CSE Curriculum Committee Agendas and Minutes (2005-2006)

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  9/23/05: The usual checks needed to update prerequisites, etc., will be done on an as-needed basis during the year.  In progress (Weide)
ASE Grad Minor course changes (Weide) 9/23/05: Several minor course changes will be required to fully implement the Applied Software Engineering Graduate Minor, a proposal for which was approved by Fac in Sp05.  Weide will work with ECE to make sure they endorse the proposal, and will recommend specific course changes, in Au05.
3/7/06: CC discussed and recommended a list of changes; faculty approval by e-mail after one week.
 All approvals completed as of 6/21/06
CSE 294A: Computing Fundamentals in Context: Digital Images and Sound; and CSE 294I: Computing Fundamentals in Context: Creative Interactive Media (Bair, Bucci, Heym) 9/23/05: Tentative plans to pilot a new service course, patterned after Mark Guzdial's intro course at Ga Tech, were shelved last year; these should be revisited.  Weide will check with Bair and Bucci to see if they still want to do this.
11/29/05: Ideas discussed by CC.  Bair and Bucci will pursue some of these ideas and report back.
1/25/06: Heym will be involved in a related development on interactive multimedia, e.g., games; to be discussed in early Sp06.
4/11/06: CC discussed and approved Heym's proposal for CSE 294I: "Computing Fundamentals in Context: Creative Interactive Media" for Au06 pilot offering.
5/2/06: CC discussed and approved Bucci's proposal for CSE 294I: "Computing Fundamentals in Context: Digital Images and Sounds" for Au06 pilot offering.
 Completed and ready for Au06 pilot offerings as of 5/26/06
CSE 459.22 prerequisite change (Soundarajan, Weide) 9/23/05: CC never completed an earlier task to remove 459.21 (C Programming) as a prerequisite to 459.22 (C++ Programming).
10/4/05: Approved by CC.  Will be considered approved by Fac if no objections by 10/12/05.		 All approvals completed as of 3/7/06
CSE H625 (Supowit) 9/23/05: Supowit will present H625 proposal later this year, to be taught in 2006-07.
5/6/06: CC discussed and recommended approval of CSE H625 in Wi, starting Wi07.  Approved at subsequent faculty meeting.
 All approvals completed as of 6/26/06
CSE H680 (Mathias) 9/23/05: Mathias will present H680 proposal first, to be taught Sp06.  Plan from last year is to phase out CSE H221 and CSE H222 as these are phased in.
10/4/05: Approved by CC.  Will be considered approved by Fac if no objections by 10/12/05.
11/18/05: CSE H680 will be on Sp06 master schedule.		 CSE H680 approved by CCAA as of 11/18/05; funding approved by Honors & Scholars as of 11/18/05; approvals complete and on schedule as of 12/5/05
CSE 694K -> 651: Network Security (Arora, Xuan) 10/21/04: Review of Sp04 offering was conducted, and CC recommends second pilot offering in Sp05.
10/3/05: Course was offered again in Sp05.  Weide has asked coordinators to be ready for a review in early Au05.
10/18/05: Will be considered at CC meeting on Nov 15.
11/15/05:  Approved by CC as CSE 651: Network Security.  Weide will ask for faculty approval.
11/28/05: Approved by Fac.  Reeves will prepare paperwork to be sent up the line.
 All approvals completed as of 2/14/06
CSE 694L: Introduction to Data Visualization (Crawfis, Machiraju) 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.
10/3/05: Weide has asked coordinators to be ready for a review in early Au05.
10/18/05: Crawfis prefers that the course will not be offered in Sp06; it might be offered every other year, though, so CC should take it up again before the end of this academic year.		 In progress (Crawfis, Machiraju)
CSE 762: Advanced Operating System Laboratory (Agrawal) 10/5/05: Agrawal would like to review Sp05 offering and propose title and description change; this will be discussed by CC at Nov 8 meeting.
11/8/05: Proposed changes approved by CC; Weide will ask for faculty concurrence.
1/6/06: Weide finally got around to asking Fac; oops!
 All approvals completed as of 3/7/06
CSE 778 prerequisite change (Soundarajan, Sadayappan) 9/23/05: CSE 778 probably should have ECE 567 as a prerequisite, since that course is required of all CSE majors.  Weide will work with Soundarajan and Saday to get this taken care of in Au05. In progress (Weide, Soundarajan, Sadayappan)
CSE 794J: Applied Enterprise IT Architectures (Ramanathan)
 1/17/06: CC discussed and approved offering this course as a pilot in Au06; Ramanthan will work with Reeves and Weide to prepare the paperwork.
 All approvals completed as of 5/26/06
CSE 794L: Foundations of Spoken Language Processing (Fosler-Lussier) 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.
9/23/05: Course is planned for Wi06.  After Wi06 offering, course will be reviewed again by CC in Sp06.
4/25/06: Agreed to offer as CSE 633 in alternate years, and to change CSE 732 to alternate years with number CSE 632; will be taken up again in Au06 to make official recommendation and faculty vote.
 In progress (Fosler-Lussier, Byron, Weide)
CSE 794R: Applied Enterprise Distributed Computing for Engineers and Scientists (Bucci) 10/4/05: Bucci will teach this every-even-year course in Sp06 (since Sivilotti is on leave); it probably should be made permanent after this offering, since this will be the third time it is taught -- but this time it is by a different faculty member.  Weide will contact Bucci to schedule a time for CC review of the last offering in Sp04.
1/31/06: CC reviewed last offering and approved a Sp06 final offering before making permanent; will be cross-listed with ECE 694R.

 All approvals completed; course being offered in Sp06
Course Groups and Curricula
Artificial Intelligence course group report (Davis, Fosler-Lussier) 5/31/05: Report discussion postponed until Au05 because of lack of time this year.  Weide has asked AI group to present this early in Au05.
10/5/05: CC will read the draft AI report and discuss it at the Oct 18 meeting; Davis and Fosler-Lussier will only be able to make part of the meeting because of class conflicts, but preliminary discussion will simplify later consideration.
10/25/05: CC discussed this at the Oct 18 and Oct 25 meetings; Fosler-Lussier and Davis will lead the group in making some revisions based on the discussion, and report back when they have completed a new draft.		 In progress (Davis, Fosler-Lussier)
Operating Systems course group report (?) 10/25/05: This course group report was last done in 2004, but changes in 762 that were proposed then should be incorporated.  Weide will find faculty to take the lead, since Mamrak has retired. In progress (Weide)
Theory/Foundations course group report (Mathias) 10/25/05: Weide will find faculty to take the lead on this report, with a late Wi06 deadline.
11/15/05: David Mathias has agreed to lead the effort and report in Wi06.
2/14/06: CC discussed and recommended minor revisions to the report; subsequently accepted as revised.
 Completed
Policies and Miscellaneous
Syllabus change to replace "objectives" with "outcomes" (Soundarajan, Weide) 9/23/05: The official CSE syllabi use the term "Objectives" where it would be more accurate to call them "Intended Learning Outcomes", consistent with ABET terminology.
10/4/05: Approved by CC; no further approvals needed.		 Completed
Review course lab loads (Steele) 9/23/05: Steele will poll the faculty on this; it does not require CC action, but is a documentation update. In progress (Steele)
Create detailed work flow process for course changes and new course requests (Weide) 10/17/05: Fosler-Lussier suggested a "policy flowchart" to document the workflow for course changes and new course requests, including pilot courses, so things don't get missed.  Weide will work on this after Jan 06. In progress (Weide)
Create standard process for course group reports to be incrementally updated (Weide) 10/18/05: Soundarajan suggested that we need a better way to do this, perhaps integrated with the syllabus database.  Weide will work on this after Jan 06. In progress (Weide)
Create policy on cross-listing courses 9/23/05:  It is not clear that this is still necessary.  ECE is the most interested partner, and they have decided they would generally prefer having courses listed separately in both departments and working together on advertising, audience, etc.  We would then teach courses in alternate years if enrollments did not justify offering them more often.  So, this will be a back-burner issue for now. In progress (Weide)

2.  Meeting Minutes

  1. 10/3/05
  2. 10/18/05
  3. 10/25/05
  4. 11/8/05
  5. 11/15/05
  6. 11/29/05
  7. 1/17/06
  8. 1/31/06
  9. 2/7/06
  10. 2/14/06
  11. 3/7/06
  12. 3/28/06
  13. 4/11/06
  14. 4/25/06
  15. 5/2/06
  16. 5/9/06
  17. 5/16/06
10/3/05: (Belkin, Bucci, Mathias, Parent, Reeves, Seddon, Soundarajan, Weide, Xuan) Mathias proposed to add an honors version of CSE 680, to be offered first in Sp06.  The committee discussed the relationship to CSE 680 (there will not be much overlap, and the final selection of enhanced topics will be made in consultation with other 680 and 780 instructors); whether Math 566 should be a prerequisite (it was agreed not to do this now, since 566 is not yet required for some majors now in the pipeline); and what the expected audience will be (this remains to be seen, but there is anecdotal evidence of enough student interest that will be monitored closely during registration for Sp06).  The CSE H680 section in Sp06 would replace a current CSE 680 section.  The proposal was unanimously approved. Soundarajan and Weide proposed to change the "Objectives" section heading in official CSE syllabi to "Intended Learning Outcomes".  There are two reasons for this: to be consistent with the terminology used by ABET, and to distinguish "learning" from "teaching" (so syllabi are written so courses are described in terms of what students are supposed to learn rather than in terms of what instructors are supposed to teach).  CSE has been diligent in the latter for many years, but the syllabus could better reflect this practice.  The proposal was unanimously approved.  Weide will ask Shaun Rowland to make this change in the CSE course database. The 1-cr-hr course CSE 459.22 (C++ Programming) still lists CSE 459.21 (C Programming) as a prerequisite.  Since Soundarajan has been course coordinator, the former has changed so it now builds on the other prerequisite, CSE 321; there is no reason for the C programming prerequisite.  It was also proposed that the course description be edited slightly so the word "elementary" is removed, since the C++ constructs involved are no longer limited to elementary ones.  (This description is not in the official OSU Course Bulletin, but it is in the department brochure and should be changed there.)  Both proposed changes were discussed and unanimously approved. The above table lists committee activities for the year, as of the current date.
10/18/05: (Belkin, Bucci, Ferhatosmanoglu, Fosler-Lussier, Lai, Mehta, Parent, Reeves, Seddon, Soundarajan, Weide, Xuan) Fosler-Lussier was able to make the first half of the meeting before his class; Davis had a class conflict.  Discussion focused initially on progress in working out problems with ECE.  The general plan favored by ECE, and OK with CC, is: (1) when courses would not have significant overlap and a course sequence involving both departments seems appropriate, an attempt will be made to coordinate on the sequence; and (2) when courses in the two departments would have substantial overlap but would present the material from different viewpoints because of their inherently different prerequisites for ECE and CSE students (e.g., A. Martinez's new ECE course on pattern recognition and CSE 735), rather than cross-listing the course it is preferred that they be listed separately but offered every other year in alternate years.  With this agreement, cross-listing with ECE should not be as big an issue in the future as it has been recently.

There may be a looming question with Statistics offering a course on "Pattern Recognition" this year.  We need to be prepared for this to see whether it is appropriate for CSE students, and to monitor how much it overlaps with the new ECE course in this area and with CSE 735.

Later discussion related to the two tables that describe the contributions of the AI courses to the CSE program outcomes and ABET criterion 3 points.  This will be continued next week.

10/25/05: (Belkin, Fosler-Lussier, Parent, Reeves, Seddon, Soundarajan, Steele, Weide) Most of the discussion was about the need to complete the evaluation of CSE 730 (Section 2.2 of the report), to update the intended learning outcomes to reflect the current textbook and emphasis of CSE 630 and CSE 730, and to answer CC questions about the contributions of the various courses to the outcomes listed in the two tables.  Fosler-Lussier and Davis will lead the AI faculty in considering these requested changes and will send the committee an updated draft within the next few weeks.  Further discussion, if needed, will be done by e-mail unless a significant new issue arises in this process.

11/8/05: (Agrawal, Belkin, Bucci, Ferhatosmanoglu, Parent, Soundarajan, Steele, Weide) Agrawal reported on the Sp05 offering of CSE 762, in which he piloted some changes from the long-standing traditional version of this course, which focused on advanced operating system implementation projects.  The most recent Operating Systems course group report led him to revisit this course because of specific capstone requirements such as documentation of design issues, oral presentations, etc.  The new version of the course was more about middleware and web services, XML, user interfaces, etc., than about traditional distributed OS concepts, though the connection is that each student project included at least one significant distributed algorithm (as one might encounter in a distributed OS scenario).  There were 14 students (7 undergrad, 7 grad) in Sp05, who worked in mostly 3-person teams on projects involving banking with failures and replication, a simulated war game based on the byzantine generals problem, and file sharing.  Most student evaluations were positive and Agrawal thought this was a good format for the future.  Discussion of connections to other courses indicated that there is not much overlap with CSE 794R (in the applied software engineering series), because CSE 762 isn't so much about new material but rather about students exploring some technology on their own and doing a capstone project with it; and there is not much overlap with CSE 763, which is more about concepts and algorithms rather than technology and practice.

Following discussion, it was agreed to change the title to "Web-Services-Based Distributed Systems Project"; the description to "Construction of a significant distributed software system using web services; team-based implementation of non-trivial algorithm(s) and realistic user interface"; the prerequisites to "601; 660; 662 or 677 or 760"; and cr-hrs from 3 to 4.  Weide will ask the faculty to approve the course change request and will ask Reeves to prepare the paperwork.


  11/15/05: (Arora, Bucci, Ferhatosmanoglu, Lai, Mehta, Parent, Reeves, Seddon, Soundarajan, Steele, Weide, Xuan) Arora reported on the Sp05 second pilot offering of CSE 694K: "Network Security".  Based on feedback from/about the Sp04 offering, this one included more on cryptography, some sensor network projects, and individual rather than team projects -- the latter change apparently resulting in less developed projects but more individual student learning.  (Nonetheless, Arora thought that with larger enrollment, team projects would be fine.)  Student reviews were even better than for the first offering.  Enrollment this time was only 11 (compared to 27 in Sp04), apparently because some students thought that this was the same as the new CSE 551 taught in Wi05, and perhaps because of the pent-up demand for the course the first time it was offered and because of weak advertising of the course offering.  It was agreed that we need to make sure that students understand that CSE 551 is a completely different course.  Indeed, CSE 551 is not needed as a prerequisite, though if students take both it is preferable that they take CSE 551 first.  The only real prerequisite needed for this course is CSE 677.

Following discussion, it was agreed to create the new course CSE 651: Network Security, based on the Sp05 pilot offering syllabus with only minor changes.  Weide will ask the faculty to approve the new course request and will ask Reeves to prepare the paperwork.


  11/29/05: (Belkin, Bucci, Parent, Reeves, Seddon, Soundarajan, Steele, Weide) There was considerable free-ranging discussion of adopting a course similar to "Introduction to Media Computation" (originated by Mark Guzdial at Georgia Tech).  Some conclusions:
[At a subsequent meeting attended by Bair, Bucci, Heym, Long, and Weide, it was suggested that we develop a systematic plan for organizing intro programming service courses.  It was recommended that we not try to achieve efficiency of operation by having a single intro course, or perhaps just two (as we have now); but rather that we should follow a customer-friendly approach that may involve a number of "context themes" around which course titles and content are organized.  For example, we might want "Intro to Business Computation", "Intro to Engineering Computation", and "Intro to Media Computation" courses, letting departments and/or students choose one.  Each of these could -- in principle -- be taught using any language as the delivery vehicle, e.g., Java, Python, C, Matlab, whatever.  Actual offerings could be determined by customer demand.  For example, "Business"/Java is similar to current 201; "Engineering"/C++ is similar to current 202.  Based on Guzdial's experience, perhaps we should focus next on "Media"/Python or Java, where materials are already available and data suggest that student interest is high and retention excellent.]

Bair, Bucci, and Weide will come back to propose a next step to the Committee.


  1/17/06: (Bucci, Ferhatosmanoglu, Lai, Parent, Ramanthan, Reeves, Seddon, Soundarajan, Steele, Weide) Ramanthan proposed to pilot in Au06 a new course absed on her successful offering of a 788 in Su05.  Feedback for the 788 was very good.  There were 10 students, including 5 non-CSE students beinging interest and expertise in business and public policy issues, who broke into three groups to do three industry-sponsored projects.  Questions centered on title, prerequisites (especially for non-CSE students), and how to advertise to get the required interdisciplinary mix of students.  It was concluded that a pilot offering should have the shorter title "Applied Enterprise IT Architectures", that any of the CSE capstone courses or permission of instructor would be adequate prerequisites, and that advertising would be done primarily by word-of-mouth.  The committee unanimously approved scheduling a pilot offering in Au06.


  1/31/06: (Belkin, Bucci, Ferhatosmanoglu, Lai, Parent, Reeves, Soundarajan, Steele, Weide) After a brief review and discussion, it was agreed to pilot this for the third (and last) time in Sp06, cross-listed with ECE 694R.  It needs to be made permanent as an every-other-year course or jettisoned after this offering, which will be reviewed next year.
Weide asked the committee whether it was still OK to provide feedback on the McHale Report about revising the GEC (General Education Curriculum) to suggest that computing fundamentals be required for everyone at OSU.  The faculty had approved this last year, and the consensus was again that it would be a good idea to propose this.  There was some discussion of specific topics that might be in such a course: some technology including a bit of programming and computer organization; the fact that, as Richard Feynman put it, "The inside of a computer is as dumb as hell but it goes like mad"; limits on what computers can do; "appreciation" of some computing ideas by doing rather than by talking, which can be done in a number of ways; the ability to evaluate claims such as "computers can automatically find terrorists"; how electronic voting might work (or not); "security" on the Internet; why software is hard to get "right"; etc.


2/7/06: (Bair, Belkin, Bucci, Crawfis, Ferhatosmanoglu, Heym, Lai, Mehta, Parent, Reeves, Soundarajan, Steele, Strader, Weide) Parent explained how Macromedia Flash might be used in an intro-level programming concepts course for non-majors; Bair demonstrated GameMaker and Alice; Heym demonstrated KPL; Bucci demonstrated Dr. Java with application to media computation a la Mark Guzdial's courses at Georgia Tech.  Among the requirements discussed for such a course were that "one size fits all" is not a good approach; that anyone taking it should learn enough programming to be qualified for CSE 221; and that it should satisfy (or be expandable to satisfy) the requirements of a computing fundamentals course if we were miraculously able to get that to be a university-wide requirement.


2/14/06: (Belkin, Bucci, Ferhatosmanoglu, Mehta, Parent, Reeves, Seddon, Soundarajan, Steele, Weide) There was spirited discussion of this CGR, with several suggestions of how to change CSE 680 in response to some data from the recent POCAT results [and which are now in the revised report].  There were also suggestions that we should offer CSE 727 again soon, if possible; offer CSE 640 again soon, but with a flavor of graphics, data mining, and/or machine learning to motivate the topics; check the syllabi of CSE 541 and CSE 780 carefully to determine whether to update the course outcomes to reflect differences between sections or to monitor content more closely to stick to the syllabus.  [The report as revised was subsequently accepted without comment via e-mail notification.]


3/7/06: (Belkin, Bucci, Ferhatosmanoglu, Parent, Reeves, Soundarajan, Steele, Weide) The following changes were discussed and approved by the committee:
[These changes subsequently were approved by the CSE faculty via e-mail.]

3/28/06: (Belkin, Bucci, Heym, Lai, Parent, Reeves, Seddon, Soundarajan, Steele, Strader, Weide) Heym presented a proposal for a new course intended for non-majors with minimal math background.  It was agreed that it should be piloted in Au06, with a few innovations to be tested: the "computing-in-context" idea, a new arrangement of 2 closed labs per week and only 1 lecture/activity session per week, and fully creative lab assignments with very few requirements except what is needed to ensure that certain features (e.g., program constructs) are incorporated in the solutions.  The plan is that students will be able to learn enough about programming fundamentals to be qualified for CSE 221 if they wish to consider a computing major, but that most students will not go further in the computing curriculum.  The proposal was approved.

4/11/06: (Bucci, Ferhatosmanoglu, Mehta, Parent, Reeves, Steele, Strader, Weide) Bucci presented a proposal for a new version of CSE 201, similar in spirit to the 294I approved last week, but with the context of digital images and sound ("multimedia" as used by Mark Guzdial in a successful course at Georgia Tech).  It was agreed that this course might not be equivalent to CSE 201 from the standpoint of the business school, and that Bucci should talk with them before we go further.  [Subsequent discussion was held with Dick Dietrich, Walid Muhanna, and P.C. Chen from the AMIS Department, and it was determined that they are interested in participating in any venture that (a) teaches computing "concepts" and (b) gives students flexibility to change their minds about what area of computing they might be most interested in.  The requirement is not really for CSE 201 in Java, but for OOP in some language, preferably with a business context.  It was agreed that Bucci would meet with them again after there is some experience with the multimedia context, and try to craft a better business context for CSE 201.  Meanwhile, we will not advise IS students that it is OK to take the pilot in place of CSE 201.]

4/25/06: (Belkin, Ferhatosmanoglu, Fosler-Lussier, Parent, Seddon, Steele, Weide) Fosler-Lussier proposed that the spoken-language processing course piloted the last two winters should become a permanent course taught every other year (starting Wi08), and that computational linguistics be changed to every other year (starting Sp07).  The idea is that the former would focus on signal-to-text issues using automatic speech recognition and text-to-signal issues using text-to-speech technology; the latter should focus on the middle part, i.e., text input through text output.  After discussion, it was agreed that CSE 794L should be numbered CSE 633, and CSE 732 should be renumbered to CSE 632, and the proposal was recommended for approval with these provisions.  Since CSE 732 is already on the books, it was agreed that the formal vote and paperwork would be done in 2006-07 in time for a Wi08 offering of proposed CSE 633.

5/2/06: (Belkin, Bucci, Ferhatosmanoglu, Mehta, Parent, Reeves, Seddon, Soundarajan, Steele, Weide) Bucci presented a proposal for a new course for non-majors with little math background: not a special section of CSE 201, but a separate course.  It was agreed that it should be piloted in Au06, with a few innovations to be tested at the same time as the recently-approved CSE 294I: the "computing-in-context" idea, this one with 2 closed labs per week and 2 lecture/activity meetings per week, and mostly creative lab assignments with requirements that make sure certain features are incorporated in the solutions.  The plan is that students will be able to learn enough about programming fundamentals and constructs to be qualified for CSE 221 if they wish to consider a computing major, but that most students will not go further in the computing curriculum.  The proposal was approved.

As a longer-term plan, it was suggested that we might look at the following taxonomy of contexts for introductory computing courses:
201: Business (next: 214 for business majors, 221 for computing majors/minors)
202: Engineering and Science (next: 221 for computing majors/minors, 230 for others)
203: Digital Images and Sound (next: 221 for computing majors/minors)
204: Interactive Media (next: 221 for computing majors/minors)

5/9/06: (Belkin, Ferhatosmanoglu, Lai, Reeves, Seddon, Steele, Supowit, Weide) Supowit presented a plan to offer CSE H625, an honors version of CSE 625, once a year starting Wi07.  It would have the same basic topics as the regular course but with a little more (including Turing machines), but the primary difference would be that students would "discover" as much of the material as possible through different pedagogy. This course would not be limited to honors students, but honors students in ASC would be required (through their honors contracts, which are approved by the CSE honors advisor, currently Supowit) to take CSE H625 and H680. Weide suggested that CSE H221 be phased out by not offering it, leaving CSE H222, H625, and H680 as regular courses with honors versions.  The proposal was approved.
5/16/06: (Belkin, Byron, Crawfis,Ferhatosmanoglu, Mehta, Parent, Reeves, Soundarajan, Steele, Weide) Crawfis reviewed the progress of his CSE 788 in Sp06, in which 27 students are doing advanced game development projects in 4-5-person teams.  The idea is that this is like a pilot for an official pilot for a new capstone project course to be offered in Sp07, with a bit more AI injected into it, so Byron would co-teach the course with Crawfis.  The proposal was tentatively approved for purposes of making teaching assignments next year, with the principals invited to return with a detailed syllabus in Au06 that fully reflects the Sp06 experience.