Variety in views of university curriculum schemes for informatics computing ICT A comparative assess

1
Variety in views of university curriculum schemes
for informatics / computing / ICTA comparative
assessment of ICF-2000 / CC2001/ Career Space

• Fred Mulder
• Karel Lemmen
• Maarten van Veen
• Florianopolis / ICTEM 2002

2
Going back to 1997

• IFIP Working Conference (Twente / NL)
• Matured, extended field, linked with many other
  knowledge domains
• Search for a common vision of core concepts for
  education and training
• Editorial paper summary plus
• gt plea for a pluralistic view with coexisting
  paradigms
• gt ingredients for a broad shared identity
• gt building on Denning et al. 1989
• Predecessor of ICTEM 2002

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Five years later

• How far have we come with our efforts?
• Commonality?
• Coherence?
• Complementarity?
• Transparent diversity?
• Double assessment of 3 major schemes
• ICF-2000 (IFIP / UNESCO commissioned)
• CC2001 (ACM IEEE-CS)
• Career Space (major ICT-companies, EU)

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Double assessment (exercise)

• Goal
• Critical analysis, comparison, judgement
• Two assessment exercises
• gt Comparison on 12 characteristic features,
  inferred by the authors, yielding three compact
  scripts and an overview of differences and
  similarities
• gt Judgement against the 11 guiding principles
  that serve CC2001 and reflect a generic
  state-of-mind, resulting in a set of
  (first-order) scores

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Assessment 1 Comparison of characteristic
features

• Umbrella terminology
• Developing organizations and experts
• Status, level of detail and links to other
  schemes
• Goal and function
• Paradigmatic view on the field
• Orientation on demand and supply
• Curriculum core
• Curriculum structure and components
• Transfer to the curriculum scheme of subjects and
  concepts from other disciplines
• Transfer to other disciplines curricula
• Variety in implementation
• Updating mechanism

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1 Umbrella terminology
7
2 Developing organizations and experts
8
3 Status, level of detail and links to other
schemes
9
4 Goal and function
10
5 Paradigmatic view on the field
11
6 Orientation on demand and supply
12
7 Curriculum core
13
8 Curriculum structure and components
14
9 Transfer to the scheme from other disciplines
15
10 Transfer to other disciplines curricula
16
11 Variety in implementation
17
12 Updating mechanism
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Assessment 2 Judgement against guiding principles

• Judging the three curriculum schemes against the
  CC2001 guiding principles
• Why this set?
• More or less generic relevant
• But
• computer science ? computing
  informatics ICT
• CC2001 ? curriculum scheme
• possible bias, not validated (first-order
  results)

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Principles scores 1
20
Principles scores 2
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Principles scores 3
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Principles scores 4
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Conclusions

• ICF-2000, CC2001 and Career Space
• are recognized curriculum efforts, aiming at
  international impact
• are complementary to a large extent, which can be
  utilized fruitfully
• share ambition of coherence in curricula with
  diversity and links to many other fields
• have shown separate tracks of approach so far,
  but a challenging interaction around the three
  schemes may give a further quality impetus

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Recommendations

• Upgrade assessments from exercise level to
  acknowledged quality by
• gt evaluation of the assessment items
• gt validation of the results
• Join forces among the schemes in further
  explorative work on shared themes like
• gt informatics for all
• gt merging paradigms, common core
• gt from knowledge to competencies ?
• Collaborate in areas relevant for all
• gt curriculum updating and innovation
• gt curriculum implementation in less developed
  higher informatics education

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References

• ICF-2000
• http//www.ifip.or.at/pdf/ICF2001.pdf
• CC2001
• http//www.acm.org/sigcse/cc2001/cc2001.pdf
• Career Space
• http//www.career-space.com

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Thats what ICTEM 2002 is about

• Thanks
• for your attention
• Please
• contribute to the follow-up (recommendations)
• Mail to
• fred.mulder, karel.lemmen, maarten.vanveen_at_ou.nl