 427
removed or possibly allow Math 366 and/or 566 as an alternate
prerequisite.
The meeting adjourned at 2:30 pm.
Next meeting: ???
1. Student organizations: Bettina gave us a brief report on the newly formed ACM-W student chapter. She also briefly described the ideas that have been floated around for a sort of "umbrella group" that might help coordinate activities among the various student groups in the department, or possibly help to make members of each group aware of activities going on in the other groups. While there seem to be some definite advantages to having such an umbrella group, there also seem to be concerns about turf issues and people stepping on each other's toes, etc. So it is not clear that the time is right for such a group to be formed. Maybe the right thing would be to start somewhat modestly, perhaps with an umbrella web page that contains links to the individual groups, and also contains brief announcements of upcoming activities in any of the groups (again with links to the individual groups for more detailed information about the activities). We will try to set this up during the summer.
2. Demand for CIS/CSE major: We looked at two sets of numbers. The first set has to do with the number of students admitted to the major in various quarters during the last few years, the gpa required for admission during those quarters, and the 4-quarter running total of admits. This data is in the following table:
Number of admits / GPA for admission:
Quarter # of admits 4-qtr GPA reqd.
running total
Sp '03 59 163 3.0
Wi '03 52 149 3.1
Au '02 12 155 3.2
Su '02 40 174 3.2
Sp '02 45 220 3.2
Wi '02 58 233 3.0
Au '01 31 229 3.0
Su '01 86 228 3.0
Sp '01 58 235 3.0
Wi '01 54 230 3.0
Au '00 30 235 3.0
Su '00 93 231 2.8
Sp '00 53 231 2.8
Wi '00 59 257 2.8
Au '99 26 272 2.8
Su '99 93 276 2.4
Sp '99 79 251 2.4
Wi '99 74 235 2.4
Au '98 30 252 2.4
Su '98 68 251 2.0
Sp '98 63 251 2.0
Wi '98 91 241 2.0
Au '97 29 190 2.0
Second, we looked at the number of pre-majors as well as majors in
each quarter during the the last several years.
This data is in the following table:
Numbers of majors and pre-majors:
Quarter pre-CSE pre-CIS CSE CIS pre-majors majors
Sp '03 281 219 308 192 500 500
Wi '03 333 286 302 180 619 482
Au '02 402 333 302 180 735 482
Su '02 60 88 149 100 148 249
Sp '02 345 308 337 208 653 545
Wi '02 347 401 334 224 748 558
Au '01 459 406 322 214 865 536
Su '01 70 112 157 119 182 276
Sp '01 324 314 317 220 638 537
Wi '01 390 359 303 253 749 556
Au '00 419 331 279 238 750 517
Su '00 71 95 157 127 166 284
Sp '00 280 305 312 224 615 536
Wi '00 319 325 304 230 644 534
Au '99 370 347 298 235 717 533
Su '99 61 102 143 139 163 282
Sp '99 268 304 300 240 572 540
Wi '99 308 314 271 225 622 496
Au '98 333 318 253 227 651 480
Su '98 42 119 129 133 161 262
Sp '98 182 283 266 213 465 479
Wi '98 214 275 228 206 489 434
Au '97 260 278 223 189 538 412
The 4-quarter running total of the number of admits to the majors in
each of the last few quarters is below what we had expected (and
indeed that is why we lowered the GPA requirement from its high of 3.2
to the current 3.0). This would suggest that a further lowering of the
GPA requirement to bring the 4-quarter number closer to 180 is
warranted. The trend with respect to the number of pre-majors is also
downward so that would suggest lowering the GPA requirement. On the
other hand, the number of majors is still quite high, so any lowering
of the GPA requirement should probably be on a modest scale. The other
additional fact to keep in mind is that while a lower GPA requirement
can go into effect immediately, if we want to raise it again after
possibly lowering it by too great an amount, we will have to wait
several quarters in order to provide the required notice to current
pre-majors.
We will discuss this question again at the next meeting before
deciding on a recommendation for faculty approval.
The meeting adjourned at 2:30 pm.
Next meeting: ???
1. GPA for admission to the CSE/CIS majors: Neelam presented the analysis for the GPA requirement:
| GPA | No. of admits |
| 3.0 | 163 (current) |
| 2.9 | 185 (predicted) |
| 2.8 | 207 (predicted) |
[Note: Bruce could not attend the meeting because he was out of town. But after the meeting he expressed a concern about how the 200 target was computed. In particular, he felt that for the M and P figures in that formula, we should use the number of students admitted each year to the MS and PhD programs rather than the number of grads. This is because the amount of faculty resources that will have to be dedicated to serving the grad program's needs will depend on the number of students admitted to the program, not the number of students who graduated in previous years. If we use the number of students admitted to the MS/PhD programs for M and P, the target figure drops from 200 to 160 if we use the number of grad students expected to join the dept. in Au '03. But these numbers have fluctuated quite a bit over the last few years (especially the value of P which has a large impact in the formula). All this adds to the unpredictability of this whole activity.]
2. Math 254 in the CIS program: The Statistics department has agreed to change the Stat 427 prerequisite from "Math 254" to "Math 133; and Math 254 or 366" as we had requested. This has to be still approved by the MPS Curriculum Committee (it is on their agenda for May 12). Assuming that the change is approved, we can recommend to our faculty that, as discussed at the UGSC meetings of Feb. 25 and April 4, Math 254 be replaced in the CIS curriculum by Math 566, CIS 601, and an extra hour of technical elective.
The meeting adjourned at 2:15 pm.
Next meeting: May 16.
1. Criteria for CSE Capstone Design Courses: An important component of the EC 2000 criteria has to do with the Capstone Design Course. The requirement reads as follows:
We agreed that we need to do two things. First, reevaluate the requirements listed above to see if any changes are needed. Second, analyze each of the current Capstone Design courses to see how well they meet our requirements, and try to have any needed changes made in the courses.
With respect to our requirements, we felt that they were generally reasonable but it would be useful to make some changes. For example, the second requirement, that the Capstone course should have as prerequisites all relevant courses that are part of the CSE core or the particular option, was presumably intended to ensure that the course meets the EC 2000 requirement of ... culminating in a major design experience based on the knowledge and skills aquired in earlier coursework. But the requirement as it is currently stated, doesn't really ensure this. Conceivably, we could have a course in a completely new area that is not part of the CSE core, and then it would meet our requirement without having any pre-reqs!
It was suggested that perhaps we could require that the Capstone course should build on at least two courses from the CSE core. In any case, the goal is to ensure that the focus of the course is on the design activity, not on new material. [The fourth requirement sort of says this, but it would be probably be worth stating it also when talking about the prerequisites.]
Another suggestion was that team working and communication skills, including oral communication skills, should be considered essential [rather than just "desirable"]. This may in fact be a problem for some of the current Capstone courses. But given the importance of these two items in the accreditation requirements, given that ABET considers the Capstone Design course as one of the most important items in preparing students for professional practice, and given that the feedback we have consistently got indicates that our students are not well prepared with respect to communication and team working abilities, we felt that it is essential to include these components in the Capstone courses.
We will come up with a revised list of requirements that takes account of these considerations, for approval by the faculty. And starting next fall, we will take a careful look at each of the Capstone courses to see how well it meets the requirements and see what changes may be needed. We will also look at designating other courses as Capstone courses [the main current candidate being the new Animation course].
The meeting adjourned at 2:30 pm.
Next meeting: May 30.
1. ISE 702 as a tech elective for the Scientific Computing and
the Advanced Studies options: Ken Supowit has suggested that ISE 702
would be a suitable tech elective for students in these two options. One
concern was that since this course had minimal prerequisites [Math 568
was the only one listed], it may be too elementary despite its high
number. But this does not seem to be the case, judging from the
on-line
syllabus.
Another concern was that this may reduce the number of computing
courses these students would take especially for the Scientific
Computing option which already is math-heavy [the problem is not as
serious for the Advanced Studies option]. Nevertheless, given the
importance of Mathematical Programming, the topic of ISE 702, to the
Scientific Computing area, the committee decided this would be an
appropriate addition to the list of tech elective courses for these
two options.
2. Criteria for CSE Capstone Design Courses: Based on the discussions
in the last
meeting, Neelam had prepared a draft set
[to replace the
existing set]
of requirements for CSE Capstone Design courses. The draft set has been
revised further based on the discussion at this meeting and is available
on-line.
This will be discussed further in early fall before being presented to
the faculty for its approval. One point that was noted was that given the
time commitment that the "oral presentations" requirement [3.f in the
revised draft requirements] will demand, it would be appropriate to provide
some additional teaching credit for the instructors of these courses [as is
currently done for 4-credit courses that meet four times a week].
3. CSE survey results: The results of the Exit Survey, the Alumni Survey,
and the Supervisor Survey for the current year [available at:
http://www.cis.ohio-state.edu/~neelam/abet/ under "Assessment and
Feedback Mechanisms"] were discussed. The results were generally consistent
with results from previous years but there were some interesting
differences. For example, the Alumni Survey results seemed to show a
clear, if small, decrease in how well the respondents perceived
themselves to have been prepared by the program with respect to a
number of items. For example, on the scale we use to average the
responses [explained in detail in the survey results pages], the
respondents' evaluation of how well the program has prepared them for
immediate employment in the CSE profession and for admission to
graduate programs has steadily dropped from a high of 81% in the
1998='99 survey to 58% in this year's survey; the quality of
preparation with respect to effective communication and team-working
skills which had remained steady at around 60% has dropped to 51% in
this year's survey; both of these are from Part III of the Alumni
Survey. A question in Part II asked the respondents to rate their
overall preparation to be an engineer; that has dropped from 78% to
68%.
Two explanations were suggested. First, the number of respondents each year is relatively low (around 20); so variations of this kind are to be expected. Second, and perhaps more compelling, is that the job market has changed dramatically in the last few years. Given that our alumni, like other computing professionals, are not as highly sought after as they used to be, we can expect that to be reflected in the survey results. This second point may be at play also in some changes in the Exit Survey results; for question (5a) which asks respondents to rate their preparation with respect to the outcome, "graduates will be heavily recruited for positions in high-tech companies that utilize their computing education", the result is down from a high of 78% in 1998-'99 to 56% for this past year. Interestingly, even for (5b) which is concerned with preparing students to enter graduate programs, the rating is down from 83% in '98-'99 to 72% this year. Our own graduate program has experienced a surge in the number of [domestic] applicants, driven at least in part by the job market situation, and hence the admission to graduate programs has become much more competitive, and the change in the responses are surely at least somewhat related to that.
In any case, the trends are worrisome and we should consider possible corrective actions. One point that was mentioned repeatedly in the "other comments/suggestions" section of the Alumni Survey was the importance of internship and co-op experiences. Some alums went so far as to say that their internship period was the single most important part of their college experience. Given these comments, and given the clear preference of many employers to hire students/grads with internship experience, the committee felt that it is important to get this point across to our students and to help them find internship opportunities. One proposal was to invite Nicky Drake of the Engineering Career Services Office to come and talk to students in CIS 321 both about the importance of internships as well as the specific steps involved in finding an internship. Another was to invite on-campus recruiters, when they are on campus, to come and talk to the students in some junior level classes, explaining what employers are looking for in new hires. A third, given the increasing interest among our students in grad school, was to have some of our own faculty, especially those involved with grad admissions, to explain the grad admission process, and how to maximize chances of admission and support to good grad programs.
We will investigate these possibilites and try to take appropriate action(s) next year.
The meeting adjourned at 2:30 pm.
This was the last meeting of the year.
Thanks to all the committee members for their active participation!