CSE Undergraduate Studies Committee
Minutes of Meetings (2009-'10)

Committee Members: Chris Brew, Paolo Bucci, Steve Lai, Rick Parent, Reeves, Neelam Soundarajan (Chair), Peg Steele, Radu Teodorescu, Bruce Weide. David Chiu (CSE grad student, interested in undergrad matters).

The committee is looking for CIS and CSE student representatives. If you are a BS-CIS or BS-CSE major and are interested in being on the committee, please email neelam AT cse.

Winter:
   		(Meetings on Fridays at 3:30-4:30 am in DL 698.)
Feb. 12; Jan. 29; Jan. 22;
Autumn:
   		(Meetings on Fridays at 9:30-10:30 am in DL 698.)
Dec. 4;

02/12/'10

At the meeting: Bucci, Lai, Parent, Reeves, Soundarajan, Steele, Weide

  1. UG Forum: The annual Undergraduate Forum was held on Feb. 3. It was well attended (25 students, 2 alums, 11 faculty and staff). The forum started at about 5:30 and went on till about 7 pm. A detailed report is available. Here are some highlights:

  2. POCAT results: Results of the Winter POCAT are available. Some of the questions in this test were different from the previous test, these being the questions related to data abstraction and the database-questions. The number of students who took the test this time was rather small (8) so it is difficult to draw any conclusions. Moreover, due to an oversight in setting the paper, the answers to the database-questions were, unfortunately, included in the test paper. We will wait until the Spring test (which typically has many more students taking it) to draw any conclusions. Performance in the binary-search-tree question was as poor as usual. One conjecture was that students were simply assuming that the tree must be balanced; and that we could try to add a phrase such as "not necessarily balanced" to the question. If students have trouble with the question even after this change, that would seem to suggest that corrective action is called for, perhaps in CSE 680.

  3. Enrollment management: Bruce, Neelam, and Peg have had some discussions with the dept. chair about the ramifications of imposing a GPA requirement for admission to the CIS/CSE majors. There was some concern about possible budget implications of doing this. Nevertheless, the risks of having to close out majors from required courses (and/or overcrowded classes) plus the fact that we can suspend, at very short notice, the GPA requirement, suggest that it is best for faculty to consider imposing the requirement. Hence, as decided previously, we will recommend to faculty that a requirement of 2.4 GPA be imposed effective Spring 2011, i.e., pre-majors who apply to enter the CSE or CIS major for Sp '11 or later.

  4. Transition plans, accreditation planning: Will be discussed in future meetings.

The meeting was adjourned at 4:35 pm.

Next meeting: ??

01/29/'10

At the meeting: Bucci, Lai, Parent, Reeves, Soundarajan, Steele, Teodorescu, Weide

  1. UG forum: The annual undergraduate forum will be held at 5:30 pm on Wednesday, Feb. 3 in DL 480. A number of faculty, staff, and alums have agreed to attend. Announcements have been posted around the building and email announcements have been sent to majors and pre-majors. Faculty teaching undergrad CSE courses are requested to mention the forum in their classes on Monday (Feb. 1) or Tuesday (Feb. 2).

  2. Enrollment management: There has been a steady increase, over the last few years, in the number of students admitted to the CSE and CIS majors. Thus the four-quarter-admits during Wi '10 (i.e., the total number of students admitted to the majors during Winter '10 and the preceding three quarters), and the winter quarter of each of the four preceding years are as follows: 
       Qtr      4-qtr. admits

   Wi '10   236
   Wi '09   203
   Wi '08   182
   Wi '07   149
   Wi '06   133
    (Note: Each year, the number of students admitted in any quarter varies quite a bit from quarter to quarter; by summing up over a 4-quarter period, we get a more reliable estimate of the trends.)

    Based on our current (tenure-track) faculty strength, we should be admitting around 180-190 students per year. Clearly, we are substantially over that figure and the trend seems headed even higher. In the past, when we have had this problem, we have addressed it by requiring students applying to the major to have a specified minimum GPA in order to be admitted to the major. This is an enrollment-management scheme that the university approved many years ago and is intended to be used only for enrollment management (not for quality control, etc). If we were to impose a GPA requirement, the effect on enrollments, based on recent grade distributions, would be as follows (assuming that the current 4-qtr admits is between 230 and 240): 

        GPA     Predicted no. of
            4-qtr admits (range)

    2.0      230-240      (current situation)
    2.1      221-230
    2.2      212-221
    2.3      202-211
    2.4      195-202
    2.5      188-195
    2.6      180-188
    2.7      175-180
    ...
    The committee felt that we should seriously considering imposing a 2.4 GPA requirement. This would apply to pre-majors who apply to enter the CSE or CIS major for Sp '11 or later; these would essentially be students who enter OSU in Au '10 (or later).

    The committee felt it was important to do this for two reasons: First, if it turns out that the number of students seeking to enter the CIS/CSE majors declines, we can eliminate the requirement with immediate effect; i.e., while we must give adequate notice of an increase in the GPA requirement, a reduction in the GPA requirement can become effective immediately. Second, if we don't do this and the demand for the majors keeps increasing, we will face a very serious situation; we may have to close students out of required courses and they may have to postpone graduation etc.

    In order to impose this requirement, our faculty has to approve it, then we have to inform the colleges (so that applicants to OSU who are interested in CIS/CSE receive this information as part of the letter from OSU offering them admission to OSU), and inform current pre-majors so that they don't delay applying to the major and become subject to the 2.4 requirement.

    UGSC recommends to the faculty that a requirement of 2.4 GPA be imposed effective Spring 2011, i.e., pre-majors who apply to enter the CSE or CIS major for Sp '11 or later.

  3. Transition plans: The department is expected to submit its semester conversion plans to the CCAA by the end of Winter quarter. These plans must include the proposed new BS-CSE curriculum, syllabi of the new courses, as well as transition plans for students who have started under the quarter system and will not finish until after the switch to semesters. Now that the essential outlines of the BS-CSE program seem to be clear, UGSC will discuss possible transition plans and prepare a proposal for discussion/approval by the faculty.

  4. Evaluation: The next accreditation evaluation of the BS-CSE program will be in Au '11. A key part of that evaluation is that the accreditation team will carefully look at our outcomes assessment program and results and check whether they meet the ABET requirements. Following the last accreditation evaluation, in response to the comments of the accreditation team, we made a number of changes to our assessment program. We have to consider how we will revise those when we switch to semesters (and these plans will have to be included in the self-study that we send to ABET in June '11); we also have to make sure that we are currently following all aspects of our assessment program and that we have good documentation of the assessment results and program improvements based on those results. UGSC will start working on all of this.

The meeting was adjourned at 4:30 pm.

Next meeting: ??

01/22/'10

At the meeting: Bucci, Reeves, Soundarajan, Steele, Weide

  1. Annual Undergrad Forum: After a brief discussion, it was decided the annual forum will be held on Wednesday, Feb. 3, at 5:30 pm in DL480. Neelam will contact various faculty to ensure that we have a reasonable faculty presence. Peg and Neelam will contact alums to recruit a few to attend the session. Announcements will be made shortly.

  2. Hardware-software option in the BS-CSE program: Currently, one of the courses that BS-CSE majors pursuing the hardware-software systems option have to take is CSE 676 (the other courses being CSE 677; ECE 561; Math 415 or 568 or 571; and capstone design course, CSE 778 being recommended); in addition, they have to take 13-14 hours of electives of which at least 10 must be CSE hours (for a total of 30 hours in the option). With Mike Liu's recent retirement, CSE 676 is not offered this year and it may not be in future years. Some students have been allowed to substitute CSE 775 for 676 but 775 is designed for grad studetns and may not be appropriate for all undergrads.

    It was therefore proposed that the requirements for this option be changed as follows: Required: CSE 677; ECE 561; Math 415, or 568, or 571; and capstone design course, CSE 778 recommended; plus 16-17 hours of electives of which at least 13 must be CSE hours. The following courses are recommended: CSE 651, 652, 678, 679.

    After a brief discussion, the committee approved this proposal. If anyone on the faculty has comments on this, pleas email Neelam. Otherwise, this will become the hardware-software option.

  3. Enrollment management: The number of majors in CSE and CIS have been steadily going up over the last few years. The four-quarter running total of new students admitted to the the majors has gone from 149 in Winter '07 to 182 to Wi '08, to 203 in Wi '09, to 236 in Wi '10. Indications are that there might be further increases in the coming quarters; even if the number stabilizes where it currently is, that is still too high given our faculty strength. (Given our faculty strength, the number should be around 180-190.) Hence it looks like we will need to reinstate GPA-based control of admission to the major. Since the university guidelines allow us to do this only for incoming freshmen who will be joining OSU in Au '10 (rather than students who are already in OSU), and since these students have to be informed of this when they are offered admission ( rather than after they join OSU), any such decision to impose GPA-based control of admission to the major will have to be made quite soon.

    The committee next week to discuss this further. In the meantim, Peg will try to obtain data on recent grade distribution data for sophomores so that we can pick an appropriate number based on current grade distribution data rather than old data.

The meeting was adjourned at 4:20 pm.

Next meeting: 1/29/'10

12/04/'09

At the meeting: Reeves, Soundarajan, Steele, Teodorescu, Weide, Chiu

  1. Results of Su, Au '09 POCAT: The results of these tests were similar to those of recent past tests. Some specific suggestions for changes in the questions were made; Neelam will follow-up with the faculty involved with the corresponding courses to come up with these revisions. For the moment, no suggestions were made for revising course contents.

  2. Conversion to semesters: The main work on this is being conducted by the Semester Task Force. One question that the task force is not addressing concerns transition plans for students who start in the quarter system but don't graduate before the switch to semesters. The transition plan is required as part of the proposal to be submitted to the College of Engineering in Spring '10 (??). Once the task force arrives at the overall structure of the program and faculty approves it (this is expected to happen by the end of Au '09), UGSC will work to create a transition plan.

  3. Preparations for next ABET evaluation: Neelam reported that all indications are that ABET is as interested in (direct) assessments, evaluations of the results of the assessments and their use in identifying program improvements, and documentation of all of this. POCAT is, of course, a main direct assessment instrument but it only concerns the first group of outcomes (see details). We also use specific activities in 601 and the capstone design courses to develop and assess (using specific rubrics) the other outcomes. We need to create easily accessible documentation of these activities, the assessment results, the evaluations, and any resulting improvements. (Even the "details" page linked above is a bit outdated since it uses the previous version of our outcomes, not the current one.)

The meeting was adjourned at 10:30

Next meeting: ??