Course Numbering

Summary

All required core courses are 2000-level, to make it easy for undergrads (not to mention faculty) to keep things straight; and they are mostly in the 2nd year on the bingo sheet.

All core choice courses are 3000-level, for similar reasons; and they are mostly in the 3rd year on the bingo sheet.

Capstone courses are numbered 591x so they are clearly near the end of the undergrad curriculum and so they may be taken by CSE grad students.

Additional courses in the various areas should be given course numbers consistent with prerequisites, as far as possible.

Some of the core and core choices, e.g., Foundations II, Systems II, AI, and others, ended up with 5000-level "twins" that can be taken as "pre-core" courses by grad students for grad credit -- but only 2 cr-hrs each, not 3 cr- hrs as for undergrads. Similarly for project courses 3901, 3902, etc.

University-reserved Numbers

We need to respect these prescribed uses designated by OSU:

x189: Field Experience and Field Work
x193: Individual Studies
x194: Group Studies
x797: Study at a Foreign Institution
x798: Study Tours
x998: Research
x999: Research for Dissertation or Thesis
2067: Gen Ed Second Writing Course
x78x: Research Principles and Techniques
x88x: Interdepartmental Seminars
x89x: Colloquia, Workshops, & Departmental Seminars

CSE Numbering

The first digit designates the nominal undergrad year, i.e., "course level"; the next two digits designate the area of CSE; and the last digit designates the nominal sequencing within that area (e.g., 1 is a first course in the area, 2 and above generally are subsequent courses).

thousands digit:

core courses use 2
core choices use 3
tech electives for undergrads, that are not intended to be taken by grad students, use 4; there will not be many of these (so far only 459-like courses)
tech electives for undergrads, that are also intended to be taken by grad students, use 5

[The 5000-level courses are of two kinds. The first are grad pre-core courses that are "twins" of undergrad core or core-choice courses with 2000 or 3000 numbers, but with one fewer cr-hr for the 5000 version in all cases except 3501/5501 (both 1 cr-hr). For example, there is CSE 2331 (Foundations II: Data Structures and Algorithms), an undergrad core course, for 3 cr-hrs; there is also CSE 5331 (Foundations II: Data Structures and Algorithms), a grad pre-core course, for 2 cr-hrs. MS students are limited in the number of such pre-core courses they may take: 6 cr-hrs total. All the rest of the 5000-level courses are considered upper-division undergrad courses that may be undergrad tech electives, and grad courses that are allowable as grad electives. For example, there is CSE 5243 (Introduction to Data Mining), for 3 cr-hrs.]
grad core and other primarily grad courses use 6 (undergrads can still take these with permission)

hundreds digit:

x0xx: UNUSED IN CSE
x1xx: Service and prerequisite courses; PRESCRIBED USES
x2xx: Software
x3xx: Foundations
x4xx: Systems
x5xx: Applications
x6xx: FUTURE EXPANSION IN CSE
x7xx: PRESCRIBED USES AND FUTURE EXPANSION
x8xx: PRESCRIBED USES AND FUTURE EXPANSION
x9xx: PRESCRIBED USES AND FUTURE EXPANSION

tens digit:

0 and 1 generally not used; reserved for possible "lower expansion", temporary "bridge courses", special niche courses that don't fit elsewhere, etc.
up to CSE faculty in each course group to allocate within their hundreds digit; for example, according to the specific numbering shown above, AI would take x52x, graphics x54x, etc., leaving each with 20 course numbers (plus decimal subdivisions in case that's not enough ; see specific plan below

ones digit:

start with 1, not 0 (despite the way C arrays are numbered
9 (with leading 5) for "Intermediate Studies in ...", and 9 (with leading 6) for "Advanced Studies in ..."; these are replacements for 788s and 888s, resp.; it is not clear whether we will need decimal subdivisions

CSE prescribed uses:

3901, 3902, etc.: "project" courses
5911, 5912, etc.: capstone design courses

Proposed middle two digits arising from the above rules:

x2xx: Software
    x22x: Software Fundamentals
    x23x: Software Engineering
        5239: Intermediate Studies in Software Engineering
        6239: Advanced Studies in Software Engineering
    x24x: Databases
        5249: Intermediate Studies in Databases
        6249: Advanced Studies in Databases
    x25x: Specialty Software/Languages

x3xx: Foundations
    x32x: Computation Theory
        5329: Intermediate Studies in Computation Theory
        6329: Advanced Studies in Computation Theory
    x33x: Algorithms
        5339: Intermediate Studies in Algorithms
        6339: Advanced Studies in Algorithms
    x34x: Programming Language and Compiler Theory
        5349: Intermediate Studies in Programming Languages
        6349: Advanced Studies in Programming Languages
    x35x: Cryptography
        5359: Intermediate Studies in Cryptography
        6359: Advanced Studies in Cryptography
    x36x: Numerical Methods

x4xx: Systems
    x42x: Computer Organization and Architecture
        5429: Intermediate Studies in Computer Architecture
        6429: Advanced Studies in Computer Architecture
    x43x: Operating Systems
        5439: Intermediate Studies in Operating Systems
        6439: Advanced Studies in Operating Systems
    x44x: Parallel Computing
        5449: Intermediate Studies in Parallel Computing
        6449: Advanced Studies in Parallel Computing
    x45x: Systems Software/Languages
    x46x: Computer Networking
        5469: Intermediate Studies in Computer Networking
        6469: Advanced Studies in Computer Networking
    x47x: Computer Security
        5479: Intermediate Studies in Computer Security
        6479: Advanced Studies in Computer Security

x5xx: Applications
    x52x: Artificial Intelligence
    x53x: Artificial Intelligence
        5539: Intermediate Studies in Artificial Intelligence
        6539: Advanced Studies in Artificial Intelligence
    x54x: Computer Graphics
    x55x: Computer Graphics
        5559: Intermediate Studies in Computer Graphics
        6559: Advanced Studies in Computer Graphics