| Spring: | June 3; May 27; May 20; May 13; April 29; April 22; April 15; April 8; April 1. |
| Winter: | February 28; February 14; February 7; January 24; January 10. |
| Autumn: | December 2; November 18; October 28; October 14; October 7; September 30; September 23. |
| Topic | Details/Actions | Status/plans |
|---|---|---|
| Interviewing Workshops | 4/15: Neelam reported that a couple of CSE majors, in their
exit surveys, had suggested that CSE majors are lacking in interviewing
skills and that it would be useful to organize some activities that would
help build these skills. Neelam further reported that the Engineering
Career Services (ECS) office does organize workshops
regularly
for just this purpose. But, according to Rosemary Hill (the director
of ECS), many students do not seem to be aware of this.
Neelam also reported that Rosemary has agreed to organize one of the ECS workshops in class during one of the regularly scheduled lectures in CSE 758, one of our capstone courses. Rajiv Ramnath, who teaches a section of 758 this quarter, and Rosemary are working out the details. Rajiv has promised to give us a report on this once it takes place. The ECS workshops, naturally, focus on general interviewing skills, not CSE-specific technical issues that might come up during interviews. One possibility would be for the department to consider developing a local (CSE) workshop, as well as developing a set of web pages, that would help students with respect to technical topics, when prepare for job interviews. We will try to identify student volunteers and faculty who can develop such a workshop. |
ECS will offer a 48-minute interview workshop in class as part of
CSE 758 later this quarter. This will be a pilot offering and depending
on how well it works, we will try to work with ECS to expand this to
all capstone courses on a regular basis.
Rosemary Hill conducted this workshop in the 758 class period on May 11. The session seems to have been quite useful. For details, see the minutes of the May 13 meeting. |
| Individualized Option |
Proposal: Introduce an individualized option as a new
tech elective option in both
the CSE and CIS programs. It would consist of
at least 15 hours of CSE courses plus 12 additional hours in the case
of the CSE program and 9 additional hours in the case of the CIS
program, of some appropriate combination of CSE courses and courses
from one or more other disciplines. The student would be required to
develop the program in close consultation with his or her faculty
advisor. The goal is also to encourage students who follow this option
to complete an appropriate minor, with some or all of the 12 or 9
additional hours contributing toward the minor. This option would replace
the currently existing individualized option in the CIS program.
The proposal was discussed at the UGSC meetings of Feb. 14 and 28. It was also briefly mentioned at the faculty meeting of Feb. 14. The general consensus was that this would be a good option and should be introduced. The proposal was again discussed at the UGSC meeting of April 8. A new point was brought up: According to ASC rules, hours cannot be double counted between the major and a minor; by contrast, the College of Engineering specifically encourages this. But it seems possible to work within the ASC rules and still encourage the students in this option to complete a minor by restating the "9 additional hours of CSE courses and courses from one or more other appropriate disciplines" as "9 additional hours of ... OR complete a minor approved by the advisor". For details, see the minutes of the 4/8 meeting. 4/15: The proposal was discussed again at the UGSC meeting of 4/15 and was approved unanimously. |
The proposal was approved unanimously by the
faculty at its meeting of 4/25/'05 with the following modification:
Each
individualized option program must be approved not only by the faculty
advisor of the particular student but also by a designated person from the Undergraduate Studies
Committee. This is to ensure that individual faculty advisors,
especially those who are new to the department
and may not fully
understand
the intent of the option, are able to depend on a more experienced faculty
member
in deciding whether or not a given combination of courses is appropriate.
The proposal (modified as specified above) will next go to the college committees for their approval. It may also require approval by the University Council on Academic Affairs (CAA). |
| Change name of the CIS program to CS program | Background/proposal: CIS students have occasionally
reported that recruiters confuse them with MIS students.
It would therefore seem to make sense to change the name of the program
to Computer Science. Inclusion of the word "information" no longer
makes very much sense since the word is no longer part of the department
name.
Although there seems to be consensus on this, Stu has suggested that we should wait until a new department chair is in place before pursuing this. In any case, such a name would have to be approved by several levels of the university. |
No action is currently planned. To be revisited once a new department chair is in place |
| Credit for CSE 201 based on AP scores | Background/proposal: Currently
students get credit for CSE 201 if they have a score of 3 or above
in the CS-A AP exam, or 2 or above in the CS-B exam. There have been
anecdotal reports that a score of 3 in CS-A or 2 in CS-B is not sufficient
preparation for CSE 221.
Further, most of
our peer schools do not use such a low threshold for giving credit
for their 201-equivalent course. The proposal was to
change our policy to require a score of 4 or 5 in
the CS-A exam or a score of 3, 4, or 5 in the CS-B exam to receive
credit for CSE 201. Students who do not meet these requirements will
still be able to test out of 201 by taking the placement exam.
The proposal was discussed at the UGSC meeting of 4/1 and was unanimously approved. David Mathias (who is our designated coordinator for such matters) will inform the university Admissions Office of this change; that office is the one that implements the policy. |
The Admissions Office has been notified of the change. |
| Discussion of CSE exit-survey results | This is the annual discussion of the CSE survey results. This year we only have the exit-survey results to discuss. The Engineering College decided to switch to a two-year cycle for alumni and supervisor surveys. So the next alum/supervisor surveys will be during Winter '06 and the results will be available in Spring '06. | Discussion pending. (Results are available on-line.) |
| Change in CSE exit-survey | Background/proposal: We discussed possible
changes to the exit-survey at UGSC meetings of 1/10, 1/24, and 2/7.
We decided to revise the survey as described in the minutes of the
meeting of 2/7 but postponed doing so until after the discussion of
the exit-survey results for the current year. The main change is the
addition of a section that asks students to evaluate the quality of
faculty and staff advising.
4/29: During the discussion of the results of '04-'05 exit-survey at the meeting of April 29, the question of when students should be required to complete the survey came up. Currently, students complete the survey as much as three quarters before their graduation. Hence, these students do not provide us feedback on the CSE courses they take in those last three quarters. This is potentially an important problem since many students do take a fair number of CSE courses during those quarters. To mitigate this, it was suggested that students be required to complete it no more than two quarters before their projected graduation date. |
The proposed changes in the survey have been completed.
The revised survey is now in place.
We will also consider requiring students to complete the survey no more than two quarters before graduation. |
| Evaluation of capstone courses | Background: Following the recent revision of the criteria for capstone courses, we have asked the faculty invovled with the individual courses to give us a presentation evaluating how well each course meets the new criteria. So far, faculty involved with 682, 731, 772, and 758 have made such presentations. We still need to have presentations about 762 and 778. Saday taught a revised version of 778 in Au '04; we will try to get him to give us a presentation this quarter. Gagan Agrawal is currently teaching a revised version of 762; we will try to get him to give us a presentation either late this (Spring) quarter or possibly early in the fall quarter. | On-going. |
| Advising CSE and CIS majors | Background: Some CSE majors are not taking Engineering 181/183
in a timely manner; this is unfortunate since the communication and
team-working skills that these courses help develop can be of great value
in such courses as 560, 601, and the capstone courses. There is also
the general problem that many students (both CSE and CIS majors) don't
see their faculty advisors except very close to their graduation and hence
don't seek their advice on such matters as choices of tech electives.
We discussed this at the UGSC meeting of 4/8 and considered possible changes in advising. For example, it may be useful to send out mail to all CSE majors who have not yet taken 181/183, urging them to take the courses as soon as possible. We will discuss this further before determining on how best to address the question. 4/15: Tim, Peg and Neelam have drafted a letter that stresses the importance of students consulting regularly with their faculty advisors on such matters as choices of elective courses. The idea is that such a letter would be sent each year to all CSE and CIS majors. The letter would be sent in late April or early May just before students start scheduling their fall quarter classes. There was a suggestion that the letter be revised to stress the importance of research/independent projects. This will be done and the letters will be sent out starting this year. With respect to the question of 181/183, it was decided that a letter urging students to take 181/183 as soon as possible be sent in early fall quarter to all CSE majors who had not yet taken the courses. It was suggested that it might be best not to mention specific courses such as 560 and 601 (since chances are that some of these students would already have taken these courses) but that the importance of 181/183 for the capstone courses be noted in the letter. |
A letter stressing the importance of CSE and CIS majors meeting
regularly with their faculty advisors to consult with them on such topics
as choice of elective CSE courses, possible opportunities for independent
projects, etc., will be sent to all CSE and CIS majors every year in late
April/early May.
A letter urging students to take Engineering 181/183 as soon as possible will be sent in early fall quarter to all CSE majors who had not yet taken either of these courses. |
| Math 568 for CIS majors | Background: Math 254 is no longer required for CIS majors. But Math 568 (linear algebra) which is a prerequisite for some graphics courses includes Math 254 as a prerequisite. We had approached the math department to see if they would be willing to replace Math 254 with Math 153 as the prerequisite for 568. Unfortunately, the math faculty seem reluctant to officially change the 568 prerequisite to 153. Instead, they have agreed to give "special permission" to CIS majors to take the course after completing Math 153. In fact, they have agreed to let our Advising Office to enroll into 568 any interested CIS majors who have completed Math 153. | The on-line brochure for the CIS program has been updated to include this information. The Advising Office will enroll interested CIS majors who have completed Math 153 (as well as Math 366, for math maturity) into Math 568. |
| Math 566/CSE 680 coordination | Background: Following the recent revisions in the CIS program, Math 566 is required for all CIS majors who entered OSU in Au '04 or later. This will allow us to update CSE 680 to include more in-depth discussions of some of the topics included in Math 566. David Mathias and Rafe Wenger have been working with Tim Carlson of the math department on coordinating the two courses. David has promised to provide a report on this. | Pending. |
| Changes in CSE GEC: Comm 321, Econ 200/201, business course | Details: Following extensive discussions (see minutes
of UGSC meeting of January 10 and earlier meetings), we had proposed
requiring CSE majors to take Econ 200/201 as one of the courses in
the Social Sciences category of the GEC, and Comm 321 (previously
JCom 321) in the "additional hours of GEC category"; we had also
proposed allowing CSE majors to take one of the five courses in the
business minor as part of their technical electives.
The proposal had been approved by CCAA and forwarded to the university CAA (Council on Academic Affairs) for its approval. CAA approved the proposal at its meeting of 3/2/'05. |
The new requirements will apply to CSE majors entering OSU in Au '05 or beyond. |
| Changes in Engineering GEC | Details: The College of Engineering has proposed revising the GEC program required of all engineering students. The net effect of the proposal would be that the number of GEC hours for engineering students would go down from 38 to 35. For CSE majors, however, the accreditation requirements dictate a minimum of 45 hours. If the college proposal is approved (by the CAA), we will specify the additional 10 hours of GEC required of CSE majors to consist of Comm 321 and one of the five courses in the business minor. | Pending at CAA. |
| Preparation for accreditation evaluation | Details: These preparations are in full swing. Neelam will provide details at a future meeting. | On-going. |
| Undergraduate Forum | Details: The annual CSE/CIS undergraduate forum was held on February 22. Matt Schwaberow moderated the forum. Gautam Reddy, Microsoft Academic Relations attended the first part of the forum and offered some advice to students, especially those nearing graduation. | Completed. An on-line report is available. |
| Papers in 222/321 and later courses on important/controversial ideas/questions | Tim has promised to tell us about this soon. | |
| Capstone course evaluations | Raghu will provide a report soon on 682. Saday has to be persuaded to do the same for 778. | |
| Honors Courses | Ken Supowit and David Mathias have proposed introduction of
honors versions of some higher-level courses (such as 541, 625, 680?),
and would like UGSC to discuss the idea.
4/29: Ken and David presented their ideas for developing honors versions of 625 and 680. They would like to offer the first section of H680 in Spring 2006 and of H625 in Autumn '06. The committee was very favorably inclined toward the idea of developing these courses. They should be a valuable option for students looking for challenging opportunities. |
Ken and David will develop detailed proposals for H625 and H680 respectively and present them to CC for its onsideration. Assuming the courses are approved and their initial offerings are successful, it is hoped the department will make firm commitments to offer the courses once a year during specified quarters, so that students can plan their schedules accordingly. |
| Recruiter surveys? Surveys of prospective students/parents? | None. | Not yet considered. |
| Developing a common (one week?) "module" for all capstone courses; this will deal with project management, team working, and oral communication related topics. | ||
| Allow a minor to count as the "related work" section of the BA degree? | This was a suggestion from Dean John Wanzer (when we discussed the proposal to include a minor as part of the individualized option for the BS-CIS program (May '05). | No action yet. |
| Consider adding Engineering 183 as prereq for 560? | Rationale: 183 is supposed to help develop team-working and communication skills. | We have decided not to do this since CSE 560 is a required course also for the BS-CIS students so such a requirement would not make much sense. | Item | Action | Status | -->
Some important points:
Some important points:
At the meeting: Bruce, Eitan, Eric, Matt, Neelam, Paolo, Peg, Tim; Gagan Agrawal, Prasad Mikkilineni.
The meeting adjourned at 1:35 pm.
Next meeting: Fall quarter.
We discussed various parts of the self-study, in particular the portions of the self-study dealing with the relation between various parts of the curriculum and specific program outcomes as welll as Criterion 3 outcomes.
Committee members agreed to read through the document carefully and provide feedback to Neelam in a few days.
At the meeting: Bruce, Dong, Eitan, Eric, Han-wei, Neelam, Peg, Tim.
The meeting adjourned at 1:35 pm.
Next meeting: June 3.
With respect to the capstone course criteria, Saday offered the following summary:
The consensus in the committee was that the the course worked very well as a capstone course and definitely met all the criteria. The idea of a module that would be common to all capstone courses, covering general issues related to team projects also came up (as it had during the 682 discussion).
The meeting adjourned at 1:35 pm.
Next meeting: May 27.
With respect to the capstone course criteria, Raghu offered the following summary:
The consensus in the committee was that the the course worked very well as a capstone course and definitely met all the criteria. Some potential improvements that might be worth considering:
A few days before her session, Rosemary sent Rajiv a homework assignment (pdf) to assign to the class. The homework consisted of typical questions that students have concerning interviewing; questions such as how to respond when an interviewer asks, "Why should I hire you?", or "Describe a time when a team you were on was not functioning effectively; what was the problem and what did you do to help resolve it?"; etc. The students submitted their answers which Rajiv forwarded to Rosemary. During her session, Rosemary designed her presentation around the answers, focusing in particular on the questions that students had trouble with.
Bruce noted that our students need to work not on some basic skills that are important not just when interviewing but at other times as well - skills such as arriving on time (to an interview or a class or any other appointment), not getting up and starting to chat with each other when the speaker is still talking (even if the bell has gone), etc. These problems notwithstanding, the students seem to get a lot out of the session. The consensus was that we should try to continue to arrange similar sessions in the future.
At the meeting: Bruce, David, Dong, Eitan, Eric, Han-wei, Raghu Machiraju, Neelam, Tim.
The meeting adjourned at 1:35 pm.
Next meeting: May 20.
Ken and David will develop more complete plans for H625 and H680 and present them to the Curriculum Committee at an early date. For now, the plan is to offer a version of H680 in Sp '06 and of H625 in Au '06. Once the proposal has been discussed by the Curriculum Committee and approved by the department, we will be able to advise students, especially honors students, to be sure to take these courses. Indeed, a firm commitment by the department that the courses will be offered in those quarters (and regularly in future years) will ensure that students will plan on taking them which in turn can help ensure adequate enrollments in the courses. And once the courses have been in place for a year or so, we can start requiring all of our honors students to take them.
It was also suggested that if H625 and H680 are successful, it would be worth developing honors versions of the other three core courses, 655, 660, and 675. There are certainly interesting topics that honors versions of these course can address that are not normally addressed in them.
We also continued discussion of the anwsers to the two free-response questions. Bruce and Tim noted that the RESOLVE-sequence seemed to have reached a plateau of acceptance with a certain segment of the students viewing it positively, another segment accepting it but without enthusiasm, and a third segment questioning its inclusion in the program. Another topic that received numerous comments was the need for more programming projects in widely used languages (such as C#, Java) to be included in the curriculum. Some committee members felt that perhaps we need to consider introducing another (required?) course that would require students to work on several medium-size programming projects. Similar suggestions have, of course, been made in the past and it may be worth revisiting this question next year.
Another item worth serious exploration, given that several students made comments related to this, is the relation between CSE 616, 757, and 758 and the possibility of revising them to be a more tightly coordinated sequence.
There was also a brief discussion of the timing of the survey. Currently, some students complete the survey as much as three quarters before their graduation. This means that these students do not provide us feedback on the portion of our program that they go through in those last three quarters. This is potentially an important problem since many students do take a fair number of CSE courses during those quarters. To mitigate this, it was suggested that students be required to complete it no more than two quarters before their projected graduation date.
At the meeting: Bruce, David, Dong, Eitan, Han-wei, Matt, Neelam, Paolo, Peg, Tim, Ken Supowit.
The meeting adjourned at 1:30 pm.
Next meeting: May 6.
One of the most important items in that page is the one titled "summary of mechanisms used" in Section D. That item provides details of the various assessment instruments we use, describes the processes that we use to feed the results of the assessments back into the program, and lists numerous improvements that have resulted in the program. Suggestions for changes/additions to any of these pages are welcome and should be sent to Neelam.
We had a brief discussion of the exit survey results. The responses to the questions about the importance of the various objectives and outcomes of the program, as well as the level of achievement with respect to each, were similar to those in past years. One new feature in this year's survey was a pair of free-form questions. The first asked the respondent, "What single aspect of the CSE program did you find most helpful? Explain briefly." The second asked the respondent, "What single change would you most like to see in the CSE program? Explain briefly." Several of the respondents had provided thoughtful answers to both questions. Several commented positively about a number of courses; CSE 560, 616, and 758 were mentioned often. The CSE 221-222-321 sequence also drew numerous comments, both positive and negative.
We will continue the discussion of the survey results at the next meeting.
At the meeting: David, Eitan, Eric, Matt, Neelam, Paolo, Peg.
The meeting adjourned at 1:30 pm.
Next meeting: April 29.
A. Individualized option in CSE: Students in this option must complete 27 elective hours of which at least 15 must be CSE courses; the other 12 may be CSE courses or appropriate courses from one or more other disciplines. All the CSE courses must meet the same requirements that elective CSE courses in the other options must meet. The student must develop a coherent program in close consultation with his/her adviser, and must get approval of the program from the adviser at least four quarters before graduation. Students in this option are encouraged to consider with their adviser how the individualized major may work in conjunction with minors from other departments. B. Individualized option in CIS: Students in this option must complete one of the following, EITHER: a. 24 elective hours of which at least 15 must be CSE courses, the other 9 may be CSE courses or appropriate courses from one or more other disciplines. All the CSE courses must meet the same requirements that elective CSE courses in the other options must meet. The student must develop a coherent program in close consultation with his/her adviser, and must get approval of the program from the adviser at least four quarters before graduation. OR: b. 15 elective hours of CSE courses and a minor approved by the advisor. All the CSE courses must meet the same requirements that elective CSE courses in the other options must meet. The student must develop a coherent program, including the minor, in close consultation with his/her adviser, and must get approval of the program from the adviser at least four quarters before graduation. C. Drop the Scientific Computing option and the current Individualized option from the CIS program.After a brief discussion, the proposal was unanimously approved. It will be presented to the faculty at its next meeting (4/25?). Assuming the faculty approves the proposal, it will then have to go to the appropriate college committees.
It was also suggested that if the proposal is approved, it would be useful for individual faculty or faculty groups to put together some sample sets of courses that would be appropriate under this option. Perhaps such samples could be included as part of the Course Group Reports that faculty groups regularly prepare.
A. In the middle of each Spring quarter, a letter will be sent to each CSE and CIS major stressing the following:
B. Early in the fall quarter, CSE majors who have not yet taken either Eng. 181 or 183 will be sent a letter urging them to take the courses as soon as possible since the team-working and communication skills they help develop can be valuable in several CSE courses including, in , particular, the capstone design courses.
The ECS workshops will not, of course, cover CSE-specific technical issues. The committee discussed the possibility of developing a local workshop that would be focused on these issues, as well as possibly developing some web pages covering important and practical technologies that students could study on their own, when preparing for job interviews.
At the meeting: Bruce, David, Dong, Eitan, Eric, Han-Wei, Matt, Neelam, Peg, Tim.
The meeting adjourned at 1:25 pm.
Next meeting: ??
The question is how to ensure that students take the courses in a timely manner. One approach would be to require students to complete at least Eng. 181 before admitting them to the CSE major. Another would be to admit them to the major but lock them out of scheduling courses if they don't complete 181 and 183 by some specified period. The first seems inappropriate since it would mean that in the case of at least some students, it would postpone their taking CSE courses. The second would require too much enforcement effort on the part of the Advising Office.
We decided that, for now, we will have the Advising Office send an email to all CSE majors who have not yet taken either or both of these courses, reminding them that the courses are a required of the CSE curriculum and that they should take them as soon as possible since the skills they will acquire in the courses will be valuable in such courses as 560, 601, and the capstone design course. This will be done once a year, possibly at the start of fall quarter.
We also considered another important question associated with advising, i.e., how to ensure that students seek out their advisors for advice on various important matters including choices of tech electives, grad school possibilities, career options, etc. Here again, any system that forces either advisee or advisor to take particular actions seems inappropriate and might do more harm than good. One alternative we considered was the idea of sending an email, once a year, to every CIS and CSE major, reminding them of the importance of being in regular contact with his or her faculty advisor. It was also suggested that it might be useful to post this on selected newsgroups and possibly have instructors in particular courses stess this point at the start of each quarter. We will discuss this further in a future meeting.
One fact that we were not previously aware of is that Arts and Sciences does not allow students to double count hours between the major program and a minor program; we had previously thought that ASC allows upto 10 hours to be double-counted. At the same time, we do want to encourage CIS students to do a minor. It turns out that because the number of hours in the CIS major is considerably higher than the minimum that ASC requires of a major, it would be possible to get around the double-counting problem by setting up the individualized option as follows:
CIS students pursuing the individualized option are required to complete one of the following: a. 15 hours of CSE courses + 9 hours of CSE and non-CSE courses approved by the advisor; OR b. 15 hours of CSE courses + a minor approved by the advisor.With option (b), the hours beyond the 15 hours of CSE courses would be counted as part of the student's minor program but the minor program would have to be approved by the advisor and the student would be required to complete the minor in order to be considered to have completed the requirements of the CIS major. This is a little bit involved but it seems to be the only way to stay within the ASC rules and at the same time enable students following the individualized option to complete a minor without too many additional hours of courses. There is also precedent for such an approach in ASC. The International Studies major program has a similar requirement: students are required, as part of the major, to complete either two foreign language courses above the 104 level or a foreign language minor.
We will consider a formal proposal along these lines (the other details being as described in the minutes of the Feb. 14 and Feb. 28 meetings) at the next meeting.
At the meeting: Bruce, David, Eric, Han-Wei, Matt, Neelam, Peg, Tim.
The meeting adjourned at 1:30 pm.
Next meeting: 4/15.
After a brief discussion, the proposal was unanimously approved. David will inform the university Admissions Office of this change; that office is the one that implements the policy.
The meeting adjourned at 1:15 pm.
Next meeting: 4/8.
Stu presented a quick summary of recent developments in the department. Gautam offered some words of wisdom about the sorts of things that industry is looking for in its new hires and how students can make themselves more attractive to recruiters. The rest of the forum was moderated by Matt Schwaberow (thanks, Matt!); and consisted of a wide-ranging discussion about various aspects of the CIS and CSE programs. A detailed report on the forum is available at http://www.cse.ohio-state.edu/~neelam/abet/ugforumfeb05.html.
Several points were noted:
The consensus in the committee was that this is would be a very useful addition to both programs and that we should proceed to put it into place as soon as possible. Following a final discussion in early Spring quarter, a proposal will be presented to faculty for its approval. (It will then have to go to Engineering's CCAA and MPS's Curriculum Comm., for their approvals; and possibly also to CAA.)
The meeting adjourned at 3:25 pm.
Next meeting: Spring quarter.
The committee felt, given the many different possible specializations such as scientific visualization, computational linguistics, networking & security, computer vision & pattern recognition, bio(and other-)informatics, etc., that are emerging, that this would be a useful addition to both programs and we should seriously considering introducing such an option. We will discuss this further in future committee meetings. [Note: This possibility was mentioned briefly at the faculty meeting on Feb. 14 and the faculty seem to be generally favorably inclined toward such an option.]
The meeting adjourned at 3:25 pm.
Next meeting: 2/28
The meeting adjourned at 3:25 pm.
Next meeting: 2/14
The meeting adjourned at 3:25 pm.
Next meeting: ???
There were suggestions for a couple of wording changes in the curriculum sheet. The proposed changes were approved by the committee and will be presented to faculty for its approval. A similar revised curriculum sheet will be prepared for the CIS program.
There was an extended discussion of the proposed changes, especially
the one concerning the quality of instruction in different groups of
courses. The main concern was that asking such an evaluation would not
provide any useful information because it will be a meaningless
average over the different courses in the group; moreover, the fact
that different students would have had different instructors for the
courses, further complicates picture; and, last, the SEIs that are
administered at the end of each course, anyway provide detailed
information about the quality of instruction in each (section of each)
course, so there is nothing useful to be gained by asking this
question as part of this survey. An alternative might be to ask the
student to provide information about the number courses from
each group that he or she has taken; that would provide a way to
evaluate the "importance" rating that the student provides for that
course group.
This will be discussed further in the next meeting.
The meeting adjourned at 3:25 pm.
Next meeting: ???
The meeting adjourned at 10:30 am.
Next meeting: Winter quarter.
There seemed to be general consensus for the first change above and somewhat less of a consensus for the second one. We will try to complete this discussion at our next meeting and arrive at a proposal for faculty consideration.
The meeting adjourned at 10:30 am.
Next meeting: Dec. 2.
The meeting adjourned at 10:30 am.
Next meeting: ??
The question for us was whether there was any action we should take now. One possibility would be to develop a new "IT minor" tailored to meet these students' needs. Currently, there are two minor programs in the department. The first, the Programming and Algorithms Track consists of CSE 221, 222, 321, 360, Math 366; and two of CSE 541, 560, 625, 655, 660, 670, 675.01 or 675.02, and 680. The second, the Information Systems Track consists of CSE 201, 214, 314, 360, 670, Math 366; and one of CSE 560, 616, 671. Neither of these minors seems quite right for the purpose here.
The discussion was inconclusive but there seemed to be some consensus that if an "IT embedded option" is developed, a number of our currently existing courses, possibly with some modifications, ought to be part of such a program. One concern that was expressed was that such a "light" IT program may not really benefit the students who might participate in it.
We will come back to this in future meetings after we have a better idea of what the purposes of the proposed "IT embedded option" are.
The meeting adjourned at 10:30 am.
Next meeting: ??
With respect to Econ 200/201, again it seems the added benefit outweighs the reduced flexibility that would result from requiring it; and, in any case, many students already choose Econ 200/201 as part of their GEC so this issue seems somewhat minor. With respect to the Business courses, since the current proposal is to add them to the list of possible technical elective courses that students could choose from, there is no reduction in flexbility; indeed, there is an increase. There is also a tie-in between these two components of the proposal: All the business courses have Econ 200 as a prerequisite. So any student who wants to take the business course will need to also take Econ 200 (which, of course, reduces the flexibility a bit). It was suggested that we consult with the Business College to see if Econ 201 could serve as an alternate prerequisite for the business courses.
One question concerned how these changes would work in the case of the Information Systems option. Students in that option are currently already required to take AMIS 310 which is one of the five Business courses we are considering; they are also required to take Bus Mgmt 630 which is quite similar to Bus Mgmt 430, another of the five courses. One suggestion was that this option be revised so that students in this option are required to take AMIS 310, plus any one of the other four Business courses. We will try to approve a specific proposal at the next meeting for consideration by faculty.
The meeting adjourned at 10:30 am.
Next meeting: October 14.
With respect to item (a), Matt Schwaberow (who has taken the course) noted that the course focuses a bit too much on low-level details at the expense of more general economic ideas and principles. Matt suggested that Econ 201 (5-credit course on Macroeconomics) might be a better alternative. But note that all the business courses listed in (c) have Econ 200 as a prerequisite.
There seemed to be general agreement about the apporpriateness of item (b),
requiring students to take JCom 321 and counting it toward the
additional hours of general education.
It was also noted that several of the department faculty feel that the
minimum GEC hours required by the Engineering College is inadequate; and
these faculty would argue for such additional hours even if accreditation
criteria did not require them.
With respect to item (c), while there was agreement that allowing
students to take a business course made sense, there was also concern
that counting such a course as part of the technical elective hours
could weaken the computer science portion of the program for students
who choose this option (since, without this option, they would still be
required to take the same number of technical elective hours and would
therefore in all likelihood have taken another CSE course).
On a related note, the Engineering College has a pending proposal
that would essentially reduce the GEC requirements for engineering
majors by one course. If that proposal goes through, the number of
"additional hours of general education" that CSE majors would have to
take beyond the college minimum would go up (since the accreditation
requirements are not likely to change, nor the opinions of the faculty
who feel the college minimum is already too low). In that case,
JCom 321 and a business course could both be used toward these
increased hours, and the technical electives would remain unchanged.
We will continue the discussion at the next meeting.
The meeting adjourned at 10:30 am.
Next meeting: October 7.
We will discuss the proposed revisions in the next meeting and consider it for possible quick adoption.
The meeting adjourned at 10:30 am.
Next meeting: September 30.