The University of New South Wales

Notice of Meeting: CSE-EdC 16/2

A meeting of the Computer Science and Engineering Education Committee
will be held at 12pm Friday 29 April 2016 in room K17-103.

Enquiries concerning this agenda should be directed to jas@cse.unsw.edu.au.

John Shepherd
Chair

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Agenda

1. Apologies and Welcome




2. Minutes of Previous Meeting *

   Not yet available




3. Reports from Bodies outside CSE

   John Shepherd will report on any interesting/relevant devlopments that have occurred in committees, work-groups, etc. at UNSW.




4. New Course Proposals: Cyber Security

   Richard Buckland has been working on developing several new courses on Cyber Security in conjunction with the Commonwealth Bank. Eventually these will form the core of a major in Cyber Security.

   Summary of Cyber Security Stream (and courses therein):

   • Security Stream

   Proposals:

   • COMP6442 Extended Security Engineering
   • COMP6443 Web Application Security and Testing
   • COMP6444 Extended Web Application Security and Testing
   • COMP6445 Digital Forensics
   • COMP6446 Extended Digital Forensics and Incident Response
   • COMP6447 System and Software Security Assessment
   • COMP6448 Security Engineering Masterclass
   • COMP6450 Security Engineering Professional Practice
   
   

5. New Course Proposals: CSE Core Syllabus

   Background to proposals:

   • Core Syllabus site

   Proposals:

   • COMP1511 Introduction to Programming
   • COMP1521 Computer Systems Fundamentals
   • COMP1531 Software Engineering Fundamentals
   • COMP2511 Object-oriented Design
   • COMP2521 Data Structures and Algorithms



6. Program/Stream Revisions: all undergraduate study plans

   Based on the changes to the core courses, all CSE undergraduate programs and streams will need revision. Largely, this involves replacement of like-for-like in the plans, e.g. COMP1511 replaces COMP1917. However, the inclusion of an extra course in some study plans has necessitated more re-arrangement of courses. In addition, the order that courses are taken is not necessarily the same in all programs. The attached table shows potential study schedules for all CSE majors.

   Proposal:

   • Proposed new study plans



7. New Stream Proposal: COMPZ1 Computational Data Science

   The School of Maths/Stats, the Australian School of Business and CSE are jointly proposing a new degree in the data analytics space: 3959 Data Science and Decisions. Each school is offering a major under this program. COMPZ1 Computational Data Science is CSE's offering.

   CSE is also contributing to a new course for this program: DATA1001 Introduction to Data Science and Decisions.

   Proposal:

   • COMPZ1 Computational Data Science



8. Capstone courses for CS and MIT

   The ACS are insistent on the existence of a "capstone experience" for all students as a condition of accreditation. The aim of the capstone is for students to carry out a major project that allows them to integrate all of the knowledge and skills they've gained over their program. The Engineering degrees have this via the 4th-year thesis, as does CS(Hons), but the BSc(CompSci) and MIT degrees do not. We propose to introduce two new project-based courses, one for Computer Science, the other for MIT; running them via individual projects is infeasible (supervision?), but team-based projects seem possible. It would be useful to source projects from local organisations, either inside or outside UNSW.

   
   

9. A 4-year Degree for Computer Science

   The introduction of a separate program for CS Honours (4515), with its strict requirement for level-4 courses, has led to some very good students deciding that they would not be able to meet the requirements of CS Honours, based on the advanced courses they had already taken and the available level-4 offerings.

   There are several possible ways this problem could be addressed:

   • better program advice to potential Honours students in the 3978 program
   • converting 3978 into a 4-year program
   • introducing a new (additional) 4-year CS program, and retaining 3978
   
   

   There are other reasons to consider a degree specifically called Computer Science, and reasons why it should be a 4-year degree.

   Brad Hall's proposal:

   • Why we need a 4-year Computer Science degree
   • Proposal for Bachelor of Computer Science degree



10. For noting: Abolition of PC grade

    The Academic Board has voted to abolish the PC grade, starting from 16s1. The impacts of this are not yet clear, but course convenors need to carefully consider whether students with total marks near 50 deserve to pass or not. One thing is certain: students with marks in the range 46-49 will be likely to ask convenors to reconsider their mark.




11. Any Other Business