CSE Accreditation Status Report Steven Skiena Department of Computer Science State University of New York Stony Brook, NY 11794–4400 http://www.cs.sunysb.edu/ ∼ skiena
Schedule Fall 2003: Simulated ABET visit – DONE Spring 2005: Write official report – DONE Fall 2005: ABET visit (November 13-15) Fall 2005 – Spring 2006: Address Concerns Summer 2006: Verdict in!
Visit Visiting team is Robert France (Colorado St.), Tom Horton (Univ. of Virginia), and Stuart Zweben (Ohio St.) Sunday (November 13) they will review our portfolios and documentation, so get in any remaining stuff! Monday (November 14) they will get a presentation from Ari, meet with teams of faculty, and lunch with faculty and alumni (any suggestions?). Tuesday (November 15) they may watch some teaching and report to the President / Provost their findings. The visit will likely identify weaknesses and/or deficiencies which we will scramble to satisfy over the next few weeks/months.
Assessment Accreditation gives us the opportunity (i.e. forces us) to measure how our undergraduate program is doing and how we can make it better. We employ the following formal assessment procedures: (1) University end-of-semester course evaluations (2) Departmental mid-semester course evaluations (3) Departmental course objective surveys (4) Graduating senior exit / alumni surveys (5) Student focus groups (6) Industrial advisory board/alumni feedback (7) Industrial visits/interviews (8) UG committee meetings
(9) Faculty meetings (10) Faculty retreat (11) Course portfolio evaluations (12) External faculty review I would like us to devote the bulk of the ABET retreat time to discussing the results of recent assessment data.
Student Focus Group Several students felt that our course sequence did not provide enough coverage of C/C++. Reactions to our new program of offering multiple sections of popular courses was generally positive. Some feeling that either CSE 305 or CSE 333 be made a prerequisite for software engineering (CSE 308). In general, students did really like CSE 308. There was considerable belief that AMS 301 (combina- torics/graph theory) should be made a prerequisite for CSE 373 (algorithms).
There was enthusiasm on our plan to replace the ethics assignment from CSE 308 with a one-credit course (CSE 302). General interest in more UNIX/Linux; half the students had installed Linux on their computers. Students wanted Debian instead of BSD. There would be great interest in a concentration/minor in game programming. Half of the focus group would do game programming after graduation than work for Google! Students were uninformed about who their official faculty advisor was; several did not know it was on the web. Students liked grading systems where they knew what work they had to do to get a particular grade – in particular Anita’s grading system come in for praise.
Industrial Advisory Board We need to do a better job tracking where our undergraduates are getting jobs, and how many have jobs on or shortly after graduation, and at what salary. We should consider promoting Stony Brook (and SB CS) more to undergraduate students abroad. Apparently good students are coming in due to the arrangement with Ajou University in Korea; perhaps the model can be replicated at schools in India or elsewhere. In particular, Ted Teng has some kind of program with schools in Taiwan. The board was favorably impressed with the Information Assurance (Security) scholarships, and feels this should be advertised more broadly.
Perhaps we could run a much stronger undergradu- ate/graduate student internship program on the model of ETH Zurich, with (a) a webpage for students who are interested in getting internships (b) regular emails (every six months) to all alumni and local friends encouraging them to take our students. Several board members felt that students were specializing too much in Java and did not have enough exposure to C/C++; Microsoft would not hire someone without skills in both.
Alumni Survey (Citigroup) It is gratifying to see that most of the alumni are quite satified with their Stony Brook education. The tenor of the responses is far more positive than what we see with the graduating student surveys. In particular, 16 of the 19 respondants said that they WOULD recommend Stony Brook Computer Science to other people. More emphaisis on database management, particularly stored procedures. Add specialty directions; more focus on business One guy suggested distinguishing between students with academic or corporate professional aspirations. This might be a role for our honors program
Course Objective Analysis We have been running an end-of-semester online course objective survey for all of our undergraduate Computer Science major courses since Spring 2003. The data supports the notation that in general our courses are doing what they are supposed to be doing. Followup is advised for CSE 113, CSE 213, CSE 220, and CSE 320, however. CSE 113: The survey reflects a sense that discrete structures are not adequately covered. This needs further investigation, but likely reflects that fact that we rely on AMS 301 for our major coverage of discrete structures. CSE 213: Some concerns by students that the course does not
continue the development of a strong theoretical foundation for further classes – this may reflect that fact that CSE 213 is not a prerequisite for many classes, which is one of the reasons for our plans to drop it in favor of requiring both algorithms and theory of computation in its place. CSE 220: The fourth objective (introduction to IO) is not deemed as satisfied by the majority of students. This reflects that it has not been taught for several semesters because of a lack of time in the semester. We should either revise the objectives (as Shaunak has suggested) or identify what should be dropped to accommodate this subject. CSE 320: Mixed assessment of objectives, but particular concern about operating system support.
What I Want from You Course coordinators will be sentenced to review the end of semester survey comments and course portfolios before November and write/distribute a brief report. Prior to the visit, review the course and departmental objectives and other parts of the self-study report. Behave yourself during the visit as you did during Sloan’s visit.
Program Objectives (I) On completion of the program, undergraduates should be able to: S1: design, develop, test, and evaluate software systems. S2: recognize the need for and expect to engage in lifelong learning for continued professional excellence. S3: apply their knowledge to the solution of practical and useful problems. S4: communicate effectively. S5: work collaboratively.
Program Objectives (II) In addition, undergraduates must: S6: have a solid understanding of computational theory and foundational mathematics. S7: have substantial exposure to advanced topics in software and computing systems. S8: have a comprehensive general education background. S9: be prepared to successfully enter the job market and/or graduate studies. S10: understand professional responsibility.
Faculty Objectives F1: be able to teach a variety of CS undergraduate courses. F2: actively participate in the undergraduate program. F3: strive to improve the quality of their teaching. F4: be aware of recent developments in the fields that they normally teach so as to introduce undergraduates to recent research advances and practices. F5: should be active in the research fields where they formally teach and/or be involved in the field of computing education. F6: actively participate in the departmental, college, and university shared governance process.
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