You are cordially invited to attend the NSF Workshop on Integrative Computing Education and Research (ICER) in the U.S. Midwest region. The two-day workshop, co-chaired by Marjorie Bynum of the Information Technology Association of America (ITAA) and David Lee of The Ohio State University, will be held in Chicago, Illinois, December 2-3, 2005. Three more workshops on the same topic are to be held in the Northeast, Northwest and Southwest regions this fall.
The ICER workshop is to be focused on the campus-wide integration of IT education and research, and on the design of computing curricula, which reflect the integrative nature of the field. It will bring together a group of deep thinkers and visionaries who share a common interest in the intriguing challenges in integrative computing education and research. The objectives of the workshop are for the attendees to:
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Discuss and better understand the current and future grand challenges to the field of computing as a result of the impact of recent trends: decreasing enrollments in academic computing programs, needs of the U.S. workforce, national demographics, shifts in global competitiveness, movement towards multidisciplinary domains of knowledge in computing applications, and the integrative nature of the field of computing.
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Identify long-term strategic recommendations for establishing and supporting integrative computing education and research in the U.S. over the next decade to meet the challenges.
This workshop is by invitation only and the invitees are mostly from the U.S. Midwest states: Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, South Dakota, West Virginia, and Wisconsin. Constituencies represented will include computing faculty, academic administrators, representatives of professional computing societies and trade organizations, government policy makers and funding organizations, recognized national leaders and futurists in the field of computing, and representatives of national research and industrial laboratories. The total number of attendees will be around thirty.
Each attendee is asked to prepare a short position white paper prior to the workshop. The format is that each participant should state one or two propositions, which they feel strongly about and would like to discuss, and in which they have some expert knowledge or experiences. Each proposition should contain a description about one page long. With the guidance of NSF, the workshop organizers will use these position papers to determine the details of the program and to set the schedule for the workshop.
As a guide for you to determine possible positions to investigate, attached please find two documents from NSF: “Executive Summary” that contains the motivation and guidelines for this program, and “White Paper Guidelines” that provides the guidelines for preparing your position white paper. Also we include a list of possible positions in the attached document “Positions” for your reference. Obviously, there are many other positions that might deserve discussion and debate. Feel free to determine yours, and we will coordinate with you for accommodating them in the workshop program.
The workshop will begin at 9 AM on Friday, December 2, and will end at 4 PM on Saturday, December 3, 2005. The basic workshop program and schedule will consist of plenary sessions and parallel working sessions for the first day and a half to discuss various topics either together or in small groups with specific topics of common interest. The last half day is for the attendees to begin preparing a report of the workshop to NSF.
Your travel expenses for attending the workshop will be covered by NSF.
Please let us know by October 20th whether you accept our invitation. If you do plan to attend, please send your position white paper to David Lee (lee@cse.ohio-state.edu) on or before November 10.
We hope you will accept our invitation, and look forward to seeing you in Chicago.
Sincerely,
Marjorie Bynum and David Lee, Workshop Co-Chairs
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