| Spring: | May 29; May 1; April 17; April 3; |
| Winter: | Mar. 16; Feb. 23; Feb. 9; Feb. 2; Jan. 26; |
| Autumn: | Nov. 7; Oct. 24; Oct. 17; Sept. 26; |
The survey also included two questions that asked for free-form responses from the respondent. The first question was, "What single aspect of the CSE program did you find most helpful? Explain briefly." The second question was, "What single change in the CSE program would you most like to see? Explain briefly." Responses to these two questions are also available on-line.
For the first question, students commented on a wide range of items. One aspect of the program that students seemed to view favorably was the stress on teamwork required in many courses. Another common item mentioned favorably was the quality of the capstone design courses. Specific individual courses (such as 758, 616) as well as specific individual instructors were also mentioned favorably. The advice provided by the Advising Office was also mentioned favorably.
For the second question, one frequently mentioned topic was the introductory sequence (221-222-321). The most frequent comment here seemed to be that we ought to use a standard language such as C++ or Java rather than RESOLVE/C++. There were also some comments about faculty advising, mainly concerning faculty's apparent lack of interest in advising undergraduate students.
No specific actions seem to be indicated by the results of the survey. There was some discussion of possible changes in the introductory sequence but it was not clear what specific changes would be appropriate. A key requirement for any serious change would be a group of faculty with the interest and commitment to develop, implement and sustain the changes. It was also noted that the introduction of the new "bridge" course (to be piloted in the fall quarter) might address many of the concerns that students had raised about the intro sequence; so perhaps no changes will, in fact, be needed.
The survey itself will have to be revised. This is because we have revised the program outcomes to closely follow the ABET outcomes (3.a) through (3.k). Hence we need to replace the outcomes listed in the survey with this new set. The second portion of the survey containing the two free-form questions will be retained since the responses to these questions do occasionally provide useful information.
The meeting was adjourned at 10:30.
At the meeting: Bruce, David, Eitan, Neelam, Peg, Rick, Tim.
Next meeting: Next year.
A number of points were noted. First, the percentage of students who correctly answered the various questions generally matched faculty's expectations with respect to the particular questions (see last two rows of the second table in the results page), but there were some notable exceptions. Much of the discussion focused on these exceptions. Second, the percentage of students who answered the question involving social and ethical issues (question 3) was much higher than in previous quarters. One reason for this may have been that the question was rather simple; another reason, it was felt, was that the question used in previous exams had multiple answers that could arguably be considered correct.
For a number of questions, several committee members felt that the wording of the question (or the answers) was such that students could misunderstand what was being said. A number of suggestions were made for improving the wording of several of the questions. These changes will be made before the next POCAT.
Specific concerns were raised with respect to the questions based on CSE 670 and 680. In both cases, based on student performance in those questions, it seemed certain important topics from these two areas may not be receiving appropriate treatment in some sections of these courses. But there was also a possibility that part of the reason for students' poor performance in these questions may have been due to the wording problem noted in the para above. We will revisit this question once the results of the next POCAT (with suitably revised wordings of the questions/answers) are available.
The meeting was adjourned at 10:30.
At the meeting: Bruce, David, Eitan, Neelam, Paolo, Peg, Rick.
Next meeting: May 15.
The course revolves around a team-based project to go through the conceptual design, technical design, and implementation of an interactive game. Students are organized into project teams, with each team consisting of 4 or 5 students. The project requires students to investigate tools and techniques to address a range of technical problems such as world simulation to three-dimensional sound to networking and concurrency (for multi-player games).
One interesting approach that Donna and Roger have adopted is to have, in addition to the project teams, technology groups. One such group might, for example, deal with three-dimensional sound. The group has one representative from each of the project teams. Each group is responsible for investigating the technology and tools available for addressing problems in that particular area and prepare suitable materials (such as a tutorial) that will serve as a resource for each project team. Much of the class time is dedicated to presentations by project teams and by technology groups; as well as actual project design and development.
The consensus in the committee was that this course meets all of the capstone design course criteria in an exemplary manner and that BS-CSE majors should be allowed to use it to meet their capstone course requirement. The model of the dual organization of students into project teams as well as technology groups seems to be an innovative idea that may be appropriate for other capstone design courses as well.
The committee decided to allow BS-CSE majors enrolled in the current pilot offering of the course (CSE 694G) to use it as their capstone design course. Once a permanent version of the course is approved by the Curriculum Committee (or, possibly, simultaneously with that approval action), the Undergraduate Studies Committee will look at the course again to designate it as a capstone design course on a permanent basis.
The meeting was adjourned at 10:35 am.
At the meeting: Eitan Gurari, Tim Long, David Mathias, Rick Parent, Neelam Soundarajan, Peg Steele, Bruce Weide; Donna Byron.
Next meeting: ??
A somewhat different question, although related to program assessessment, has to do with regular evaluation of each capstone course against the criteria we have specified for these courses. The intent was that the faculty involved with each capstone course would perform a careful evaluation of their particular course(s) against the criteria and present the results, as well as ideas for improvement in the course, to UGSC. While reasonable in principle, this does require some effort on the part of these faculty and we need to see how that can be reduced.
We will continue this discussion in the coming weeks to identify possible changes in our assessment and feedback mechanisms.
The meeting was adjourned at 10:35.
At the meeting: Bruce, David, Neelam, Paolo, Peg, Rick.
Next meeting: 4/17.
The meeting was adjourned at 10:35.
At the meeting: Bruce, David, Eitan, Neelam, Paolo, Peg, Rick;
Next meeting: Spring Quarter.
Neelam and Peg will work on coming up with a draft policy based on these discussions and submit it to Gary Kinzel (who is expected to present this and the SAP policies of all the other Engineering programs to CCAA for its approval). [Note: CCAA has since approved our policy. The final version is available on-line.]
The meeting was adjourned at 10:30 am.
At the meeting: Bruce, David, Eitan, Neelam, Paolo, Peg, Rick.
Next meeting: ??
The committee felt that this would be a good opportunity to make changes not just in the GEC components of the program but also in the CS component. For example, the lack of a CSE capstone course requirement as well as the lack of CSE 601 as a required course in the BS-CIS program clearly makes it weaker than the BS-CSE program. If we are able to reduce the GEC requirements sufficiently, that may provide enough room to add these courses to the program.
The list of elective courses in the BA-CIS program is too prescriptive and omits a number of recently developed courses such CSE 551 that should be of interest to these students. These should certainly be added to these students electives list.
We will continue this discussion in future meetings and develop specific proposals for changes to both of these programs.
The meeting was adjourned at 10:30.
At the meeting: Bruce, Neelam, Paolo, Peg, Rick.
Next meeting: ??
The meeting was adjourned at 10:30.
At the meeting: Bruce, David, Eitan, Neelam, Paolo, Peg, Rick.
Next meeting: 2/9.
We had a brief discussion of these changes and the possible changes we might have to (or might be able to) make in the BS-CIS and BA-CIS programs. We will continue these discussions in the next meeting.
The meeting was adjourned at 10:30.
At the meeting: Bruce, David, Eitan, Neelam, Paolo, Peg, Rick.
Next meeting: 2/2.
1. Information Systems Track: Hours: 22 credit hrs. of reqd. courses + 3-5 hrs. of elective courses; Reqd: CSE 201, 214, 314, 360, 670; Math 366; Elective: One of the following: 616, 560, 671. 2. Programming and Algorithms Track: Hours: 19 credit hrs. of reqd. courses + 6-8 hrs. of elective courses; Reqd: CSE 221, 222, 321, 360; Math 366; Elective: Two of the following: CSE 541, 560, 670, 625, 655, 660, 675, 680.There seem to be several problems with these tracks. First, CSE 360 doesn't seem relevant to the Information Systems track. CSE 200 would probably of considerable interest to students in this track but is not included. Listing CSE 560, even as an elective, for these students seems inappropriate.
The Prog. & Alg. track also has some problems. First, students following this track would have to take CSE 201 or 202 etc. before taking 221, and that should be considered part of the minor. Second, just having these students take 360 doesn't really help; if these students want to develop an understanding of architecture, they should also take 675, so it would make sense to move 360 to the elective list. Finally, several recently developed courses would be of interest to these students and ought to be included among the electives.
Based on these considerations, it was proposed that the tracks be changed as follows:
1. Information Systems Track: Hours: 19 credit hrs. of reqd. courses + 6-8 hrs. of elective courses; Reqd: CSE 200, 201, 214, 670; Math 366; Elective: Two of the following: 314, 551, 616, 671. 2. Programming and Algorithms Track: Hours: 19 credit hrs. of reqd. courses + 6-8 hrs. of elective courses; Reqd: CSE 201/202, 221, 222, 321; Math 366; Elective: Two of the following: CSE 360, 541, 551, 581, 625, 630, 670, 671, 675, 677, 680.The committee voted unanimously to approve these changes and to recommend them to faculty for its (if possible, electronic) approval.
The meeting adjourned at 4:30 pm.
At the meeting: Bruce, David, Eitan, Matt, Neelam, Paolo, Peg, Rick; Charlie Hayes (BS-CSE).
Next meeting: ??
1. Score of 3 in CS-AB or 4/5 in CS-A: Credit for 201. 2. Score of 4/5 in CS-AB: Credit for 201 and 214. 3. Add 214 to the list of engineering "select core" courses.Thus engineering students who have high enough AP scores will be able to get credit for 214 which they will be able to use as part of their program. Students who have somewhat poorer scores will be able to take 214 and improve their Java skills. And engineering students who have no AP credit will not be tempted to take CSE 201 as the "easy" option since they cannot use that in their progran; they will instead take 202 which is intended for them. In addition, any Business students who have 4/5 in CS-AB will be able to skip 214 which also makes sense given that they have already learned that material.
This revised proposal was unanimously approved. David and Neelam will work on implementing this new policy.
The meeting adjourned at 4:30 pm.
At the meeting: Charlie, David, Eitan, Matt, Neelam, Peg, Rick.
Next meeting: 11/7.
There was a long discussion of the rationale behind our current policies (including that of not including 201 among the list of courses that engineering students can include as part of their "select core"). The best option seemed to be to change our policy as follows:
If a student has 4/5 score in CS-A, give credit for 201; if a student has 3/4/5 score in CS-AB, give credit for 202. For students who have taken a programming course at another university, the transfer credits coordinator will decide, based on the rigor of the course in question, whether to give credit for 201, 202, or none.The committee approved this option. Neelam will work with Peg and David to see how to implement this.
Important note: After the meeting, we came across a College Board document that provides a detailed description of the CS-A and CS-AB exams. Based on this information, an e-mail discussion among some of the committee members concluded that a better option than the one above would be:
If a student has 4/5 score in CS-A or 3 in CS-AB, give credit for 201; if a student has 4/5 score in CS-AB, give credit for 201 *and* 214. Add 214 to the engineering "select core" list.We will discuss this alternative at the next committee meeting.
The meeting adjourned at 4:35 pm.
At the meeting: Bruce, David, Eitan, Matt, Neelam, Paolo, Rick; Charlie Hayes (BS-CSE).
Next meeting: 10/24.
The meeting adjourned at 4:35 pm.
At the meeting: Bruce, David, Eitan, Neelam, Paolo, Peg, Rick.
Next meeting: to be announced.