Computing Curricula 2001

-- DRAFT (March 6, 2000) --


Chapter 2
Lessons from Past Reports

In developing this report, the CC2001 Task Force did not have to start from scratch. We have benefited tremendously from past curriculum studies and are indebted to the authors of those studies for their dedicated efforts. As part of our early work on Computing Curricula 2001, we looked carefully at the most recent curriculum studies -- particulary Computing Curricula 1991 -- to get a sense of how those studies have influenced computing education. By identifying which aspects of the previous reports have been successful and which have not, we can structure the CC2001 report to maximize its impact. This chapter offers an overview of the earlier reports and the lessons we have taken from them.

2.1 Historical background

Efforts to design model curricula for programs in computer science and computer engineering began in 1960s, shortly after the first departments in these areas were established. In 1968, following on a series of earlier studies [2, 13, 34], the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) published Curriculum '68 [3], which offered detailed recommendations for academic programs in computer science, along with a set of course descriptions and extensive bibliographies for each topic area.

Over the next decade, the discipline of computing developed rapidly, to the point that the recommendations in Curriculum '68 became largely obsolete. During the 1970s, both the ACM and the Computer Society of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE-CS) appointed committees to develop a revised computing curriculum. In 1977, the Education Committee of the IEEE-CS published a report for programs in computer science and engineering [19]. The Computer Society's report was significant in that it took a broader view of the computing discipline, incorporating more engineering into the curriculum and bridging the gap between software- and hardware-oriented programs. Responding to the pressures generated by the rapid development of the computing field, the Computer Society updated its computer science and engineering curriculum in 1983 [17]. The ACM Curriculum '68 report was superseded by a much more comprehensive Curriculum '78, which had a substantial impact on computing education. Among its contributions, Curriculum '78 proposed a standard syllabus for a set of courses that encompassed the core knowledge of computer science as a discipline.

In the late 1980s, the Computer Society and ACM joined forces to undertake a more ambitious curriculum review, which was published as Computing Curricula 1991 [39], hereafter referred to as CC1991. The CC1991 report is more comprehensive than its predecessors, but takes a different approach. Unlike Curriculum '78 and the 1983 IEEE-CS report, each of which focused on identifying a standard syllabus for individual courses, CC1991 divides the body of knowledge associated with computing into individual knowledge units. Each knowledge unit in CC1991 corresponds to a topic that must be covered at some point during the undergraduate curriculum, although individual institutions have considerable flexibility to assemble the knowledge units into course structures that fit their particular needs. The appendix of the CC1991 report includes 11 sample implementations that show how the knowledge units can be combined to form courses at a variety of institutions.

2.2 Evaluation of Computing Curricula 1991

The decision to produce a new curriculum report was driven primarily by the enormous changes that have occurred in the computing discipline over the past decade. At the same time, there was also a perception among some computer science educators that CC1991 was not as influential as some of its predecessors. Although CC1991 is certainly more detailed, institutions have sometimes found it harder to adopt than Curriculum '78 and the IEEE-CS model curriculum in computer science and engineering.

In order to understand both the strengths and the limitations of CC1991, the task force undertook an informal survey of computing educators. We developed a short questionnaire, which we then mailed to the chairs of all computer science departments in the United States and Canada. We also made the questionnaire available more generally through the World Wide Web. A copy of the questionnaire appears in Figure 2-1.

Figure 2-1. Questionnaire to assess the impact of Computing Curricula 1991
1.Did you use CC1991 in any way in the past?
2.If you are a college or university teacher, do you know if your department ever looked at or used CC1991?
3.If you answered yes to either question, how was it used, and what features of it were helpful?
4.Do you think there is a need to create CC2001? Why?
5.CC1991 had 10 main content areas. Do you think any new areas should be added? Any existing area deleted? Any existing area updated?
6.Do you believe CC2001 should provide guidelines about a minimal core? If so, what would that core include?
7.Do you have any suggestion about the format? CC1991 was designed in terms of knowledge units along with possible model curricula in terms of those knowledge units.
8.Have you any other comments or suggestions for updating CC1991?

Over 98 percent of the respondents -- we received 124 responses through the web and about 30 responses through regular mail -- supported the concept of updating the CC1991 report. The survey responses also revealed the following general reactions:


CC2001 Report
DRAFT -- March 6, 2000
This report is a working draft and does not carry
any endorsement from the sponsoring organizations