Challenges and Opportunities of Interdisciplinary Computer Science Education

1


Challenges
and Opportunities of

Interdisciplinary
Computer Science Education


Jiannong Cao

Internet & Mobile Computing Lab

Department of Computing

Hong Kong Polytechnic University


Email: csjcao@comp.polyu.edu.hk

http://www.comp.polyu.edu.hk/~csjcao/



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Outline

•
What is computer science
as a
discipline?

•
How do we identify ourselves?

•
Is there a
need of interdisciplinary education in CS
?

•
What are the challenges and opportunities
?

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•
Computer science concerns itself with the nature of
algorithms and computations it spans both theory and
practice:

-
Computational representation of abstract concepts

-
Computability

-
Computational complexity

-
Design, definition and implementation of programming languages

-
Nature of abstraction and specification

-
…

•
It underpins more than the above:

-
New areas of mathematical study, e.g., logic

-
Computational thinking

-
Computational tools and experiments

What is CS as a discipline?

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•
Its perimeter has broaden, its scope and focus have
changed continuously over the past 70 years

•
Shift of focus from algorithms and programs to systems

-
h
ighly dynamic depending on characteristics of execution
platform

-
Increasingly integrated and interacting with the physical
environment

-
Cross
-
layer and cyber
-
physical co
-
design

What is CS as a discipline?

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•
More than any other discipline, CS is driven by
applications and progress in technology.

-
Applications impose domain
-
specific requirements

-
New technologies deemed existing solutions
obsolete

What is CS as a discipline?

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•
Users nowadays are part of the computing systems,
some of them are even computer programmers

•
Many other disciplines build their own IT / Computing
infrastructure, have their own programming tools, and
develop their own applications

•
Identity crisis?

•
How to define the territory of CS?

•
What are our roles as computer scientists?

•
Where the field is going?

How do we identify ourselves
?

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Computing

is

the computer
-
specific part
of IT

but

it is involved in all the parts

“
IT

is the technology that
helps to produce,
manipulate, store,
communicate, and
disseminate information”

Computer
Technology

Material

Science

Use of IT

(Applications …)

Communication
Technology

How do we identify ourselves
?

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•
Our mission as Computer Scientists?

How do we identify ourselves
?

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•
Computing is interdisciplinary in nature

-
Knowledge and technology in other fields

-
Requirements in application domains

-
Knowledge about people as users (CHI)

•
Without learning and being equipped with knowledge
in fields that help us to create better computers, we
cannot advance CS

•
Without clear understanding of domain knowledge, we
cannot make solutions and systems effective.

•

Without understanding the users, we cannot develop
“user
-
centered” systems.

The need of interdisciplinary education

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•
Creativity often requires interdisciplinary knowledge

•
Many intellectual, social and practical problems require
interdisciplinary approaches

•
Help attract more people to the field and improve
retention


The need of interdisciplinary education

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•
Changing our mentality from wishing for more academic
prestige to wishing for changing people’s life.

•
Changing the idea that CS is more on “thinking about
computing in the abstract” than “thinking about novel
ways to design and build computer systems that match
reality”

•
Learning about commercial / practical products and
understanding their limits

•
Bridging communication gaps and fragmented disciplines

Challenges and Opportunities

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•
Students are not taught much about how to approach
practical solutions to real
-
world problems, working with
people from other disciplines

-
CS
curricula seldom recognize importance of interdisciplinary
education

-

Difficult to develop CS textbooks with true interdisciplinary
examples and projects.

•
It
is
very hard
to create a real interdisciplinary program

-
Not
only double
majors, major/minors, but

join
degree

-
Teaching, faculty development
, assessment

-
Structural barriers: institutional support, curriculum
development and assessment, faculty attitude, etc.



Challenges and Opportunities

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•
ACM
/ IEEE CS Curricula 2012

-
CS is rapidly changing field, drawing from and contributing to
variety of
disciplines

-

Able to bridge to multi
-
disciplinary
work

•
US NSF funded workshops to identify strategies for
increasing and maintaining enrolment, improving the quality
og

computing education

-
Integrative Computing Education and Research (ICER)

-
Strengthen interdisciplinary connections

-
Increase interdisciplinary collaboration

-
Strengthen industry involvement

•
Efforts on developing interdisciplinary computing

Challenges and Opportunities

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