Curriculum Committee ("CC") Minutes for 16 May 1995

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Attending:  Fujimura, Kerr, Ogden, Perlman, Soundararajan, Weide, Yeack, Zhao

* Discussion of proposed software spine courses: 221 and 222 syllabi
  
  Bruce proposed separating the content question from programming language,
  course format, instruction (who, how, ...), etc.  This left plenty of
  opportunity for serious discussion, some of which we had.  Bruce promised
  a detailed syllabus for 321 soon, similar to the ones passed out for
  221 and 222 and discussed at this meeting.
  
  One important point about the proposed spine is that 221 would have a
  prerequisite of prior programming experience, which might come from a
  high school programming course or, say, CIS 201.  [The details about
  what knowledge and skills would be required are given in the syllabus
  for 221, which is available from me. -- BWW]
  
  The main philosophical debate involved a question raised by Tim
  and Neelam on the relative merits of various presentation orders.  Tim
  noted that there are three basic roles for students (and software
  engineers) in the component-based software framework: client of a 
  component, implementer of a component, and designer of a component (i.e.,
  of a component's interface).  He argued that students should be clients
  first, then implementers, then designers; and this progression takes
  2-3 quarters to explore once.  Neelam prefers that students see a more
  "bottom-up" view in which there is no encapsulation initially, and the
  idea of a "component" (ADT, etc.) is introduced later.  [In subsequent
  discussion of this after the meeting, Tim and Neelam seemed to be closer
  together on this than they did during the meeting. -- BWW]
  
  During the discussion, Doug proposed essentially a swap of the content
  of CIS 570 with that of CIS 670, so all CIS students would learn
  about databases from the client (application, user) perspective;
  and would still be able to learn about implementation details in an
  optional course.  An official proposal along these lines will have to
  wait until next year.  Discussion with the Business school will be part
  of this effort, since IS students in Business also take 570.
        
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Next meeting: Tuesday, May 30, 1995, 10:30-11:30 AM, in DL 298 -- already
occurred by the time this is posted :-(.


Respectfully submitted,

	Bruce W. Weide, CC Chair