Revisions to allow accreditation of CS program

What Bill and Tim came up with:

The problem: how to cover ACS requirements to teach ...
-------------------------------------------------------

1 interpersonal communications
2 ethics/social implications/professional practice
3 project management and quality assurance

We know that John Hughes thinks that the SE program meets these requirements.
We can guess that he thinks that the interpersonal communications stuff
is covered in the SE workshops, although there are some other sources -
for example, SE students present a "week 12 seminar" in 4th year (and
the detailed ACS description of what they want under interpersonal 
communications -
see http://www.cse.unsw.edu.au/~billw/accred/acs/Core1.txt -
includes a section on verbal communications that corresponds quite well to
giving a seminar).

Presumably SENG4921 Professional Issues and Ethics is seen to cover item 2
(ethics/social implications/professional practice).

Project Management and Quality Assurance is also covered by the SENG workshops
and other instruction in aspects of the software engineering process.

The proposed solution
---------------------

a) Introduce a mandatory requirement into the 2nd year of the CS degree,
   that students take a 3 uoc professional issues and ethics course,
   tentatively named COMP2920 Professional Issues and Ethics. This could be
   another name for COMP4920, now taken by CE students in 4th year.
   Alternatively, it could be a variant of COMP4920 - the class size will be
   large enough to justify two separate courses.
   There are arguments for doing this material in a capstone course and
   arguments for doing it in a foundational course - this is a middle
   route, which gets them through COMP2011 Data Organisation before they
   take on Professional Issues and Ethics.

   Note that BE BSc Computer Science students would not need to take
   COMP2920, as they get similar material in their BE. This could be
   important as some of these combinations are fairly tight.

   For the issue of finding another 3 uoc course to pair with COMP2920 in
   a largely 6 uoc curriculum, see (d) below. 

b) Make COMP3111 Software Engineering a core requirement in year 3 of the
   CS degree. In this course, they do group projects, covering aspects of
   interpersonal communications (see under "interpersonal skills" at the
   URL given above). They also write project reports, covering aspects of
   written communications (see same URL).

c) Project management and quality assurance are also directly addressed as
   part of COMP3111.

d) At the same time as we face this issue, we are also faced with the issue
   of finding a home for data structures material squeezed out of COMP2011
   by the Potter Committee changes. The broad approach to this has been to
   plan to introduce a new course COMP20yy (currently untitled). It seems
   likely that the left-over data structures material will not require a
   full 6 uoc, so maybe we are looking at COMP20y0 Left-over Data Structure
   (3 uoc, S2). This would neatly pair up with COMP2920. It might be possible
   to inject COMP20y0 into Computer Engineering (which has ACCT9003 Accounting
   Fundamentals 3 uoc lying around in second year) and Software Engineering
   (removing 3 uoc of the 6 uoc of electives in second year). Double and
   combined degree students who e.g. need the ACCT9003 for CE MCom purposes
   could overload by 3 uoc in the appropriate session.

e) As C is now taught in COMP1021/1721, it will soon no longer be necessary
   in COMP2041. This is said to a have a small amount of project management
   material in it at present - it might be judicious to expand this a little.

Another possiblity that was discussed was to approach the ACS to find out if
they would consider *conditional accreditation* for students taking CS degrees
who elect to take COMP3111 (assuming other ACS requirements can be met). This
would have the advantage of keeping plenty of choice in third year CS.

Summary of proposal (new requirements flagged with ***** at right):

CS 1: COMP1011 + COMP1021 (or higher versions)
      MATH1131 + MATH1231 (or higher versions)
      MATH1081 Discrete Maths
      18 uoc electives

CS 2: COMP2011 or 2711, COMP2021, COMP2041
      COMP2920 Professional Issues and Ethics              *****
      - not applicable to BE BSc Computer Science students *****
      possibly also COMP20y0                               *****
      6 uoc GenEd
      18 uoc electives

CS 3: COMP3111 Software Engineering                        *****
      at least 30 uoc of COMP3 or higher COMP courses
      6 uoc GenEd
      12 uoc electives (which can be more COMP)

CS 4: (for those who do honours)
      [COMP9015 no longer necessary]
      COMP4910 + COMP4911 (Thesis part A and B)
      30 uoc of COMP courses, probably with a requirement for
      some of these to be higher than COMP3

Concessions to be available for double major students.

Bill W.

Draft handbook description for COMP2920

COMP2920 Professional Issues & Ethics 
Staff Contact: A/Prof A. Hoffmann // as CS program director
UC 6 S2 HPW 3
Co-requisite: COMP2011. Only available to students in program 3978
         BSc Computer Science and joint programs incorporating
         BSc Computer Science.

This course will develop a framework on which professional and
ethical issues can be developed. Topics covered will include team
and meeting skills, communication skills, interpersonal skills,
software quality and process, in addition to ethics. The course will
be delivered using lectures, class discussions, written assignments,
reading lists, the Internet, presentations, and invited speakers.