CSE Curriculum Committee Agendas and Minutes (2004-2005)


1.  Agenda Items for the Year and Actions to Date

2.  Meeting Minutes



1.  Agenda Items for the Year and Actions to Date

Topic (Person Responsible) Discussion/Action Status
Courses
General course review; "syllabus database" system and tools  9/28/04: Weide has asked Zweben for administrative help to develop a database of CSE courses, to tie it to the official course description information in the OSU files, and to use it as a "single point of control" to generate official syllabi, etc., for ABET evaluation.  Once this is in place, all faculty will be asked to suggest needed changes.
10/29/04:  Weide met with Zweben and some staff (Compton, Salyers, Rowland, Joseph) to discuss requirements.
11/24/04:  Weide met with Rowland and Joseph to elaborate on requirements. [There were other meetings with Rowland on specific points over the next two months.]
2/14/05:  Weide demonstrated version 1 of the syllabus database system developed by Rowland.  He will ask faculty to use it to populate the database with current syllabi, and thereafter for proposed course changes and new course requests.
4/15/05:  Many course syllabi have been added to the database by faculty course coordinators; but many have not. Weide will continue to dun faculty during Sp05 for their cooperation in populating the database.
6/30/05:  Essentially all courses are now in the course database.
 Completed
CSE 102: Introduction to the Internet and the World-Wide Web (Bair)
9/28/04: Will be offered in Wi05 (rather than in summer), and enrollment will be evaluated to determine whether the course should continue to be offered; Sp05 review planned.
4/15/05:Enrollment demand in Wi05 was insufficient to schedule this course. Zweben has not scheduled any sections for the next year, either. However, we will keep the course on the books for now because it is being taught at a branch campus.
Completed
CSE 294R -> CSE 459.51: Programming in Perl (Joseph)
10/15/04: Weide has contacted Joseph requesting an Au04 review of the Sp04 second pilot offering, possible approval for Sp05 offering as permanent course CSE 459.51.
10/28/04: Review of Sp04 offering was conducted.  CC recommends this as a new permanent course, to start Sp05. Subsequently approved by Fac.
Completed and to registrar as of 2/18/05
CSE 459.51 syllabus
CSE 294?: Advanced version of CSE 200 (Gross)
10/15/04: Weide has contacted Gross about a Wi05 discussion.  [Subsequently this was postponed to an undetermined future date.]
In progress (Gross)
CSE 494I -> CSE 551: Introduction to Information Security (Arora, Xuan)
10/11/04: Steve Romig will teach the second pilot offering CSE 494I in Wi05; Sp05 review planned.
4/12/05:Review of the second pilot offering was conducted. CC recommends making this a permanent course numbered CSE 551, to start Wi06.
Completed and to registrar as of 6/13/05
CSE 630: Survey of Artificial Intelligence I: Basic Techniques (Fosler-Lussier)
10/11/04: Removed "or sr/grad standing" from prerequisites, at request of AI faculty; Weide decided that this minor change was not substantive, and paperwork will be completed and turned in without a vote of Fac.
Completed and to registrar as of 12/3/04
CSE 694I -> CSE 634: Computer Vision for Human-Computer Interaction (Davis)
10/11/04: Davis is teaching this in Au04; third pilot offering; Wi05 review planned.
2/7/05: Review of Au04 offering was conducted.  Proposed new CSE 634 approved by CC.
2/14/05:  Proposed new CSE 634 approved by Faculty.
3/9/05:  Concurrence obtained from ECE, based on name change from proposed "Introduction to Computer Vision" to "Computer Vision for Human-Computer Interaction".
Completed and to registrar as of 5/31/05
CSE 694I/634 syllabus
CSE 694K: Network Security (Arora, Xuan)
10/11/04: Weide has contacted Arora, Xuan requesting an Au04 review of the Sp04 first pilot offering, possible approval for Sp05 offering.
10/21/04: Review of Sp04 offering was conducted, and CC recommends second pilot offering in Sp05.
Approved for Sp05 offering
CSE 694K syllabus
CSE 694L: Introduction to Data Visualization (Crawfis, Machiraju)
10/11/04: Weide has contacted Crawfis, Machiraju requesting an Au04 review of the Sp04 second pilot offering, possible approval for Sp05 offering as permanent course.
10/28/04: Review of Sp05 pilot was conducted.  CC recommends, consistent with wishes of the faculty offering the course, to offer a third pilot in Sp05 to consolidate the best features of the first two pilots.
Approved for Sp05 offering
CSE 694L syllabus
CSE 694Z -> CSE 674: Introduction to Datamining (Parthasarathy)
10/11/04: Weide has contacted Parthasarathy requesting an Au04 review of the Sp04 second pilot offering, possible approval for Sp05 offering as permanent course.
10/14/04: Proposed new CSE 674: Introduction to Datamining approved by CC.
10/25/04: Proposed new CSE 674: Introduction to Datamining approved by Fac.
Approved for Sp05 offering (694Z) as of 3/9/05
Completed (674) and to registrar as of 3/29/05
CSE 674 syllabus
CSE 732: Computational Linguistics (Byron)
10/11/04: Weide has contacted Byron about follow-up to last year's CC discussion about resurrecting this course.
10/21/05: Review of Sp04 offering was conducted.  CC recommends approval of proposed course changes.
11/7/04: Proposed changes to CSE 732 approved by Fac.
Completed and to registrar as of 12/14/04
CSE 732 syllabus
CSE 739: Knowledge-Based Systems in Engineering -> Biologically Inspired Computing (Adeli)
1/24/05: Proposed changes discussed by CC; revisions to be done by Adeli and Weide for future discussion (scheduled 2/21/05).
2/21/05: Proposed changes that are OK with Adeli discussed by CC; recommendation of CC is to approve, but not without reservations, so the issue will be brought to a faculty meeting.
3/14/05: Fac balked at CC recommendation, asking that Adeli meet with CSE AI faculty to discuss this course further.  (Weide so informed Adeli, and has not heard of any additional communications.)
In progress (Adeli, AI faculty)
CSE 739 syllabus (recommended by CC but not approved by Fac)
CSE/ECE 894U-> CSE/ECE 767: Applied Use-Case-Driven Object-Oriented Design for Engineers and Scientists (Khan)
10/28/04: Weide has invited Khan (ECE) to present this proposed new course at the 11/18/04 CC meeting.
12/2/04:  Review of pilot offerings was conducted.  Proposed new CSE 767 approved by CC.
2/14/05:  Proposed new CSE 767 approved by Faculty.
Approved for Sp05 offering (694Q) as of 3/9/05
Completed (767) and to registrar as of 3/29/05
CSE/ECE 767 syllabus
CSE 782: Advanced 3D Image Generation (Crawfis)
10/15/04: Graphics group has requested changing prerequisite from 781 to 681, which now "covers all the foundational material" needed for this course.  Weide determined this was a cosmetic change, no vote needed.
Completed and to registrar as of 12/14/04
CSE 794L: Foundations of Spoken Language Processing (Fosler-Lussier)
10/11/04: Fosler-Lussier will teach this in Wi05; first pilot offering; Sp05 review planned.
3/28/05:After review of a successful pilot in Wi05, CC recommended that this course be piloted again in Wi06. Fosler-Lussier will work with Reeves to get the paperwork submitted for this.
In progress (Fosler-Lussier, Reeves)
Course Groups and Curricula
Software Spine course group report (Long, Weide) 10/11/04: Weide has contacted proposed coordinators, requesting Au04 review.
11/4/04: Report was discussed by CC, and was suggested as a "model" for other reports because it specifically reflects on concerns of the previous report for this course group, explains what actions have been taken, what else is new in this part of the curriculum and why, and what new/continuing concerns have arisen and will call for future work.
Completed
Software Spine course group report
Programming Languages course group report (Soundarajan, Rountev)
10/11/04: Weide has contacted proposed coordinators, requesting Au04 review.
3/7/05: Report was discussed by CC.  Main issues involve updates/improvements to most CSE 459 courses, and need to offer CSE 756 again soon.
Completed
Programming Languages course group report
Graphics course group report (Crawfis, Shen) 10/11/04: Weide has contacted proposed coordinators, requesting Wi05 review.
5/17/05: Report was discussed by CC.  No major issues.
Completed
Graphics course group report
Software Engineering course group report (Sivilotti, Ramnath)
10/11/04: Weide has contacted proposed coordinators, requesting Wi05 review.
5/31/05: Report was discussed by CC.  No major issues.
Completed
Software Engineering course group report
Artificial Intelligence course group report (Davis, Fosler-Lussier)
10/11/04: Weide has contacted proposed coordinators, requesting Sp05 review.
5/31/05: Report discussion postponed until Au05 because of lack of time this year.
In progress (Davis, Fosler-Lussier)
Draft Artificial Intelligence course group report for discussion in Au05
Networking and Security course group report (Lai)
1/10/05:  Lai asked to create the networking/security report during the next quarter (subsequently scheduled for April 19).
4/19/05: Report was discussed by CC.  Main issues involve top-down coverage of topics in 677 and 678, which may involve some course title and/or description changes to reflect what is now being donw in most offerings; and 777, which probably should morph into a course on wireless, optical, and sensor network (to be considered more carefully in Au05 when Chlamtac arrives).
Completed
Networking and Security course group report
Policies and Miscellaneous
Review course lab loads (Steele) 9/28/04: Steele will poll the faculty on this; it does not require CC action, but is a documentation update.
In progress (Steele)
Create policy on cross-listing courses
9/28/04:  A subcommittee (Fosler-Lussier, Long, Parthasarathy, Weide) met over the summer; a proposed policy statement will be written up for presentation to the CC this year, depending on how crowded the agenda gets.
In progress (Weide)



2.  Meeting Minutes

  1. 9/28/04
  2. 10/14/04
  3. 10/21/04
  4. 10/28/04
  5. 11/4/04
  6. 12/2/04
  7. 1/10/05
  8. 1/24/05
  9. 2/7/05
  10. 2/14/05
  11. 2/21/05
  12. 3/7/05
  13. 3/28/05
  14. 4/5/05
  15. 4/12/05
  16. 4/19/05
  17. 4/26/05
  18. 5/3/05
  19. 5/10/05
  20. 5/17/05
  21. 5/31/05

9/28/04: (Boon, Bucci, Buehrer, Davis, Fosler-Lussier, Reeves, Schwaberow, Soundarajan, Steele, Weide)
Because an earlier poll of members for potentially workable meeting times yielded no time when all members can make it, Weide will poll everyone again. [Subsequently determined to be Thursdays at 8:30 AM.]
Weide listed plans, to begin the discussion.  By the end of the meeting, these were the known activities the committee will need to be engaged in this academic year.  Faculty whose names appear with any of the items should plan to appear before the committee in the quarter indicated.  Faculty who would like to spearhead any of the changes suggested below, or knowing of other things that will need to be considered by the Curriculum Committee this year, or not knowing what the committee expects from them in any regard, should let Weide know ASAP.
Collect most up-to-date course syllabi and tie them to official OSU course descriptions: Weide has asked Zweben for administrative help to develop a true database of CSE courses, to tie it to the official course description information in the OSU files, and to use it as a "single point of control" to generate official syllabi, etc., for ABET evaluation.  Once this is in place, all faculty will be asked to suggest needed changes to the courses they coordinate and/or teach.  Soundarajan will send Weide a partial list of faculty from whom to start collecting the most up-to-date syllabi we have, since there is no central repository of this information now.
Weide reported that the group responsible for proposing such a policy has met and formulated ideas for a tentative proposal, which Weide will write up soon for presentation to the committee.

10/14/04: (Bucci, Buehrer, Fosler-Lussier, Parthasarathy, Reeves, Schwaberow, Soundarajan, Steele, Weide)
In response to items noted at the previous meeting, two other matters were raised. One is to consider making CSE 294R: Perl Programming into a regular 459 for Sp05 offering (Bob Joseph).  The other is a suggestion (from Debby Gross) to look into offering an advanced version of CSE 200.  These were added to the agenda for the year, and Weide has contacted the principals to try to schedule meetings with the committee.

The current tentative meeting schedule for Au04 is as follows.  The people listed as responsible for these items are asked contact Weide ASAP to confirm that they will be prepared and available to attend the scheduled meetings (Thursdays at 8:30 in DL 698):
Noticing that rarely, if ever, do faculty meeting votes on Curriculum Committee matters result in controversy or changes, Weide proposed that approvals of most CC recommendations be expedited.  It was agreed that the committee should recommend faculty approval of the following kind of approach:  The faculty will be notified of Curriculum Committee recommendations through the usual electronic channels, and be asked to raise questions and concerns.  Any faculty member concerned about a recommendation, to the extent that he/she would like to discuss it and vote at a faculty meeting, would have the right to request that action.  In the absence of such a request within a week, the recommendation would be considered approved by the faculty without a formal vote.
Parthasarathy presented information about his Sp04 CSE 694Z offering, and proposed making it into a permanent course, CSE 674.  He noted that enrollments for the two pilot offerings have been 27 and 22, with about 1/3 undergrads and 2/3 grad students.  In Sp04, there were three non-CS majors.  Student feedback was very positive, as was a peer review of teaching conducted in Sp04, indicating that especially the course projects were valuable for the students and that the materials were well-prepared and mature.  The proposed 600-level number may help attract more undergrads.  There was discussion about whether the course could be a capstone design course, but it was agreed that in its current form there was too much new material for that to be feasible.  Parthasarathy was urged to explore how to bring a datamining project into an existing capstone design course (e.g., CSE 762 or 772), or in the longer run to create a capstone design course as a follow-up to this one.  The Curriculum Committee recommended approval of the proposed CSE 674, and asked Parthasarathy to work with Reeves to get the paperwork prepared while awaiting a faculty vote on the issue.

10/21/04: (Arora, Buehrer, Byron, Crawfis, Fosler-Lussier, Soundarajan, Steele, Weide)
Byron reviewed changes tentatively approved last year for CSE 732: an updated description, revised prerequisites so some linguistics students also can take the course, and a change from 3 to 4 credit-hours.  The latter change is based on piloting the new version in Sp04, where feedback suggested that a large project in the course was very valuable for the students, and also quite time-consuming.  The Curriculum Committee recommended approval of the proposed changes.  Byron will work with Reeves to complete the paperwork for a course change.
Arora presented information about his Sp04 CSE 694K offering, and proposed piloting it again in Sp05 before making it into a permanent course (possible number: CSE 687).  He noted that enrollment for the pilot was 25, with about 1/2 undergrads and 1/2 grad students.  Most of the material was taught by Arora, with Xuan presenting the last four lectures.  Student feedback was largely positive and there is every indication that student interest will remain high for anything that has to do with "security".  Changes anticipated for the second pilot include reducing the number of projects from 3 to 2, trying some projects that use actual testbed networks rather than only analyses on paper, and not using the SIEFAST tool because it has a long learning curve.  The Curriculum Committee recommended approval of the proposed Sp05 second pilot of 694K, and asked Arora to work with Reeves to get the paperwork prepared for this.
After some faculty balked at the proposal about not explicitly voting on new course requests, course change requests, and course withdrawal requests, the Curriculum Committee agreed to recommend the following revised procedure to the faculty at the next opportunity:
The faculty shall be notified of all Curriculum Committee recommendations through the usual electronic channels for meeting minutes.  Each new course request and course withdrawal request shall come to the faculty for a formal vote.  Any faculty member concerned about a recommendation for a course change request, to the extent that he/she would like to discuss it and vote at a faculty meeting, shall have the right to request that action.  In the absence of such a request within a week after notice of the recommendation is given, a course change request recommended by the Curriculum Committee shall be considered approved by the faculty without a formal vote.
[Note: This was approved by the CSE Faculty at a meeting on November 7, 2004.]

10/28/04: (Bucci, Buehrer, Crawfis, Fosler-Lussier, Joseph, Lai, Machiraju, Reeves, Schwaberow, Soundarajan, Steele, Weide)
It was agreed that the CSE 670 prerequisites should be enforced, based on reports from Gurari that some (graduate) students from other departments have been taking the course without the prerequisites and have complained that the course should be slowed down to accommodate them.  Reeves will make sure that the registrar's "prerequisite enforcement" option is put into effect for this course.  Fosler-Lussier reported that the other course where similar problems might be expected to arise, i.e., CSE 630, has not experienced the same problem.  So, the hope is that this is a special situation unique to CSE 670.
Joseph presented information about his Sp04 CSE 294R offering, and proposed making it permanent as 459.51: Perl Programming.  Enrollments in pilots the last three years have been 37, 20, and 20, so anticipated enrollment of about 20 is expected.  One change that should be made based on student feedback is that there should be a CGI lab, and Joseph has determined that this is feasible.  The Curriculum Committee recommended approval, and asked Joseph to work with Reeves to get the paperwork prepared.
Crawfis and Machiraju reported on the Sp04 offering, and compared it to the Sp03 offering.  Enrollments have been 18 (Sp03) and 11 (Sp04), about half-and-half grads and undergrads, and with several ECE students in Sp04 especially.  After two pilot offerings, Crawfis and Machiaraju decided that the course should be more about using tools to build data visualization applications (more like the Sp03 offering) than about how to build the tools (as in the Sp04 offering).  It was decided that the course should be piloted again, but as a 4-cr-hr course because of the intensive lab work involved in the valuable (and cool :-) projects.  Specific changes will include a focus on using tools to build applications, having more non-scientific data visualization applications, and giving exams as appropriate for a typical regular course.  The Committee approved another pilot offering to consolidate the best features of the two previous pilots.  Crawfis and Machiraju will work with Reeves to get the paperwork prepared and to the college ASAP so this can be offered in Sp05.

11/4/04: (Bucci, Buehrer, Crawfis, Fosler-Lussier, Lai, Long, Reeves, Soundarajan, Steele, Weide)
Long presented this report on the CSE 221/222/321 sequence.  The previous report was updated to reflect the new CSE and ABET objectives/outcomes, actions that have been taken to address concerns raised in the previous report, other course group changes that have been made and that are anticipated, and a new set of concerns.  Among the conclusions:
  1. The Undergraduate Advising Office will hand out a short statement prepared by Long, which explains the content and context of the course sequence, to all new first-quarter freshmen in the ENG 100 and MPS 100 survey courses.
  2. The frequent failure of students to "transfer" ideas from 321 to 560 and 655 is a "tough problem".  It is recognized in educational circles that it is not natural for students to spontaneously realize that the things they see in, say, 560 and 655, are closely connected to some of the same ideas they used in, say, 321.  We should not expect all or even most students to make these connections for themselves.
  3. A continuing concern is how much students should be exposed to "standard" software technology and tools used in industry, and where in the curriculum this should happen.  It was suggested that courses such as CSE 459.22 (C++) and CSE 459.23 (Java) might be the place for this, especially since as currently taught they are something of a waste for students who are coming out of CSE 321 because they do not build on knowledge obtained in the software spine courses.  Similarly, although CSE 502: OOP for Engineers and Scientists may not be taken for technical elective credit, a few CSE/CIS majors have taken it nonetheless and seem to have found it helpful after taking some or all of the software spine courses.  Another suggestion was that there might be a series of courses parallel to the 459 language courses in which students would learn to use current tools popular in software development in industry.  In an ideal world, this might be nice, but the cost of offering a variety of such courses would seem to be prohibitive, so the 459 route might be more feasible.
Soundarajan suggested that this course group report would serve as a good model for others, in that it builds on the previous report for this course group, highlights concerns raised in the previous report and explains what has been done about them, notes other changes that have been made and are anticipated, and raises additional concerns that require the attention of the course group.

12/2/04: (Bucci, Buehrer, Fosler-Lussier, Khan, Reeves, Soundarajan, Steele, Weide)

Khan explained the pilot experiences with this course, numbered 894U. It was taught in Sp01 with 10 CIS and 20 EE students, and in Sp03 with 8 CIS and 11 EE students. The 800 number certainly discouraged undergraduates, who should be able to take the course, suggesting that a 700 number should be used. The pilots were project-based, done by individuals, and there were no exams. Feedback from students was largely positive. The issue of shared teaching responsibility for this cross-listed course can be addressed not by sharing within this one course, but by keeping the system in place that has been used for piloting this and the other Applied Software Engineering courses: this course can be taught in Sp of odd-numbered years by Khan of ECE, and the complementary course can be taught in Sp of even-numbered years by Sivilotti of CSE.

Course numbering poses a problem. It would be nice to use the same number in both departments, and 767 is available. The trouble is that 768 as a prerequisite to 767 may be confusing. Also, there is no available number in the same group X6X that can be used for the complementary course taught by Sivilotti that is still in the pilot phase. Suggestion: make the change from 768 to 668, thereby freeing up the number 768 for future use. This would make 668 a prerequisite for both 767 (this new course) and the planned new 768. We would have to wait 5 years for 768 to become an available number again, or try to get a waiver of some kind. But since the proposed new course with that number is taught only every other year, and can be piloted again as a group studies, we should be close enough to being able to use 768 when it's ready to be made permanent that there will be a relatively easy solution at the time. In other words, the proposed solution is, "let's generally plan for this, and cross the bridge when we come to it."

The Committee recommended approval of this new course proposal, and the general plan for renumbering 768 to 668 (which will need to be discussed before being voted on, because there may be other minor clean-up changes we will want to make to the course at that time).


1/10/05: (Buehrer, Crawfis, Fosler-Lussier, Lai, Ramnath, Reeves, Soundarajan, Steele, Weide)

Ramnath reported that he is looking at hand-held computer projects for CSE 758. To do this, he needs to identify some specific projects for groups to work on, and to get some hand-held devices along with appropriate peripherals (e.g., bar-code scanners). The Committee agreed that this would be a fine direction in which to look for capstone software engineering projects, and urged Ramnath to contact the Computer Committee about resource issues, with the support of the Curriculum Committee for the concept.


1/24/05: (Adeli, Buehrer, Byron, Crawfis, Fosler-Lussier, Reeves, Schwaberow, Soundarajan, Steele, Wang, Weide)
This course has evolved over the last 10 years, as has the "modern" treatment of AI.  The proposed changes would focus the course on "biologically inspired computing".  This would be a survey course for engineers and scientists in various disciplines.  It was agreed that Adeli and Weide (with the advice of the AI group) would work out details of a syllabus that should not overlap significantly with 630 or 730, and that would emphasize the focus on the many paradigms and a significant project chosen by each student.  [This was subsequently done; a link to the proposed syllabus is in the table above, and will be discussed at the 21 Feb CC meeting. -BWW]


2/7/05: (Crawfis, Davis, Fosler-Lussier, Lai, Schwaberow, Soundarajan, Weide)
The third pilot of this proposed new course was taught in Au04.  The content of the course is stable and seems to have worked well.  Enrollments in the pilots have been increasing, up to 23 in Au04; most students were CSE/CIS grads, with a few undergrads and a few students from ECE and Geodetic Science, for example.  The course has been discussed in detail with Kim Boyer from ECE, who teaches a grad-only ECE course on computer vision in Spring quarter, and there is essentially no overlap of material; ECE concurrence is therefore expected.  The Curriculum Committee recommended approval.

2/14/05: (Crawfis, Fosler-Lussier, Soundarajan, Steele, Weide)
Weide demonstrated the syllabus database application previously requested of the CSE computing staff, and developed by Shaun Rowland.  Everyone was pleased with the functionality.  Some minor suggestions were offered (and communicated to Rowland); most are features that can wait until version 2 when Rowland has time to incorporate them.  The Committee recommended that course coordinators be responsible for entering their current official syllabi into the system (probably starting the week of Feb 21, when Rowland will have it ready to "go live").  Weide will announce the availability of the system and the responsibility assignments to populate the database, by e-mail to the faculty when the system is available for their use.

2/21/05: (Buehrer, Compton, Crawfis, Fosler-Lussier, Salyers, Soundarajan, Weide)
Compton and Salyers explained the WebCT version of CSE 100, called CSE 100D, that will be offered in Sp05.  There was considerable discussion of details about the course and materials, focusing on how it was intended to differ from the CSE 100 "live" version.  The primary difference is that the midterm and final exam, for which students are required to appear in person with an ID, are more heavily weighted in CSE 100D grading.  The assignments still count, there are still timed quizzes, etc., but they do not count as much because it would be easy to cheat on those.  The committee will review this offering in Au05.
Gross was unable to attend because she had to cover for a CSE 200 instructor at 1:30.  She will be invited back next term to discuss these plans.
Weide presented a compromise syllabus that is acceptable to Adeli and seems to address most of the concerns voiced in earlier discussions of this course.  The committee voted to recommend acceptance of the course change proposal, though with reservations, and asked that it be brought to the faculty at the next opportunity without waiting for someone to ask for that step.

3/7/05: (Buehrer, Reeves, Rountev, Schwaberow, Soundarajan, Steele, Weide)
The Programming Languages course group report was presented and discussed.  Issues included making more explicit to students in CSE 655 the connections with their CSE 321 and CSE 560 projects, and the textbook for CSE 755.  there were two actiion items: there is a need for significant improvements in some of the CSE 459 courses (primarily 459.21, 459.22, and 459.23: C, C++, and Java) to better recognize and build on the CSE 321 background of students, and we should resume offering CSE 756 to meet student demand.  These concerns will be addressed by clarifying the responsibility for course coordination of the 459's, and asking the coordinators to work on solutions that can be discussed by Au05; and by considering Bob Mathis to be a potential CSE 756 instructor.

3/28/05: (Bucci, Buehrer, Crawfis, Fosler-Lussier, Heym, Lai, Reeves, Schwaberow, Weide)

Heym reported that the CSE 360 instructors had adopted some internal changes to course content in response to student concerns expressed last year about preparation of CSE students for ECE 567. The problem was that the other students entering ECE 567, coming from ECE 265, already knew the instruction set of the Motorola M68HC11 (which is used in ECE 567); the CSE students did not, putting them at a disadvantage. Heym added two days of material, and a homework, introducing the M68HC11 instruction set and comparing it to the three others discussed in CSE 360. He will work with Steele to monitor the progress of about 10 students from CSE 360 in Wi05 and, when they take ECE 567, he will contact them to ask whether they felt this helped them feel prepared for ECE 567.

Fosler-Lussier described the Wi05 pilot offering of this course. He used an interesting approach to organizing the class time: Tuesdays were devoted to lectures, and Thursdays to lab time where students brought in laptops and shared them among small groups to do activities with various tools and systems. This seemed to work well; about 1/4 of the students brought in laptops, so the groups were of reasonable size and the students enjoyed the activities. He also had students do presentations, which took about three class periods; this will be incorporated into a revised syllabus. This time, students taking the course were advised to consider taking CSE 779 concurrently, but only about 6 students did that and the planned coordination between projects did not work out well. So, this will not be recommended in the future. Student feedback about the course was largely positive.

The conclusion was that this course should be piloted one more time, probably in Wi06, in order to get a better reading on steady-state enrollment. After that, if it is to be made into a permanent course, we should be able to decide whether it will be taught every year or every other year. Fosler-Lussier will work with Reeves to get the paperwork submitted for this.


4/5/05: (Bucci, Buehrer, Crawfis, Fosler-Lussier, Lai, Reeves, Schwaberow, Soundarajan, Steele, Weide)

Weide reported that OAA, via the College of Engineering, has asked departments to withdraw, or justify keeping on the books, courses not taught in the past five years. For CSE, the list of courses provided to us is:

The conclusion, after input from faculty via e-mail and from the Committee members, is that we should allow the registrar to automatically withdraw 459.01, 548, 615, 650, 752, and 899. We should ask to keep the rest, generally on the grounds that our current department plans call for hiring faculty in some of these areas or they are otherwise gaining in significance and we plan to resurrect the associated courses. Weide will prepare the response to the college request for justification, then pass it on to Zweben (who asked to see it before it was sent up). [Subsequently, Stu reviewed the recommendation, asked some questions and was satisfied with the answers, and sent it up the line without modification. -- BWW]


4/12/05: (Arora, Crawfis, Fosler-Lussier, Lai, Romig, Schwaberow, Soundarajan, Weide, Xuan)

Romig, who taught this pilot course in Wi05, explained some of the course details. There were 17 students, all CSE or CIS students, all juniors and seniors except for one graduate student. One of the original objectives was to attract non-CS students to this course, but they did not come. Perhaps the advertising for the course was not adequate; Tony Mughan from Political Science and the Mershon Center told Romig that he would have provided 12 students for the course had he known about it (so we should remember this next year). Students wrote 8-10-page reports and made 10-minute presentations; the latter might have to be curtailed if the enrollment is greater. The textbook was not ideal but was acceptable, and seems to be the best currently available. The course got very positive feedback from the students.

Two key issues were discussed at length. First, Romig noted that the audience for the class asked for technical details, and these were discussed frequently in class. With a more diverse audience, this might not be possible. Second, because of the extra coverage of technical details, there was concern about overlap between this course and the Sp05 CSE 694K: "Network Security" being taught by Arora. Xuan had prepared a very nice summary of the areas of overlap and non-overlap, with details about content in the overlapping topics. This persuaded the committee that the overlap was minimal, and that there are at least two legitimate courses' worth of material here. CSE 494I or its permanent successor should focus on general information security concepts and the uses of policies and mechanisms for information security. CSE 694K or its permanent successor should focus on network security in particular (which is possible with CSE 677 as a prerequisite) and on the internal technical details of the policies and mechanisms. There could be other courses waiting in the wings if the security area becomes increasingly important: perhaps a capstone design course, and a forensics course. There is already plenty of potential content, but it is not known whether there would be significant demand for other such courses so we will revisit this next year or later.

The committee recommended that X50-X54 numbers, essentially now abandoned in our numbering scheme, should be reserved for security courses. It also recommended that CSE 494I should be made permanent as CSE 551 with a first offering in Wi06. This is not a terribly high number (which would discourage non-CS undergrads) but it makes the course available for grad credit for non-CS majors interested in security issues in general (for whom it is entirely appropriate). Romig, Arora, and Xuan will make sure the CSE 494I syllabus is up-to-date and entered in the CSE Syllabus Database. Weide will then use that to create a proposed syllabus for CSE 551, and work with Reeves to complete new-course paperwork so the faculty can vote on this in early May.

The committee received draft copies of the Networking Course Group Report to read. But the report has not been completed yet so it will be presented and discussed next week.


4/19/05: (Buehrer, Crawfis, Fosler-Lussier, Lai, Reeves, Schwaberow, Soundarajan, Steele, Weide, Xuan)

The new name of this group is "Networking and Security", since a couple new courses in the security area are included in this group now. Some discussion centered on those two courses, CSE 494I (recently approved to become permanent as CSE 551) and CSE 694K (currently being piloted for the second time). Another main topic concerned CSE 677 and CSE 678, and the general move toward top-down coverage of the topics. The group is considering reversing CSE 677 and CSE 678 in terms of topics, so the overall order effectively would be "TCP first" in CSE 677 and lower-level protocols in CSE 678. Finally, there was some discussion of CSE 777, which the group may decide to morph into a course on wireless, optical, and sensor networks. This also will be considered more carefully in Au05. The timing of proposed changes has been affected by when Imrich Chlamtac arrives. The recent addition of David Lee and the now-imminent addition of Chlamtac make something of an overhaul of these courses very likely.


4/26/05: (Fosler-Lussier, Gross, Reeves, Schwaberow, Soundarajan, Steele, Weide)

Debby Gross presented a vision for a distance-learning version of CSE 200, with a helpful presentation on the main issues involved in creating a distance-learning version of such a course. The committee discussed several possible structures for an on-line course. The conclusion was that when this is piloted (and it should be), it should use the same format for assignments, labs, exams, and grading as the regular course, with changes based only on experience if this structure causes problems. It was suggested that Gross contact someone from the Ohio Learning Network (OLN), and check on the presentation format and detailed structure of some of the Fisher College of Business on-line courses (because may students in CSE 200 are business majors).

The plan recommended by the committee is for Gross to pilot a distance-learning version of CSE 200 in Au05 by selecting student volunteers from among those who register for the regular sections of CSE 200; that is, there would be no separate course number or sign-up for the distance learning pilot. Then, based on early experiences with these students, a decision about whether to offer CSE 200D ("distance") in Wi06 would need to be made fairly early in Au05.

Soundarajan passed out a proposal to change the Course Group Report format to introduce a new element of "direct assessment" of how well courses are meeting course objectives, based on faculty perception of student performance. All members were asked to read the handout before the next meeting so it can be discussed then. It is at:

http://www.cse.ohio-state.edu/~neelam/abet/cgrChanges.html


5/3/05: (Bucci, Buehrer, Crawfis, Fosler-Lussier, Reeves, Soundarajan, Steele, Supowit, Weide)

Supowit explained the plan presented recently to the Undergraduate Studies Committee (jointly with David Mathias) to offer an honors version fo CSE 680 in Sp06 and an honors version of CSE 625 in Au06. Zweben is OK with this in terms of teaching loads, etc., and asked the team to see whether any funding is available to help support new honors courses. The Curriculum Committee briefly discussed possible content, format, grading, and other differences between honors and regular versions of these courses. There were also questions about potential enrollments and "advertising" so students will know about these plans.

It was agreed that Supowit and Mathias will provide a blurb to Steele to announce the plans for the Sp06 and Au06 honors offerings, so she can send it to all CSE and CIS honors students to facilitate their program planning. It was also agreed that Supowit and Mathias will "ask the customers" (e.g., honors students they know, students in CSE 680 this term) about what features they might like in an honors version. Finally, the course content and format details will be discussed by this committee early in Au05 so any paperwork changes needed to offer an honors version of CSE 680 in Sp06 can be done by mid-October. This gives the team some time over the summer to plan those details.

Soundarajan presented his proposal to change the Course Group Report format to introduce a new element of "direct assessment" of how well courses are meeting course objectives, based on faculty perception of student performance. The committee endorsed this proposal. Weide will work with Shaun Rowland and the CSE computing staff to try to get automated support installed over the summer for faculty review of course objectives and data collection. This will facilitate the new feature of CGR preparation in the future.

Meanwhile, the plan will be tested this quarter as follows. Soundarajan will first revise the recent Programming Languages report as a model, and Weide will make sure the Software Spine report is updated in a similar way. Those preparing the Graphics, Software Engineering, and Artificial Intelligence reports will be asked to perform the assessment, and to discuss it, each for an important subset of courses: 581 and 682, 560 and 758, and 630 and 731, respectively. Details of the plan are at:

http://www.cse.ohio-state.edu/~neelam/abet/cgrChanges.html


5/10/05: (Bucci, Buehrer, Fosler-Lussier, Reeves, Soundarajan, Steele, Weide)

Weide explained course changes that would be associated with an Applied Software Engineering Graduate Minor that is to be proposed.  These would involve:

The committee briefly discussed these suggestions and did not see any objections.  Weide will return to the committee in Au05 with specific course change proposals to facilitate the proposed ASE grad minor.


5/17/05: (Bucci, Crawfis, Fosler-Lussier, Lai, Reeves, Shen, Soundarajan, Steele, Weide)
Crawfis and Shen presented the Graphics CGR.  The discussion centered on responses to concerns raised in the previous report, and additional major changes since then (1999).  The group was commended for being proactive in its responses to the need for a new introductory graphics course, resulting in CSE 581; and for development of the successful CSE 682 capstone course in coordination with ACCAD.  Regarding continuing concerns, it was suggested that it might be appropriate to drop CSE 560 as a prerequisite for CSE 581.  The committee agreed that Crawfis and Shen should clean up some typos and formatting, and submit the report after minor revision.

5/31/05: (Bucci, Ramnath, Reeves, Schwaberow, Sivilotti, Soundarajan, Steele, Weide)
Ramnath and Sivilotti presented the Graphics CGR.  The discussion centered on responses to concerns raised in the previous report, additional major changes since then (1999), and especially the relationships between the courses and the ABET Criterion 3 and CSE outcomes.  The group was commended for being proactive in responding to interest in "applied" courses, both from CSE/CIS majors and non-majors; for continuing development of CSE 601, and especially for current directions in the CSE 758 capstone.  Regarding continuing concerns, it was suggested that the group should (as noted in its draft report) continue to monitor the impact of off-shoring and business needs onthe software engineering curriculum.  The committee agreed that Ramnath and Sivilotti should clean up some typos and formatting, and submit the report after minor revision.