ReThinking CS Curriculum for Pakistan

https://www.facebook.com/WebSTIBA Twitter: #csibaseminar2011

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COMPUTER SCIENCE CURRICULA: ARE WE TEACHING THE RIGHT THINGS TO OUR STUDENTS?

Muhammad Atif Qureshi, Arjumand Younus


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Outline

Why We Raise this Question? Getting Right the Basics Bad Practices Open Source and Computer Science Rethinking the CS Curriculum Web Science: An Introduction


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Why We Ask?

Steps for improvement Identification of problems Self-questioning Chalking out effective solutions Implementation of solutions


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Getting Right the Basics


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Bad Practice 1: Do Not Run After Tools


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Bad Practice 2: Realize the True Potential of Computer Science (1/2)

New York Times debate on “Computer Science Sputnik Moment”

For students who want to change the world, there is no field with greater impact or leverage than

computer science. Just take a look at the 2010 report by the President's Council of Advisers on Science and Technology, which characterized computer science as

“arguably unique among all fields of science and engineering in the breadth of its impact.”

- Dr. Ed Lazowska (Bill & Melinda Gates Chair in Computer Science & Engineering, Univ. of

Washington)


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Bad Practice 2: Realize the True Potential of Computer Science (2/2)

Are we doing these sort of things?


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Bad Practice 3: Do Not Run After Jobs

If you are a Computer Scientist jobs will come to you

Industry is not simply about job market Example of South Korea


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Open Source and Computer Science

Sharp learning curve Freedom to modify and play around with

code Feel of Computer Science community Sense of accomplishment Do we teach polymer of a specific

company in Chemistry or just a polymer? Do engineers learn engine design of a

car or specifically usability of Ferrari’s engine?


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Re-Thinking CS Curriculum (1/3)“While it is true that economy has forced

the issue, Computer Science curriculum has never been attractive. It is designed

for the sole purpose of producing software engineers. We should aim for

more outcomes from a Computer Science curriculum. Programming is only

part of the story.” - Georgia Tech Professor and Computer Science Education Expert Mark Guzdial


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Re-Thinking CS Curriculum (2/3) To attract more students to computing we need

to create more on-ramps (entry points) into the curriculum.

Make the curriculum requirements more flexible.

Create several CS1 (Introduction to Programming) courses to attract students with diverse interests in computing: web, multi-media, games, robotics, artificial intelligence


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Re-Thinking CS Curriculum (3/3) A CS1 Assignment

Corral Exiting/Escape

Imagine a corral (an enclosed area with maze like partitions and an entrance) with a light source at the entrance (as shown in the figure to the right). Given the robot's position, can we design a behavior that will enable the robot to exit the corral?

http://wiki.roboteducation.org/Image:Corral.gif


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Science of the Web

Why we need Web Science as a research field? Because we need a systems-level understanding of the Web.

– Prof. Nigel Shadbolt,One of pioneers of Web Science program,

University of Southampton


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Web Science

Social and engineering dimensions (New York Times at launch of Web Science Program at Univ. of Southampton and MIT in 2006)

Extends well beyond traditional Computer ScienceThe Web isn’t about what you can do with computers. It’s people and, yes, they are connected by computers. But computer science, as the study of what happens in a computer, doesn’t tell you about what happens on the Web.

–Tim Berners-LeeOne of the founder of WWW


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Which Science Explains the Web? Given

Neither the Web nor the world is static The Web evolves in response to various

pressures from Science Commerce The public Politics Etc.


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Web Science

The Web is a new technical and social phenomenon and a growing organism

The Web needs to be studied and understood as an entity in its own right

Web Science is a new field of science that involves a multi-disciplinary study and inquiry for the understanding of the Web and its relationships to us


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Why Web Science?

Dynamics and evolution The “deep (or dark) Web” Sampling, lack of complete enumeration Scale (e.g., What is the percentage of Web

pages updated daily?) Search (e.g., What percentage of Web pages

are indexed by search engines?) Web topology Artifacts of social interactions (blogs, etc.),

Web sociology


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What Could Scientific Theories for the Web Look Like?

Every page on the Web can be reached by following less than 10 links

The average number of words per search query is greater than 3

A wikipedia page on average contains 0.03 false facts

The Web is a “scale-free” graph


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Intersection of Disciplines


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Web’s Relation with Entrepreneurship

Web Science represents a pretty big next step in the evolution of information. This kind of research is likely to have a lot of influence on the next generation of researchers, scientists and most importantly, the next generation of entrepreneurs who will build new companies from this.

– Eric Schmdt,Ex-CEO, Google Inc.


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For Pakistan: Web Science and Technology

Job market is heavily consumed by technology of Web solutions

Remote industry such as Google, Yahoo, Microsoft is heavily investing in it

Business is getting a good amount of share from the Web

Social Media reaches people massively than the traditional media


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Thank You

ReThinking CS Curriculum for Pakistan

Technology

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