CSE Undergraduate Studies Committee
Agendas and Minutes of Meetings (2007-'08)
Committee Members:
Paolo Bucci, Eitan Gurari, David Lee, Tim Long, David Mathias, Rajiv Ramnath, Neelam Soundarajan (Chair), Peg Steele, Bruce Weide.
Student reps: Farhad Salehi (BS-CSE student rep); Zach Howard (BS-CIS student rep)
- Revisions to the BS-CSE, BS-CIS and BA-CIS programs following
changes in the university GEC requirements.
Minutes of the meeting
(At the meeting: Bruce, Paolo, Tim, David L., Eitan, Peg, Neelam.)
Recently, ASC and the College of Engineering have revised the GEC
requirements that apply to students in the two colleges. These changes
are described in detail
here. Bruce, Peg and Neelam
have put together a set of possible changes to our BA-CIS, BS-CIS and
BS-CSE programs in response to the revisions in the GEC requirements;
these changes are described in detail
here. The proposed changes may
be summarized as follows:
- BA-CIS: Reduce GEC requirements by 10 hours; reduce program size
by 10 hours (from 191 hours to 181 hours).
- BS-CIS: Reduce GEC requirements by 15 hours; require CSE 601 and
a capstone design course for all BS-CIS students; net reduction of program
size by 10 hours (from 191 hours to 181 hours).
- BS-CSE: Reduce GEC requirements by 5 hours;reduce program size
by 5 hours (from 196 hours to 191 hours).
We discussed the GEC changes as well as the proposed changes in the
BA-CIS program. It was suggested that CSE 601 be added to the list of
required courses for these students and that the CSE elective hours
be reduced from the current 20 hours to 19 hours; the total for the
program would be 181 hours. This revised version was approved unanimously.
The discussion of possible changes in BS-CIS and BS-CSE will be at
the next meeting.
The meeting was adjourned at 9:30.
- Revisions to the BS-CSE, BS-CIS and BA-CIS programs following
changes in the university GEC requirements (contd. from meeting of Sept. 27).
Minutes of the meeting
(At the meeting: Bruce, Paolo, Tim, David L., Eitan, Peg, Neelam.)
We continued discussion of changes in the BS-CIS and BS-CSE programs
following recently approved changes in the GEC requirements for these
programs.
- BS-CIS: The committee found the proposed changes reasonable, indeed,
very desirable since several of the faculty have felt that the program
ought to require these students to take both CSE 601 and a capstone
design course. The only suggested change was that the capstone design course
be counted as part of the "technical option" rather than as part of the
core. In any case, the net changes will be the addition of CSE 601 and
a capstone design course and the reduction of the GEC for net reduction
of 10 hours in the total program size with the new total being 181 hours.
- BS-CSE: The changes here are minimal, essentially to match the
new college GEC requirements for all engineering students. The one
additional suggested change was the addition of Geol. Sc. 121 to
the list of possible courses for the fourth Natural Science course since
this course is already on the college-approved list and has no additional
prerequisites.
After a brief discussion, these changes were approved unanimously.
It was decided that Neelam will seek electronic approval from the
faculty before the changes are sent for approval to the colleges.
The meeting was adjourned at 9:30.
- Revisions to the BS-CIS tech elective options following
changes in the university GEC requirements and the resulting revisions
in BS-CIS that were proposed and approved at the previous meetings.
(During e-mail exchanges following the last meeting, it was realized that,
following the revisions in the BS-CIS program that we discussed and
approved in the last two meetings, we also need to revise the details of
the individual tech elective options. That is the topic for this meeting.)
Minutes of the meeting
(At the meeting: Bruce, Eitan, Neelam, Tim, Zach Howard).
- Revisions to the BS-CIS tech elective options:
Neelam presented the
current set of options and a proposed set of
changes. The committee felt that the proposed changes in the ICA
option were reasonable. It was suggested that a link to the web site
of the
OSU Center of Academic Excellenece in Information Assurance Education (CAEIAE), especially the
list of certified courses should be prominently included in
the description of this option since these are the courses that are most
likely to be relevant to students in this option.
There was considerable discussion of the proposed changes in the Software
Systems option. The main question had to do with which particular courses
to require of students in this option. Since there were a number of
courses that included substantial programming projects that seemed
relevant to students in this option, one possibility was to list these
courses and require students to take one or even two from the list. But
there was no consensus on which particular courses to include (without
making the list very long and hence pointless). So it was decided that
the best course of action would be to require, of these students,
CSE 551, 677, 757, and a capstone course (totalling 13 hours);
the remaining 15 hours would be electives of which at least 10 hours
would be required to be CSE courses.
The remaining options (Advanced Studies, Information Sys., Individualized
option) will be discussed at the next meeting (10/25).
The meeting was adjourned at 9:30.
Next meeting: 10/25/'07.
- Revisions to the BS-CIS tech elective options following
changes in the university GEC requirements and the resulting revisions
in BS-CIS that were proposed and approved at the previous meetings (contd.
from previous meetings).
Minutes of the meeting
(At the meeting: Bruce, David, Eitan, Farhad, Neelam, Peg, Zach; Rick Parent)
The discussion of possible changes to the BS-CIS tech elective options
continued. A number of points were noted:
- It would be useful to introduce a number of tracks in the
Individualized Option. For example, there could be a track corresponding
to Graphics & Animation, another corresponding to AI, etc. As in the
case of an option, a track would specify a number of required courses
and leave the remaining hours as electives. A student following one of
these tracks would not have to get the courses approved in advance by his
or her advisor since each track is essentially pre-approved. If a given
track proves popular over several years, we would consider converting it
into an option.
- It would make sense to eliminate the Advanced Studies option since
very few students take the option. In its place, we could introduce a
Theory & Algorithms track in the Individualized option.
- It would make sense for several, if not all, of the options and
many of the tracks to list recommended capstone courses. (We used to
do this at one time but stopped since several of the capstone courses
didn't have corresponding options. With the introduction of tracks in
the Individualized Option, this would not be a problem.)
- It may make sense to increase the number of CSE hours required in
the Information Systems option since 10 of the required hours
are for business courses (AMIS 211/310 and Bus Mgt 630). It may also
make sense to note, as part of this option, that students in this option
could complete the Business Minor by taking just three more courses.
But to do this, students would have to switch to the Individualized Option
since ASC doesn't allow double-counting hours between the major and minor
programs. (This is not a problem in BS-CSE since CoE does allow such double
counting.)
- The idea of specific tracks in the Individualized Option would
be appropriate also for the BS-CSE program.
We will continue the discussion at the next meeting.
The meeting was adjourned at 9:30
Next meeting: 11/1
- Revisions to the BS-CIS tech elective options following
changes in the university GEC requirements and the resulting revisions
in BS-CIS that were proposed and approved at the previous meetings (contd.
from previous meetings).
Minutes of the meeting
(At the meeting: Bruce, Eitan, Farhad, Neelam, Peg, Tim, Zach.)
The discussion of possible changes in the BS-CIS tech elective options
continued. There seem to be a surprising number of possible approaches
we could take. For example, one proposal was to add CSE 677 to the
core (in which case, we would do this also for BS-CSE). The
rationale for doing this would be that networking is an important core
topic in the current ACM/IEEE CS curriculum and its importance is only
likely to increase in the next version of the curriculum. Another
question is whether we ought to require an extra math
course (typically linear algebra) in almost each option or would it be
better to replace this with a CSE elective? A third has to do with
what tracks we ought to have in the Individualized Option and what
courses should be required in each.
We will continue the discussion and try to arrive at a proposal for
faculty approval at the next meeting (of 11/8).
The meeting was adjourned at 9:30.
Next meeting: 11/8.
- Revisions to the BS-CIS tech elective options.
Minutes of the meeting
At the meeting: Paolo, Peg, Zach, Eitan, Bruce, Neelam.
- Changes in BS-CIS and BS-CSE options: We continued discussion of
possible changes in the technical options. One conclusion was that the
CSE options should retain the math course requirement. This means that the
computer science portions of the two programs would be nearly identical to
each other.
Four tracks were proposed for the Individualized Option in each program,
these being Graphics/Animation, AI, Business Information Systems, and
Advanced Studies. The Business Information Systems track will be very
similar to the Information Systems option but will require students
to also complete the Business Minor.
Neelam will prepare a (final)
version of the proposed changes for electronic approval (or approval
at the UGSC meeting on 11/15).
The meeting was adjourned at 9:30.
Next meeting: 11/15.
- Revisions to the BS-CIS and BS-CSE tech elective options.
- Results of POCAT (for Summer and Autumn quarters).
Minutes of the meeting
(At the meeting: David, Eitan, Farhad, Neelam, Paolo, Peg, Tim, Zach.)
- Revisions to the BS-CIS and BS-CSE tech elective options
After a brief discussion, the changes to the BS-CIS and BS-CSE tech
elective options as discussed in previous meetings, was approved.
The next step is for faculty to approve these and the previously
approved changes to the BS-CIS program. (Note: This item is scheduled
for the faculty meeting of 11/19. Bruce will present the item and
explain the changes and the rationale. Neelam has prepared a
document for use at the faculty meeting.)
- Results of POCAT (for Summer and Autumn quarters):
Results of the POCAT for Summer and Autumn are
available . Ten students took the test in the summer, 14
in the fall.
The performance of the students was similar to that in earlier
tests with some notable exceptions. For example, question 1 which presented
a counting exercise seem to have had better results this time; but this
may be a statistical anomaly given the relatively small numbers of
students involved. One point that was noted was that the 601-based
question may perhaps be a bit too easy; we will try to modify that question.
Questions 14 and 15 presented a more serious anomaly. Both were based on
CSE 670 but students did very poorly in one and reasonably well in the other.
Eitan promised to look into this. Question 12 (based on CSE 675) also raised
some questions. Neelam will talk to Gojko and see if we can identify
the source of students' relatively poor performance (especially compared
to faculty expectation).
Performance on question 17 was rather disappointing.
This concerned binary search trees and has been an issue in previous tests
as well. One explanation for the poor perforamance was that not all sections
of CSE 680 discuss the topic. This also needs to be looked into.
The meeting was adjourned at 9:30.
Next meeting: Nov. 29.
- CSE 768 (new "games course") as a capstone design course for BS-CSE
students (Roger Crawfis and/or Donna Byron);
- Computational Science Minor (Saday).
Minutes of the meeting
At the meeting:
- CSE 768 as capstone design course: Donna and Roger summarized
the recent offering of CSE 768, the new "games design/implementation
course". It was organized in a manner similar to its last offering, see:
minutes of meeting of April 17, '07. As in that offering, the
organization of students into project teams on the one hand, and
technology teams on the other hand, seemed to work well. It seemed to
contribute very effectively to the life-long learning outcome. After
a brief discussion, the proposal to add 768 to the list of capstone
design courses for the BS-CSE program was approved.
- Computational Science Minor: Saday desicribed the
Computational Science Minor program being developed in the College
of Engineering. The program is similar to ones developed at some other
Ohio colleges and is part of the "virtual"
Ralph Regula School of Computational Science.
Mostly, majors in science and non-CSE branches of engineering are expected
to take the minor but it is also open to CSE students. After a brief
discussion, the committee approved the proposal.
Neelam will present it (by e-mail) to faculty for its approval (since done.)
Saday and Bruce will work on getting it through CCAA.
The meeting was adjourned at 9:30.
Next meeting: Winter quarter
- Annual student forum;
- BS-CSE program objectives/outcomes;
- Outcomes assessment activities.
Minutes of the meeting
(At the meeting: Bruce, David, Farhad, Neelam, Paolo.)
- Student forum: It was decided that the annual student forum
will be held on Thursday, Feb. 21 at 5:30 - 6:30 (7:00?) pm. Several of
the committee members present at the meeting plan to attend. Neelam will
work with Peg to coordinate arrangements. Farhad plans to spread the
word among students; newsgroup postings will be made, and announements
posted at appropriate places in Dreese Labs. Neelam will prepare an initial
list of agenda items; these will be discussed and revised electronically
prior to the forum. (Peg has since reserved DL 305 for the forum.)
- BS-CSE objectives, outcomes etc.: Our current set of objectives
(at:
http://www.cse.ohio-state.edu/~neelam/ugsc/programs/cseobjectives.shtml) was devised a few years ago. But this set seems somewhat
inconsistent with the terminology currently favored by ABET (which states
that "objectives" should be a statement of the "expected accomplishments
of graduates in the several years following graduation"). So we had
proposed changing these to the following:
- Graduates of the program will be employed in the computing profession, and will be engaged in learning, understanding, and applying new ideas and technologies as the field evolves; and
In our last alumni survey (conducted about two years ago), we had asked
alumni for their opinions on this change; the responses were mostly
favorable. We will ask the same question again in this year's alumni
survey and, assuming that we get similar responses, we will switch to
these objectives.
[Note: After this meeting, Neelam attended a "webinar" conducted by
Dr. Rogers of ABET. The new fashion in ABET seems to be the idea of
"performance criteria" for each outcome. Apparently, the new claim is
that you cannot do outcomes assessment unless you have first defined
the performance criteria. (Of course that does raise the question, so
how come ABET accredited not just us but all other programs all these
years when none of them had defined these criteria? For that matter,
why has ABET not specified any performance criteria for outcomes
3.a through 3.k? Those are presumably not questions that ABET wants us
to think about.) So we will have to start working on defining these
criteria and then on ensuring that our assessment mechanisms are measuring
the particular performance criteria.]
The meeting was adjourned at 3:30 pm.
Next meeting: ??
- Changes in Math 366/566. (The Math Dept. has proposed some changes
in these courses. Tim Carlson will explain their ideas and seek our
reactions.)
- Finalize plans for annual student forum;
- BS-CSE program objectives/outcomes, assessment activities (contd. discussion).
Minutes of the meeting
At the meeting: Bruce, David, Farhad, Neelam, Paolo, Peg;
Also (for the Math 366/566 discussion): Tim Carlson (Math) and Rafe Wenger.
- Math 366/566: Recently, the Math Dept., partly because of
budget considerations, proposed some changes in the way Math 366 and
566 are taught. Tim Carlson summarized the proposals.
Briefly, the courses would go from being taught in
sections of 30 each meeting for three lectures a week to classes of size
50-60 meeting for three lectures a week plus recitations of size 30
each meeting once a week. The recitations are expected to be taught
by GTAs. The recitations will have students working on problems,
writing proofs etc. No new material will be taught in the recitations.
No change in the content of either course is being planned as part of this
proposal. The courses will remain at 3 credit hours each.
Here is a summary of the main points that came up during the discussion:
- Are classrooms that can accomodate 50-60 students available at
suitable times of the day? (If not, the classes might end up being offered
only at times such as 7:30 am which can be problematic for many students.)
- It is important to coordinate the times of day when the classes,
especially Math 366, meet with appropriate people in the CSE Dept.
since Math 366 is a co-requisite for CSE 321. So time clashes between
these two courses need to be avoided. (Math 566 does not have similar
constraints.)
- There is a potential "slippery slope" here that needs to be avoided;
i.e., while 50-60 students in a section might be doable without serious
pedagogical impact, going above that number would be very undesirable.
- If this is done, it would be useful for the math faculty involved to
give us some feedback on the experience after about a year or so; that
will help us evaluate the change and consider possible ways to address any
problems that might have been encountered.
The committee agreed that the proposed changes can be made without serious
pedgogical compromises. Tim Carlson promised to ensure that scheduling
and other concerns are accounted for. Tim also agreed to come back late
next year to report on how the changes were going. (It was also noted that
these changes will probably not apply to the Summer Quarter since the
demand for the courses during Summer is limited and only one
section (size 30) of each is offered in the Summer.)
- Annual student forum: The annual student forum will be on
Thursday, February 21 at 5:30 pm in DL 305. Peg will send out an
announcement to the student mailing lists. Rob Weekley, one of our alums
(and who also worked in the Advising Office), works in local industry
now; he has agreed to attend the forum. It was suggested that it might
also be good to have some other alums who are currently grad students
in our dept. to attend; some names were suggested; Neelam will contact
them. There was a brief discussion of individual faculty who might be
particularly useful to have at the forum to answer questions about
particular courses etc. Again, Neelam will contact them to see if they
can attend. Neelam will also prepare a preliminary agenda for the
forum and distribute it by for discussion/revision.
- Changes in accreditation requirements: One of the new ideas
that seems to be going through the accreditation community is the notion
of "performance criteria" for each program outcome. The CAC criteria now
include the following language:
For each required major course, its content, expected
performance criteria, and place in the overall program are published.
The ABET-EC criteria do not explicitly mention performance criteria but
"ABET experts" seem to be all in favor of them. So what are performance
criteria? There is no official definition (after all, they are not part
of the criteria) but here are a couple that have been offered by the
"experts":
- Performance criteria ... the specific, measurable statements identifying
the specific knowledge, skills, attitudes and/or behavior students must
demonstrate as indicators of achieving the outcome ...
- A performance criterion is a specific statement that describes a
measurable aspect of performance that is required to meet the
corresponding outcome. Each performance criterion must also
specifically describe an acceptable level of measurable performance.
Depending on who is in our next evaluation team, there is a good possibility
that this will be a key question. So we need to work on seeing how to
adress this (without, of course, asking faculty to do a bunch of work).
The meeting was adjourned at ???
Next meeting: ??
- Results of Winter POCAT
- Report on the Annual Undergraduate Forum
Minutes of the meeting
At the meeting: Bruce, David, Eitan, Neelam, Peg, Paolo.
- Undergraduate Forum: The forum was held on Thursday, Feb. 21
at 5:30 pm. Neelam had prepared a draft report on the forum. Several
comments were made:
- The attendance was somewhat low. In future years, it would be useful
to make announcements in suitable CSE classes, a day or two before the
forum. Paolo had apparently made such an announcement in his CSE 321 class
and several of those students did come to the forum. It was also suggested
that a few posters placed on the walls in suitable locations in the building
might help. We will do both next year.
- The draft report seemed to summarize the forum fairly accurately.
One omission was a suggestion by one of the students at the forum that it
would be useful to provide appropriate training to lab consultants in the
use of tools such as Eclipse, JUnit etc. when classes start using them.
One possibility would be for the concerned faculty member to hold a
30-minute session at the start of the quarter for all interested
consultants. The report will be revised to include this suggestion.
- Results of Winter POCAT: Results were similar to the results
of recent quarters. The following points were made:
- Poor performance on the question about binary search trees: We can
no longer attribute this to the wording of the question or anything like
that. It looks like many of the CSE 680 sections are not discussing this
topic. Indeed, David noted that some of the regular instructors for the
course feel that the topic doesn't even belong in the course. The best
solution may be to replace the question that evaluates similar outcomes
but using a topic that is more regularly part of 680.
- Poor performance on the CSE 670-related questions: These questions
are new and Eitan felt that the wordings of the questions may have
played a major role in the students' performance. Eitan will come up with
new wording for use in future tests.
- Additional options to the list of possible answers to questions
related to required courses: One of the possible answers that students
can choose in the case of POCAT questions that are related to elective
courses (such as CSE 630) is, "I have not taken the course and have no
idea (what the correct answer is)". Since some students may not yet have
taken some of the required courses by the time they take POCAT, it may
be useful to provide a similar option for the questions related to
those courses as well, especially the 600-level core classes. We will
do this for future tests.
The meeting was adjourned at 3:30.
Next meeting: Spring Quarter.
- Enrollment trends;
- Student organizations;
- Thinking about accreditation matters.
Minutes of the meeting
At the meeting: Bruce, David M., Eitan, Farhad, Paolo, Peg, Neelam, Tim.
- Enrollment trends: The total number of students being admitted to
the CIS and CSE majors has been slowly increasing over the last several
quarters. The four quarter total is currently around 180 (which is our
target) but it is too early to tell if this will be a steady-state figure
or the number will climb higher (or drop down again). Interestingly,
other CS departments in the country seem to be reporting fairly flat
enrollments while ours has been growing slowly. In any case, we will keep
a close watch on this; for now, no action seems called for.
- Student organizations: Peg was concerned that our student
organizations seem to be in rather poor shape. Farhad presented data
that suggest that while some organizations (notably NTSig) seem to be
dormant, others are thriving. For example, the Opensource group (which
includes many non-CSE/CIS majors among its active participants) meets
weekly and these meetings are well attended with the topics of discussion
ranging over a wide range of technical issues. The ACM group is fairly
active with meetings every month that are also generally well attended;
the topics for these meetings being similar to those of the Opensource
group. ACM-W is also active; its focus is on both technical and social
issues. NTSig has been dormant for a while.
One problem that student organizations face is that the web pages of
various student organizations don't seem very organized or regularly
maintained. But much of this may be related to the fact that students
who are currently most active in particular organizations may have
moved the main web site of the organization to another site that
allows them greater freedom (with respect to running various scripts
etc.); and this may not be known widely or reflected in the list of
links maintained in the undergrad program pages; and, in some cases,
these new web sites may be on servers that are not permanently
connected to the Internet, etc. It is not clear how to address this
problem.
Another important problem, one that the dept. should try to address, is
providing some minimal financial support on a regular basis.
We didn't talk about absolute numbers but Neelam will try to work with
the department to see if a semi-permanent arrangement can be made to
provide support that student organizations can count on.
- Accreditation matters: The next accreditation evaluation is
over three years away but we need to make sure that we are continuing to
meet the accreditation expectations and are making any changes that may
be necessary to meet new expectations or changes in the criteria. One
important set of changes is in the CAC Criteria. These criteria are being
substantially revised (with the changes expected to be put in place
in the next year or so; we would be expected to meet the revised criteria
during the next evaluation). One important change is a new set of outcomes
(modeled on but not identical to the EAC Criterion 3 outcomes) that are
proposed to be included as part of the criteria; for details, see the
ABET site. We will work on
revising our outcomes to be consistent with this set and also consider
any resulting changes that may be needed in the assessment mechanisms.
The meeting was adjourned at 3:30.
Next meeting: ??
- Results of Spring '08 POCAT
Minutes of the meeting
At the meeting: Bruce, David M., Eitan, Paolo, Neelam, Tim.
- Results of the Spring '08 POCAT:
The results of the Spring POCAT were similar to those of earlier tests.
The following points were noted:
- A new question that Bruce got from a SIGCSE paper that is supposedly
capable probing students' computing intuitions was added to the test.
Student performance on that question was a bit below expectations (around
70% instead of 80%) but not very much so.
- Performance on a 560-based question was rather poor (47% versus the
expected 60%). Neelam will ask for comments from the people involved with
the course (Paul Sivilotti, Rajiv Ramnath, Wayne Heym). Maybe the question
is confusing and needs to be rewritten; or, possibly, this may indicate a
problem in the course.
- Performance on a 660-based question was also poor (52% vs. expected
80%). David Mathias, who teaches 660 regularly, suggested that different
sections of the course may be using different terminologies (such as
"memory maps" vs. "page tables") that may be responsible for this. Neelam
will request David and Gojko (who set the question) to look into this.
- Performance on a 675-based question was also poor (57% vs. expected
80%). There was a suggestion that perhaps some of the wording in the
question could be improved. For example, the increase in CPI could be
specified as "by a factor of 1.1" rather than just "by 1.1". Neelam
will request Gojko (who set the question) to look into this.
- Performance on a 670-based question was again poor (although the
question had been revised from the previous offering of POCAT).
Eitan believes the problem has to do with the fact that students' primary
interest is in learning about SQL etc., not the foundational concepts
(that this question focuses on). He is preparing a revision of the question
to see if that makes a difference in the performance. It is also possible
that the way the form of the question, in particular the fact that students
have to pick and choose between various *combinations* of statements
as the correct answer
(rather than a single statement) may also be related to the poor
performance.
Overall, the performance on the test seemed satisfactory.
The meeting was adjourned at 3:30.
Next meeting: ??
- Student organizations
- Results of
BS-CSE Exit Survey
Minutes of the meeting
At the meeting: Bruce, David M., Eitan, Farhad, Paolo, Peg, Neelam.
- Student organizations: Peg sent queries to other
engineering departments to see how their student organizations are
funded. The four departments that responded indicated that the
departments do not provide funding to the organizations. Instead,
they are funded by various means, including industry support,
donations from faculty (!), and various fund-generation activities that
the organizations engage in such as "lawnmower clinics", "plane washes",
etc. In addition, they receive funding from the Ohio Union ("SOURCE").
So it seems appropriate for our student organizations to also take the
same approach rather than have the dept. provide regular funding (as
had been suggested earlier). Where special circumstances (such as for
the ACM programming contest) make it necessary, the faculty advisor
for the student organization(s) will contact the dept. chair for funding
help as needed. Eitan mentioned that this has worked in the past and
there is no reason why it would not in the future.
-
BS-CSE Exit Survey: It should first be noted
that the exit survey has changed from previous years since we have
revised the outcomes to directly match the EAC Criterion 3 outcomes.
The portions that asks for assessment of the quality of faculty/staff
advising and asks about the best feature of the program/ideas for
improvements in the program, are unchanged.
The results of this year's survey were more or less similar to those
of previous years -- with the qualification that it is a bit difficult
to directly compare them given the difference noted above.
Many students commented positively on several of the courses,
including the beginning sequence, CSE 560, the various capstone design
courses, the information security courses, software engineering
courses, etc. The Advising Office also received kudos as usual. On the
other side, many students again had serious reservations about the
beginning sequence, inadequate programming projects in the curriculum,
inadequate discussion of current tools/technologies in the curriculum, etc.
No specific ideas for changes in the program emerged from the discussion.
The meeting was adjourned at 3:30 pm.
Next meeting: May 14.
- CSE 421: Adding CSE 421 to the BS-CSE, BS-CIS and BA-CIS
programs.
Minutes of the meeting
At the meeting: Bruce, Eitan, Paolo, Peg, Neelam, Tim; Paul Sivilotti.
- CSE 421 in the Undergrad curriculum: There was a wide ranging
discussion of the possible options for adding CSE 421 to the curriculum;
the additional considerations were to ensure that the
number of credit hours did not increase in any of the programs; and that
the "prerequisite chain" (of courses to be taken in a specific order to
get to the 600-level required/elective courses) doesn't become too long.
The following points were noted:
- Eliminate the requirement of 1-credit hour of 459 and reduce 560 by
one hour: That would still require us to make up 1 hour (since 421 is
3 credit hours). It would also increase the length of the chain since
421 has to follow 321 and precede 560. Also eliminating 459 would mean
almost no students would take 459.21/459.22. These courses seem
to provide students intuition about pointers and similar important low
level mechanisms that are important in some later courses such as 660.
- Merge 321, 421 into one course: People most involved with 321 and
421 felt this would not make sense since, for one thing, in order to
succeed in 421 as currently designed, students need to complete 321. For
another, the purposes and structures of the two courses are so different
from each other that there is no reasonable way to do something like this.
- Merge 421 and 560: This is similar to the one above and it wouldn't
seem possible. 421 is intended to be a course dealing with "programming in
the small" and 560 with "programming in the large (or medium)". Trying
to combine them would hurt both courses.
- Need to consider the impact of adding 421 also on non-CIS/CSE students;
in particular, ECE (Computer option) students and BA-CIS students.
- Move some of the 560 material into 421 and the rest into 660 (or
something along those lines). Not clear how this would work (and there was
no one in the room who had taught 660 recently).
- Others?
We also briefly talked about the possible timelines for making changes.
One possibility was to let 421 be an elective course for now (for about
a year). Then, once it has settled down, tackle the more difficult questions
of how to convert it into a required course and how to handle the credit
hours issue, etc.
We will continue this discussion at the next meeting.
The meeting was adjourned at 3:30.
Next meeting: May 21.
- Response to External Review Committee's Report
- CSE 421
Minutes of the meeting
At the meeting: Bruce, David M., Eitan, Paolo, Peg, Neelam, Tim; Paul Sivilotti.
- Response to External Review Committee's Report: The report
contained a number of comments about our undergraduate programs.
The committee discussed these comments and arrived at some possible
actions in response. Here is a summary of the main comments from the
report:
- The programs are well received by the students: students were
satisfied with class sizes, accessibility of faculty on course work,
computing facilities and lab consultants, etc.
- Some concerns/suggestions:
- Students are not required to and most do not
meet their faculty advisors on a regular basis; few students involved
in research and students are not well aware of graduate school
opportunities.
- Some students felt that program requirements are not entirely clear;
- Confusion between programs offered by our dept. and the ECE Dept.;
because the programs are offered by two departments, students cannot
move freely from one to the other (i.e., from BS-CSE to BS-ECE (Computer
option) and vice-versa);
maybe offer a "joint program" between the two depts.
- Need to make program attractive to students by offering such
things as 5th year master's program; develop recruitment strategies
for Ohio residents.
Some reponses/possible actions that were discussed:
- Include, in the Undergrad Programs web pages, a chart showing the pre-requisite course
structure for both required and elective courses (at least the ones
that a reasonable number of undergrads take); include also
information about the quarters in which the various courses are offered.
A chart of this kind is already available from the Advising Office but
it may be useful to update it and include it on the web site.
- Consider devoting one lecture, in the early part of CSE 321, to talking
about the major program's requirements (for BS-CSE, BS-CIS and
BA-CIS programs); prepare a standard set of slides covering these details
that can be used by
by all instructors teaching the course. Also consider preparing a
"summary of program requirements" web page.
- Prepare a presentation on graduate school opportunities, how to
apply to grad schools, etc. Offer this presentation once a year to all
interested students. This presentation, unlike the one listed in the
point above, would not be part of any course since relatively few of
our students tend to be interested in grad school. Instead, consider
offering this at a special evening session, similar to the Annual Undergraduate Forum. The session should be offered early in fall quarter because
that would enable interested students to apply for admission to grad
schools for the following fall.
- The point about confusion between programs offered by us and by the
ECE Dept. seems unfounded. There have been no cases that anyone in UGSC
or in the Advising Office could recall where a student seemed to be
confused about this. As for students moving between BS-CSE and
BS-ECE (Computer option), that is, in fact, a fairly common occurrence.
Indeed, it is more difficult for students to move between the BS-CSE and
BS-CIS programs (because of the different requirements with respect to
non-CSE courses). It was noted that the committee did not
meet with any BS-CIS majors, only BS-CSE students;
it is not clear why this was done.
- With respect to the idea of offering a "5th year master's program":
It was noted that we already have such a program; see:
http://www.cse.ohio-state.edu/grad/bs_ms.shtml.
From a student's point of view,
one huge disincentive to joining
the BS/MS program involves funding: no rational student is going to become a
grad student and start paying grad fees and give up their undergrad
scholarships if they do not have dept support at the time they enter the
grad program. But this is a question for the
Grad Admissions Committee and UGSC decided to refer this to that committee.
We hope Grad Admissions will address this point.
-
Developing recruitment strategies for Ohio residents: We do have a
designated faculty member, currently Tim Long, for coordinating
recruitment efforts, especially with respect to students from
underrepresented groups. Additional efforts beyond that would probably
consist of sending faculty out recruiting at top high schools across
the state. But it is not clear that the dept. would want to invest
money in such activities or appropriately reward faculty for engaging
in them.
It was also noted that the committee did not meet with anyone from the
Advising Office. If they had met with Peg or someone else from the
office, it is likely that at least some of the concerns that the
committee expressed would have been addressed. For future reference,
the committee strongly recomments any outside group that wants to get
a full and accurate picture of our programs meet with the Advising
Office staff.
- CSE 421 in the Undergrad curriculum: (The discussion
continued from where it left off last week ...) A few additional points
were noted:
- We shouldn't try to rush into adding 421 as a required course;
instead, take our time to consider various possibilities and the
potential benefits/problems that each might involve.
- At the same time, given that any such changes would have to go
through several committees (including CAA), we have to keep in mind
that once we make our decision, it will be several quarters before it
becomes effective; and then it would only apply to students who join
OSU at that point and beyond.
- Any changes in CSE 560 should be made carefully. Over the years,
we have heard from many alumni about the essential role that played
in their development as computing professionals even if, when they were
in the course, many found it somewhat overwhelming. It is not clear
what particular aspect(s) of the course contributes to this - the
relatively challenging set of programming problems to be solved
involving low-level considerations, the large volume of code that has
to be developed, the use of a number of different tools that many
students would not have seen before, the extensive team work involved,
the requirement of detailed, careful documentation, or, most likely,
a combination of many of these factors. Hence, any changes in the course
must be made carefully in order not to compromise the many benefits
that the course provides.
- It may be useful to consider developing a sequence of courses
on "how computers work", based on material that is currently in
CSE 360, (parts of) 560, 675, and possibly parts of 660. Currently,
these courses are not integrated with each other and hence may not
work as well as they could. The new sequence would be integrated and
would parallel the CSE-221-222-321 (and 421) sequence. Students would
start on this sequence after finishing 222. Thus, at the end of the two
sequences, students would have a solid understanding of both software
engineering issues as well as those related to how compputers work at
the machine-level. Developing such a sequence would, of course,
involve quite a bit of work but it would seem it to be valuable.
-
In the last few months, informal discussions about the possibility of
the university changing from quarter to semesters seem to have been
taking place in the university. If this were to happen, the entire
curriculum would have to be completely redesigned. An effort to
design a "how computers work" sequence might be better undertaken as
part of such an effort rather than immediately before such a
switch lest the sequence has to be designed twice.
The meeting was adjourned at 3:30 pm.
Next meeting: 5/28.