CIS Curriculum Committee Agendas and Minutes (2002-2003)


Agenda Items for the Year and Actions To Date

Topic (Person Responsible) Discussion/Action Status
Courses
CIS/EE 694T: "Applied Component-Based Programming for Engineers and Scientists" -> CIS/EE 768 (Weide) 9/30/02: Discussed by CC; approved by CC with provision that concurrence from CIS should include a statement that explains rationale for cross-listing with EE.
10/7/02: Discussed by Fac; approved by Fac as recommended.  (Will have to be offered as 694T again in Wi03, because paperwork is too late to get it on the books for next quarter.)
Approved

768 Syllabus

New pilot course on computer vision (Davis) 10/7/02: CIS 694I: "Computer Vision for HCI" was approved last year; information item only. Approved
New pilot course on embedded systems design (Baumgartner) 10/7/02: CIS 694P: "Design of Embedded Systems" for Wi03, discussed by CC; minor revisions suggested.
10/14/02: Discussed by CC; approved by CC.  No Fac approval required.
11/6/02 NOTE: Baumgartner and Keyhani (EE) have withdrawn this pilot for Wi03 because of difficulties encountered with the EE Curriculum Committee.  They plan to be back with a new proposal in the future.
6/5/03: EE (Chuck Klein) has requested that neither course in this sequence be taught again, as CIS had originally planned for 03-04, until Baumgartner and Keyhani return with a plan for the entire two-course sequence.
Approved (but later withdrawn)

694P Syllabus

CIS 694J: "Object-Oriented Programming for Engineers and Scientists" -> CIS 502 (Bucci) 10/14/02: Discussed by CC; minor revisions made; approved by CC.
10/21/02: Discussed by Fac; approved by Fac as recommended, with amendment to add exclusion for CIS 321, to help prevent majors from counting it for credit.
Approved

502 Syllabus

CIS 694E: "Object-Oriented Systems Analysis" -> CIS 616 (Lohse) Weide has contacted Lohse about appearing before CC (10/17/02); will be on the 10/28/02 CC agenda (10/18/02).
10/28/02: Discussed by CC; minor revisions made; approved by CC.
11/04/02: Discussed by Fac; approved by Fac as recommended.
Paperwork at Engineering CCAA as of 11/19/02; approved pending concurrence from EE, IWSE (received), and ME (received) because of the term "systems analysis" in the title; awaiting concurrence from these units as of 3/4/03 (Reeves)

616 Syllabus

CIS 694G: "Introduction to Computer Graphics" -> CIS 581 (Parent/Shen) Weide has contacted Parent (10/16/02).
Parent says Shen found that CIS 581 was approved by Fac and CCAA (contingent on concurrences) in May 2002 (10/28/02).
Paperwork at Engineering CCAA as of last year; approved pending concurrence from ACCAD (received), EG, and EE (received); still awaiting concurrence from EG as of 2/27/03 (Reeves)
New pilot course on scientific visualization (Crawfis) 2/10/03: Crawfis unable to appear because of illness; will be considered at 2/17/03 meeting.
2/17/03 (scheduled meeting cancelled because snowstorm closed OSU): CIS 694L: "Scientific Visualization" for Sp03 approved without CC discussion by Weide, based on need to get paperwork done immediately; e-mail approval by CC will be requested ASAP.  No Fac approval required.
Approved

694L Syllabus

CIS 694F: "Computer Animation" -> CIS 682 (Parent) Parent has taught twice as a 694; will appear before CC on 4/25/03 to proposed making permanent (4/15/03)
4/25/03: Discussed by CC and approved with minor suggestions.
4/28/03: Approved by Fac as recommended.
Approved

682 Syllabus

Various graphics course changes other than CIS 581 Weide has contacted graphics group about appearing before CC (10/16/02); Parent says graphics faculty still working on various updates (10/28/02)
2/24/03:  Crawfis and Machiraju will be back with updated syllabi for planned changes as follows: CIS 681 (title "Computer Graphics: 3D Image Generation I", prerequisites "581; Math 568 or Math 571; or grad standing"), CIS 781 (title "Computer Graphics: 3D Image Generation II", prerequisite "681"), and CIS 782 (title "Advanced 3D Computer Graphics", prerequisite "681; Stat 428 or Stat 520").
In progress (Crawfis, Machiraju)
New pilot courses on security (Xuan) 11/25/02:  Discussed by CC; Xuan, Arora, Durresi, and Bob West (Bank One) invited to return in January with updated proposal for Sp03 pilot.
Group will reappear before CC on 2/10/03 (1/28/03).
2/10/03: CIS 294I, "Introduction to Information Assurance", discussed and approved by CC for proposed Sp03 offering.  No Fac approval required.  Second proposed pilot course still needs to be discussed.
3/10/03: Update: CIS 294I, retitled "Introduction to Information Security", is being repositioned for a pilot offering in Au03, with the second course to be offered in Wi04.  Xuan and Arora will be back to CC in April for continued discussion.
In progress (Xuan, Arora)

294I Syllabus

New pilot course on data mining (Pathasarathy) Parthasarathy will appear before CC on 1/13/03 for initial presentaion (12/20/02)
1/13/02:  Discussed by CC and approved for offering in Sp03 as CIS 694Z.  No Fac approval required.
Approved

694Z Syllabus

Second pilot offering of third course in applied software engineering sequence (Khan/Weide) 2/4/03: CIS/EE 894U: "Applied Use Case Driven Object-Oriented Analysis and Design" for Sp03, which is a successor to new CIS/EE 768, recommended with standard caveat about cross-listed courses having substantial content from the other department.  No Fac approval required. Approved

894U Syllabus

CIS 745: "Biomedical Informatics I" (proposed cross-listing of existing BMI/IBGP 730) (Lauria) 2/10/03: Discussed by CC, and recommended on academic grounds (although budgetary and other details, and concurrence from BMI and IBGP, remain to be worked out)
2/24/03: Discussed by Fac with no conclusion.  Suggestions included better title and "or" prerequisites, with CIS 680 required for CS-side students.  Questions about a possible CIS policy on cross-listing were discussed.
Suggested that Lauria and Zweben work with BMI to iron out possible course changes (e.g., more descriptive title, "or"-style of prerequisites with CIS 680 listed), along with budgetary and related details, and come back when an agreement is reached.

745 Syllabus

CIS 102: "Introduction to the Internet and World-Wide Web" description change (Bair) Weide will contact Bair about appearing before CC  
CIS 294R: "Programming in Perl" -> CIS 459.51 (Baumgartner?) Weide will contact Baumgartner about appearing before CC; was piloted once in Sp02 and will be repeated in Sp03. Approved (Sp03 294R only)
Revisit CIS 459.22 and 459.23 with respect to OOP concepts (Baumgartner) Spring  
General course review (service courses, 459s, numerical methods courses, capstone design courses, possible withdrawals) 2/24/03:  Discussed by CC.  Weide will ask faculty to recommend minor changes that they wish to make, and will prepare paperwork for discussion at 3/10/03 meeting.
3/10/03: Suggestions for course changes and withdrawals discussed by CC; faculty fedback will be requested before CC vote on specifics.
 In progress (Weide)
Course Groups and Curricula
Review BMI curriculum questions and "pre-proposal" (Saltz) Weide has contacted Saltz about appearing before CC (10/16/02).
Saltz will be on the 12/5/02 CC agenda (10/25/02).
Saltz can't make 12/5/02 meeting and will reschedule (11/27/02).
Saltz will be on the 1/27/03 CC agenda (12/11/02).
Saltz can't make 1/27/03 meeting and will  come to the 2/3/03 meeting (1/22/03)
2/3/03: Two existing BMI courses, plans for two-course undergraduate sequence that couold be taken by engineering students, and ways of accommodating BMI students' computing needs (e.g., in Applied Software Engineering courses) discussed by CC and BMI faculty.
In progress (Weide)
Review MIS-related courses: 516/616, 670, perhaps even 201/214/314 (Lohse, Ramnath) Lohse and Ramnath have discussed CIS 516/616 with Jim Nelson of AMIS, and will appear before CC on 4/4/03; Kerr has also talked with Nelson about 670; Nelson has suggested some possible changes to the CIS portion of the MIS curriculum (3/20/03) In progress (Ramnath)
Architecture course group report (Sadayappan) Weide has contacted Systems Group about appearing before CC in Wi03/Sp03 (10/16/02); Sadayappan will be in charge (10/18/02); Weide has asked all three groups to pick a week in Sp03 for appearance before CC (3/10/03); report will be given in early Au03. In progress (Sadayappan)
Database course group report (Ferhatosmanoglu, Parthasarathy) Weide has contacted Systems Group about appearing before CC in Wi03/Sp03 (10/16/02); separate note sent to Ferhatosmanoglu and Parthasarathy (11/6/02); Ferhatosmanoglu and Parthasarathy will work with Kerr and report in Sp03 (12/20/02); Weide has asked all three groups to pick a week in Sp03 for appearance before CC (3/10/03); this report will be given on 5/16/03 (3/11/03)
5/16/03: Course group report draft is complete; no significant changes to curriculum in this area are currently called for.  Ferhatosmanoglu and Parthasarathy will clean it up and make it available.
Completed
Operating systems course group report (Agrawal) Weide has contacted Systems Group about appearing before CC in Wi03/Sp03 (10/16/02); Agrawal will be in charge, and will report in Sp03 (10/18/02); Weide has asked all three groups to pick a week in Sp03 for appearance before CC (3/10/03); because group members are too busy now, this report will be deferred until Au03 (3/12/03) In progress (Agrawal)
Policies and Miscellaneous
Adding personal integrity statement to CIS syllabi, in course objectives (Reeves) 11/18/02: CC recommends further study; Reeves has done preliminary work already; Weide will discuss with Zweben possible appointment of ad hoc committee.
Ad hoc committee will meet with new scretary of COAM on 2/17/03 (1/24/03).
2/27/03:  Ad hoc committee met with Pete Pappas; Zweben summarized this meeting in e-mail to the CIS faculty the next day.  Recommendation: CC should not do anything at this time, except to monitor the sanctions imposed by COAM on CIS cheaters to see whether more serious consequences become the norm, as Pappas has suggested.
Completed
Reconsider policy on enforcing prerequisites (Steele) 11/18/02: CC recommends no changes in current policy. Completed
General paperwork review (syllabus form and content, including consistent wording of objectives, update of course lab loads) 2003-04  
Review course lab loads (Steele) Spring In progress (Weide)

Individual Meeting Minutes

  1. 9/30/02
  2. 10/7/02
  3. 10/14/02
  4. 10/28/02
  5. 11/18/02
  6. 11/25/02
  7. 1/13/03
  8. 2/3/03
  9. 2/10/03
  10. 2/24/03
  11. 3/10/03
  12. 4/4/03
  13. 4/23/03
  14. 5/16/03
  15. 5/23/03

9/30/02: (Bucci, Crawfis, Long, Machiraju, Reeves, Stock, Weide) This was recommended for faculty approval, with the proviso that we attach a note to the paperwork stating our policy on cross-listing courses (which was used on the concurrence forms as this was offered as a cross-listed 694).  See:
http://www.cis.ohio-state.edu/~weide/cc/2002-2003/syllabi/768.html
Weide will construct a list and post it on the web with a note that it's ready for comments and edits.  The Curriculum Committee web page this year is at:
http://www.cis.ohio-state.edu/~weide/cc/

10/7/02: (Baumgartner, Bucci, Crawfis, Long, Machiraju, Reeves, Steele, Stock, Weide) In the next three weeks, we need to complete paperwork and get it to the college for any new courses or course changes that we can get ready soon, along with group studies for Wi03.  These include (in addition to 694P,  below):

  694J -> CIS 502 (OOP for Engineers and Scientists)
  694E -> CIS 616 (OO Systems Analysis) *
  694G -> CIS 581 (Survey of Computer Graphics) *
  694H (Computer Vision for HCI, to be offered in Wi03) *

Bucci will present the 694J -> CIS 502 proposal next week.  Reeves will check on the status of paperwork for those marked with *, since considerable work was already completed last year on these.

Weide will schedule a discussion regarding CIS concurrence on a proposed set of Biomedical Informatics courses that has come over from that department.

Weide will construct a list of other agenda items and post it on the web with a note that it's ready for comments and edits.

Baumgartner explained and answered questions about this proposed first pilot for the second course in a sequence on embedded systems programming.  He will be back with some recommended minor modifications to the syllabus for a committee vote at next week's meeting.  Information is available at:
http://www.cis.ohio-state.edu/~gb/eecis694p/

10/14/02: (Baumgartner, Bucci, Crawfis, Dalessandro, Howe, Long, Machiraju, Reeves, Soundarajan, Steele, Stock, Weide) Emily Howe and Denny Dalessandro introduced themselves as potential undergraduate representatives to the committee.  It was suggested that they share the official duty or agree on how to split it, although both -- as well as any other students -- are always welcome to attend.  (Afterward, Denny sent mail to Weide informing him that he, Denny, would be the representative.) The slightly amended syllabus was unanimously approved.  See:
http://www.cis.ohio-state.edu/~weide/cc/2002-2003/syllabi/694P.pdf
Reeves reported that the graphics faculty decided last year to consider other prerequisite, naming, and numbering issues before officially introducing CIS 581: "Survey of Computer Graphics" with its consequences; Weide will contact the graphics group to find out details and ask them how they want to proceed.  No paperwork has been done on CIS 616: "Object-Oriented Systems Analysis"; Weide will contact Bair to ask her to appear before the committee with an official proposal.  Paperwork on CIS 694H: "Computer Vision for HCI" in Wi03 is done and has been sent to EE for concurrence. Bucci presented the proposed syllabus for CIS 502: "Object-Oriented Programming for Engineers and Scientists".  This is a service course for non-CS students entering the Applied Software Engineering sequence, for which CIS/EE 768 was recently approved.  It was agreed to weaken the math prerequisite from Math 153 to Math 152, based on the assignments and on the possibility that biological sciences students might wish to take it.

The committee unanimously voted to recommend approval.  See:

http://www.cis.ohio-state.edu/~weide/cc/2002-2003/syllabi/502.html

10/28/02: (Bair, Baumgartner, Bucci, Dalessandro, Lohse, Long, Machiraju, Reeves, Soundarajan, Steele, Stock, Weide) Lohse presented the proposed syllabus for CIS 616: "Object-Oriented System Analysis".  This is the object-oriented counterpart to CIS 516, which teaches structured analysis.  It has been taught 3 times as CIS 694E, and is to be piloted again in Wi03.  The basic rationale is that CIS 516 is somewhat dated; however, it has to be left in place because the Business College insists that their students should learn the "old" way of doing system analysis.  CIS 616 will be added to the technical electives list in the CIS and CSE programs, and should be suggested to students as preferable to CIS 516 for majors.

Two additional suggestions were made: to re-open the dialog with the Business College about 616 vs 516 and about whether CIS 616 should be a prerequisite to Accounting/MIS 651: "Analysis and Design of Management Information Systems" (which currently lists CIS 516 as a prerequisite);  and to continue pursuing possible closer ties between CIS 616 and CIS 758.

Weide will make sure that courses listing CIS 516 as a prerequisite are changed so that CIS 616 is an alternate prerequisite.  This can be done without CC discussion as a "clean-up" item.

The committee unanimously voted to recommend approval.  See:

http://www.cis.ohio-state.edu/~weide/cc/2002-2003/syllabi/616.html

11/18/02: (Bucci, Crawfis, Dalessandro, Long, Reeves, Steele, Stock, Weide) The problem is that the CIS UG Advising office has perceived that some students are hurting themselves by taking certain CIS courses without the stated prerequisites.  CIS uses "soft" prerequisite checking for most courses, which means that students can still register even if they don't have the official prerequisites.  Steele (for CIS 560) and Reeves (for CIS 516) reported on studies of the apparent effects, of not having all the prerequisites, on students in these courses.  For 560, the only prerequisite that several students tended not to have was the second writing course, and they got noticeably lower grades than students who had the prerequisite.  However, this preprequisite is not one that can be enforced in any practical way, because there are so many different second writing courses.  For 516, students without 314 tended not to do as well; but the number of students in this category was rather small, too.  The conclusion was that, although there might be some students who would be filtered out by "hard" prerequisite enforcement, it's probably not worth worrying about it at this time. The problem is that the Committee on Academic Misconduct (COAM) may, and in fact does in many cases, recommend somewhat weak sanctions for students who cheat.  A typical outcome is a recommendation that a student receive zero credit for the assignment; but since failing to do the assignment at all results in the same score, what's the penalty for unethical and unprofessional behavior?  The instructor may ignore the recommendation and, for example, fail the student in the course.  But this can cause more time to be spent on a case as the student appeals to the department chair and possibly beyond.

One suggestion for addressing the problem was that we could add to all CIS syllabi another course objective, something like: "Demonstrate understanding of ethical and professional behavior".  The rationale for failing a student who COAM found to have cheated would then be rather simple: the student failed to achieve this important objective of the course.

After considerable discussion (which has continued by e-mail), the committee felt that the issue should be studied further by an ad hoc department committee of interested parties.  Reeves would be willing to serve on this body; in fact, she has already done a lot of homework, finding OSU rules, honor codes and codes of conduct at other universities, etc.  The conclusion was that Weide should recommend this to the department chair.


11/25/02: (Arora, Baumgartner, Bucci, Dalessandro, Durresi, Long, Soundarajan, Stock, Weide, Bob West (Bank One), Xuan) Arora, Durresi, West, and Xuan explained their plans to develop two new courses in information assurance and network security.  The first, "Introduction to Information Assurance", would focus on organizational policies and would not concentrate on technical details; it would have an introductory programming prerequisite.  The second, "Network Security", would have more technical content; it would have CIS 677 as a prerequisite.  The courses would be targeted at somewhat different audiences, and would not be considered a sequence.  The plan would be to pilot the first course in Sp03 and the second in Au03.  The information presented to the committee is at:
http://www.cis.ohio-state.edu/~xuan/courses/new
The committee was satisfied with the basic ideas involved in the "Network Security" course.  Details about the proposed pilot in Au03 should come before the committee again in early Sp03.

The committee had several suggestions regarding the "Introduction to Information Assurance" course.  Most importantly, the intended audience should be clearly identified and the prerequisites should carefully considered.  Based on the proposed content and level of the course, it does not look like a CIS/CSE technical elective (unlike the other proposed course).  One possibility is to try to position this as an elective for Business Information Systems majors with a prerequisite of CIS 314, for example.  The group proposing the course should identify the appropriate contacts in Business to see whether they would be interested in our offering such a course as an elective for IS majors; perhaps they even would wish to cross-list it.  The material truly seems to be a cross between CIS-related issues involving information security threats and basic technological responses, and Business-oriented issues involving organizational policies and operational aspects.  Details about the proposed pilot in Sp03 should come before the committee again in January with audience and prerequisite issues worked out.


1/13/03: (Baumgartner, Bucci, Dalessandro, Machiraju, Parthasarathy, Reeves, Soundarajan, Steele, Weide) Parthasarathy presented his plan to offer the pilot for a new course, "Introduction to Data Mining", in Sp03.  This would be a 600-level UG elective course (eventually numbered 672, for example) introducing the major approaches to data mining, issues in scalability, and a couple representative applications.  The main questions had to do with prerequisites, which were eventually determined to be "670 and 680 and 459.21, or permission of instructor".  It was also recommended that the objectives be made somewhat more specific and be phrased in terms of what students could "do" after finishing the course, not just in terms of what they would "know".  The committee approved the proposal with the anticipated minor revisions.  Weide will work with Parthasarathy to complete the paperwork for a 694 offering in Sp03.  Information about the course is at:
http://www.cis.ohio-state.edu/~srini/CIS694.htm

2/3/03: (Baumgartner, Bucci, Umit Catalyurek (BMI), Crawfis, Dalessandro, Dan Janies (BMI), Lauria, Machiraju, Reeves, Joel Saltz (BMI), Soundarajan, Steele, Stock, Weide, Bo Yuan (BMI)) Saltz and colleagues presented their preliminary plans for undergraduate Biomedical Informatics (BMI) courses and discussed their existing graduate courses, and answered questions from the committee.  They also asked questions about the CIS curriculum, which the committee members tried to answer.

The proposed undergraduate course (later, a two-course sequence) in "Fundamentals of Biotechnology" would be targeted for junior/senior students in pre-med and biological sciences.  The course would have no computing prerequisites nor would it teach programming, but would rather use software packages in the BMI area.  Janies mentioned students "automating" some of their work by doing some shell programming, and was cautioned against being too optimistic about what most students would be able to do without any programming prerequisite; similarly with regard to doing database design or queries without a database course as a prerequisite.  The difficulty with requiring a programming or database prerequisite is that many of the students in the intended audience ordinarily would not have it.

Their existing courses are:

Like all  non-CIS/CSE majors, BMI students apparently have had trouble getting into some CIS courses that BMI faculty would like them to take, such as CIS 680.  The committee made the BMI group aware of the Applied Software Engineering sequence (new CIS 502, CIS/EE 768, and two courses still in the pilot stages); students were not closed out of these courses this year.  The content is not the same as CIS 680, of course, but these are courses that other non-CIS/CSE science and engineering students have found to give a useful background in modern software.

The entire group discussed possible ways to collaborate on joint programs in a more "official" way.  There are two directions in terms of curriculum: courses in computing that BMI students could get into for an introduction to specific areas such as data structures and algorithms, and courses (not yet offered) in biomedical informatics that CIS/CSE and other engineering students could take for an introduction to biomedical informatics.  A big problem, as always with interdisciplinary courses, is that most students do not have any advanced prerequisites in the other area.  Yuan mentioned that in BMI 730, he expects students to have a good background in either biochemistry or computing and then to gain an appreciation for the other area as a result of the course.  On exams, he gives two questions on each idea -- one from the biology/chemistry/genomics angle, one from the computing angle -- and students may choose to answer one or the other.  Perhaps it would be possible to structure course prerequisites around the same idea: "or" rather than "and".

We agreed that further meetings were in order (e.g., Yuan should meet with Rafe Wenger about joint graduate program issues), but we did not set a specific time for the next meeting regarding curriculum issues alone.


2/10/03: (Baumgartner, Bucci, Lauria, Machiraju, Ramnath, Reeves, Stock, Weide, Xuan)
  • Update on paperwork status, including pending concurrences (Reeves)
  • Updated information is reflected in the table at the top of this page.
  • Proposed security pilot in Sp03 (Xuan)
  • Xuan presented the updated syllabus and explained that the expected audience for the proposed pilot in Sp03 on "Information Assurance" was half information systems majors and half CIS/CSE majors.  The proposal was approved following discussion of prerequisites, description, etc.  The proposed syllabus for CIS 294I is at: Crawfis was ill, so the discussion was postponed until 2/17/03.  (The 2/17/03 meeting was subsequently cancelled because OSU was closed by a snowstorm, so the proposal was tentatively approved by Weide as CC chair, with an opportunity for e-mail comment and objection from the committee.)  The syllabus is at:
    http://www.cis.ohio-state.edu/~weide/cc/2002-2003/syllabi/694L.html
    This course (BMI/IBGP 730: "Biomedical Informatics I") is about algorithms for sequencing and related problems in biomedical informatics, and seems to be exactly the kind of "applications of computing" course that CIS should cross-list with a department specializing in such applications.  The main problem is that budgetary and other considerations need to be worked out on a case-by-case basis, and they have not been settled here.  CC recommended approval of the request on academic grounds and will present it to the faculty on that basis, contingent on working out those details.  The proposed CIS course number would be CIS 745, since 730 is already taken; and this opens up 745-749 as possible course numbers for biomedical informatics and related courses that might develop in the future.  The syllabus for the proposed cross-listing is at:
    2/24/03: (Crawfis, Machiraju, Reeves, Soundarajan, Stock, Weide) Updated information is reflected in the table at the top of this page.  The graphics representatives gave a preview of their update plans, and will come back to the committee soon with specific recommendations and updated syllabi for CIS 681, CIS 781, and CIS 782.  They also recommended changing the prerequisites of 581 (paperwork still at the College of Engineering awaiting some concurrences that were requested months ago) to "321; Math 153".  This concession was partly in response to EE's concurrence suggestion that reduced prerequisites would make the course more accessible to their students who might wish to take it.  The committee considered this a minor and "friendly" amendment that Weide will simple ask Ed McCaul to make on the submitted paperwork without taking it back to the entire faculty for a vote first. Steele will find an on-line version of the Course Offerings Bulletin (CIS portion), and Weide will point faculty to it and ask them for recommendations on minor paperwork updates that they would like to see.  (Subsequently, this was done; a few changes have been suggested to Weide, who is preparing the paperwork for review at the next CC meeting.)  A link to the up-to-date on-line bulletin has been added to the CIS UG Programs web page; for Sp03 it is at:
    http://www.ureg.ohio-state.edu/courses/Spring/book3/B117.htm

    3/10/03: (Baumgartner, Bucci, Crawfis, Dalessandro, Soundarajan, Steele, Stock, Weide, Jin Yu) The committee discussed possible course changes and withdrawals.  Several minor "clean-up" changes were suggested by faculty as a result of Weide's request for input.  Others were suggested by the committee at this meeting.  A summary of the changes being considered:
  • CIS 230:  Insert "... for those with previous programming experience in a language other than C++ ..." into the description; remove 202 as a prerequisite.  (Rationale: CIS 215 is the appropriate second course for those who have taken a first course using C++.)
  • CIS 360:  Change "assembler" to "assembly" in the description; rewrite prerequisite statement so it is not ambiguous.
  • CIS 459:  Change so that all are S/U and are not repeatable; remove 459.21 (C) as a prerequisite to 459.22 (C++), leaving just 321 as a prerequisite; change "JAVA" to "Java" in 459.23; change "LISP" to "Lisp" in 459.31 and remove 314 as an alternate prerequisite, leaving just 321 as a prerequisite.  (Rationale: 459.22 really should be the "missing link" course for students who wish to learn regular C++ programming after 321; Steele will check to see whether any MIS students are taking 459.31 -- subsequent checking revealed that one student took CIS 459.21 in the last year with the 314 prerequisite; who knows whether the name of the language is LISP or Lisp?)
  • CIS 541:  Add "iterative solution of linear systems" to description.  (Rationale: That's how it is currently being taught.)
  • CIS 560:  Change "systems" to "system" in title and description; rewrite prerequisite statement so it is not ambiguous.
  • CIS 625:  Remove "introduction to the halting problem" from description.  (Weide will check with the faculty who proposed this regarding why this has been suggested, because the committee was concerned that this was not a good idea; subsequent courses are expecting students to have heard of the halting problem, at least.)
  • CIS 725 and CIS 780:  Change descriptions to move "NP-completeness" from 780 to 725.  (Rationale: That's how they are currently being taught.)
  • CIS 756:  Remove 625 as a prerequisite, because it is a prerequisite to 655 and that is already listed here.
  • CIS 768:  Change prerequisite to include 502.  (Rationale: CIS 502 is a new course that has been approved now, and it was intended as the permanent prerequisite, not the pilot CIS 694J.)
  • A summary of the withdrawals being considered: FYI, a link to the current on-line Course Offerings Bulletin is at:
    http://www.ureg.ohio-state.edu/courses/Spring/book3/B117.htm

    4/4/03: (Dalessandro, Kerr, Lohse, Long, Ramnath, Soundarajan, Steele, Weide) Lohse and Ramnath have met with Jim Nelson of the AMIS Department about the MIS program andits CIS-course requirements.  There are several issues: Lohse and Ramnath will be back later this quarter to report on further progress in their negotiations with AMIS.
    4/23/03: (Bucci, Crawfis, Dalessandro, Long, Machiraju, Parent, Soundarajan, Steele, Stock, Weide) Steele will send Weide the current (two-year-old) course lab loads document, which he will forward to the CIS faculty with a request for the course coordinators to suggest any needed updates. Parent showed the animation projects of the Wi03 offering of CIS 694F, much to the delight of the committee.  Parent reported that the projects were done by five groups, each consisting of 3-5 CIS students--a mixture of undergrads and grads--plus one art student from another course.  (Parent coordinates this other course offering with a faculty member from the Art Department, but there is no official coupling between the courses; if this arrangement fails to work at some point then there will be no need to change the course description, but merely to lower the expectations for the quality of the modeling and aesthetics in the projects.)  The committee explored prerequisites, and it was concluded that they should be "581 or 681; 541; 560".  Approval of the proposed syllabus with only a few minor revisions was unanimous.  Parent will make these revisions and send the resulting syllabus to Weide for paperwork preparation and scheduling of a CIS Faculty vote in time to get this course before CCAA in Sp03.  The CIS Undergraduate Studies Committee will consider separately the question of whether this should be a capstone design course.  The sentiment was that we should try to make sure that it qualifies as one.  syllabus is at:
    http://www.cis.ohio-state.edu/~weide/cc/2002-2003/syllabi/682.html

    5/16/03: (Ferhatosmanoglu, Kerr, Long, Machiraju, Parthasarathy, Reeves, Soundarajan, Weide) The committee reviewed the main points of the database area course group report.  This is the first report from this course group, so it had to be written anew (not revised from a previous version) by Ferhatosmanoglu, with input from Kerr, Parthasarathy, and others.  Some specific suggestions in the report and/or discussed at the meeting, included: There was a suggestion that the instructional database system be changed from Sybase to another system, e.g., Oracle.  The committee recommended that the proposers of this change, in conjunction with the other course instructors, first clear it with the Computer Committee and then simply go ahead and implement that change if they want to pursue it.

    A current draft of the database course group report is at:

    http://www.cis.ohio-state.edu/~hakan/DB/report.2003.html


    5/23/03: (Arora, Bucci, Kerr, Long, Soundarajan, Steele, Stock, Weide)
    CC suggested a few minor wording changes, e.g., using the qualifier "digital" in the descriptions; and suggested clarifying the objectives.  It was agreed that an appropriate number would be CIS 494I, and that it should be offered in Wi04.