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ANNUAL REPORT |
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Submitted By: Karl J. Klee |
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| 1. BASIC INFORMATION | |
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1.1 Committee Members: |
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Jamestown Community College Term of Office: July 1, 1996 - June 30, 1998 |
University of Maryland University College Term of Office: July 1, 1996 - June 30, 1998 |
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Robert D. Campbell |
C. Fay Cover (Nominated to replace Clare Smith) |
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Hofstra University Term of Office ended December 31, 1995 |
Joyce Currie Little |
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Clare Smith (Resigned effective June 7, 1996) |
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1.2 Committee Charter: |
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| The Two-Year College Education Committee is a standing committee of the ACM Education Board. The Committee is concerned with all education issues that affect computing at two-year colleges and in two-year degree programs. The primary purpose of the Committee is to provide curriculum recommendations in all areas of computing for such degree programs. The Committee may also make recommendations on other educational matters affecting such programs. | |
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1.3 Committee Organization: |
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There are no sub-units at this time. |
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1.4 Committee Meetings: |
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July 14-17, 1995: Committee meeting in Valley Forge, PA. Richard Austing, Robert Campbell, Fay Cover, John Impagliazzo, Karl Klee, Joyce Currie Little, and Clare Smith were in attendance. The committee finalized the survey proposal that was presented to the SIG Board on October 1, 1995 for a funding request from the SIG Discretionary Fund. The Committee also detailed the two panel proposals and one workshop proposal to be submitted to the SIGCSE '96 selection committees by August 31, 1995. October 12-15, 1995: Subcommittee meeting in Colorado Springs, CO. Karl Klee, Robert Campbell, and Clare Smith met with Fay Cover at Pikes Peak Community College to work on detailed plans for the 3-part 9-hour workshop to be held at SIGCSE '97. The workshop proposal was accepted by SIGCSE. November 17-19, 1995: Committee meeting in New York City. Richard Austing, Robert Campbell, Fay Cover, John Impagliazzo, Karl Klee, Joyce Currie Little, and Clare Smith were in attendance. The Committee met with ACM Headquarters staff, including Julie Goetz and Fred Aronson. The Committee also met jointly with the Accreditation Committee at ACM Headquarters to discuss possible certification and/or accreditation of associate-level degree programs. The Committee also finalized plans for the Community College Initiative within SIGCSE '96 to be held at Philadelphia on February 15-17. February 15-17, 1996: Committee meetings in Philadelphia, PA, in conjunction with ACM Computing Week. Richard Austing, Robert Campbell, Fay Cover, Karl Klee, Joyce Currie Little, and Clare Smith were in attendance. The Annual (open) Committee Meeting was held on February 15 from 3:30 - 5 p.m. |
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2. PROJECT SUMMARY (FY '96) |
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2.1 Community College Initiative: |
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The Committee in conjunction with SIG3C, the ACM SIG for Computing at Community Colleges, conducted a cooperative venture called the Community College Initiative as part of the 1996 SIGCSE Technical Symposium held February 15-17 in Philadelphia. With the assistance of funding from SIGCSE, the Community College Initiative consisted of a birds-of-a-feather session on Thursday evening, two panel presentations of interest to two-year college faculty on Friday afternoon, a Friday evening reception, and a three-part nine-hour workshop on Friday evening and all day Saturday. SIGCSE also provided funding for promotional mailings to all two-year college faculty within driving distance of Philadelphia. SIG3C members were able to register for the Symposium and the workshops at the ACM/SIGCSE member registration rates. The special workshop was entitled Issues in Computing at Community Colleges. Due to the popularity and successes of this workshop, an NSF Undergraduate Faculty Enhancement proposal was submitted in June to conduct four similar workshops during 1997 at four geographical regions of the United States. The Committee, with SIG3C, is submitting a similar workshop proposal for the 1997 SIGCSE Technical Symposium to be held February 27 - March 1 in San Jose, CA. Status: Ongoing. |
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2.2 Survey Project: |
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| The Committee submitted a SIG Discretionary Fund proposal to the SIG Board on October 15, 1995 titled Survey of Academic Programs in Computing at Institutions Offering Associate Degrees. The requested amount was $39,000 for the two-year period March 1996 to February 1998. The requested amount included $15,000 for the services of a specialist in survey design, development, implementation, and analysis. The project was not funded by the SIG Board. The SIG Board felt the project was good and had a lot of merit, but was too expensive for their budget. The Board suggested that the Committee either look elsewhere (e.g. NSF) for funding, or resubmit the proposal to the SIG Board with a reduced budget amount. They suggested that we use volunteers to handle the statistical work. Status: Suspended. | |
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2.3 Conference Presentations: |
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As part of the Community College Initiative, the Committee conducted two panel presentations at SIGCSE '96 in Philadelphia. One panel presentation was entitled Computing Experiences at Two-Year Colleges Serving Native Americans. This panel was a follow-up to the Committee's successful NSF UFE grant in 1994 entitled Workshop to Enhance Computing Faculty at Two-Year Colleges Serving Native Americans. The other panel presentation was entitled Emerging Technologies: Issues and Solutions for Community Colleges. Panelists presented their views on the issues of emerging technologies, resource management, and classroom methodologies. The other conference presentation was the three-part nine-hour workshop discussed earlier. Status: Completed. Committee Cost: Some of the planning was conducted during scheduled Committee meetings. All additional costs were paid for by SIGCSE since these activities were part of the Community College Initiative. |
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2.4 Supporting SIG3C: |
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| The Committee continues to lend support to SIG3C primarily through a Committee column and other Committee articles published in 3C ONLINE, the quarterly publication of SIG3C. Status: Ongoing. Committee costs: None. | |
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2.5 The 1993 Curriculum Reports for Associate-Degree Programs: |
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| The Committee continues to promote the four-volume set of curriculum reports that were created by the Committee and published by ACM Press in 1993. Although four years old at this point, these reports continue to help provide guidance for two-year college faculty who are starting and/or updating their curricula. The Computing for Other Disciplines report, included with each of the four degree-specific volumes, is rapidly becoming out of date and is currently in need of being revised. Status: Ongoing. | |
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2.6 Accreditation / Articulation: |
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The Committee continues to discuss these very important topics with other two-year college faculty as well as other groups and organizations (e.g. the ACM Accreditation Committee). The consensus seems to be that accreditation of transfer-level degree programs is not needed since that is more of an articulation issue with transfer institutions. The accreditation of career-level programs is considered to be an important topic by many groups and individuals. However the cost of such a process is currently an important issue that many two-year colleges are not willing to underwrite in this era of cost-cutting at two-year colleges nationwide. Articulation is primarily a local issue between area secondary schools and a two-year college and between a two-year college and area transfer institutions. The Committee has conducted panel presentations in the past to try to formulate articulation guidelines. The results from these panels have been inconclusive. Status: Ongoing. Cost: Some of the work was conducted during scheduled Committee meetings. Some mailing costs have been expensed through the Committee. |
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3. PLANS (FY '97) |
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3.1 Updating the Computing for Other Disciplines Report: |
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| The Computing Currricula Guidelines for Associate-Degree Programs were completed by the Committee and published as a four-volume set by ACM Press in 1993. The Computing for Other Disciplines report, included in each of the four curriculum-specific volumes, is rapidly becoming out of date. Funding for the original curriculum project was covered primarily by the ACM Education Board and the ACM SIG Board. The Committee is currently composing a proposal to the ACM SIG Board for a funding request from the SIG Discretionary Fund to help cover the expenses incurred in updating the Computing for Other Disciplines report. The plan is to have a Strategic Summit where a group of professionals is formed with representatives from two-year colleges, industry, and organizations such as SIG3C, SIGCSE, CCSC, AMATYC, etc. to determine the current status and detail what should be occurring at two-year colleges (and perhaps at four-year colleges) relative to Computing for Other Disciplines. We plan to use 3C ONLINE, the publication of SIG3C to obtain feedback from a targeted group of two-year college computing faculty. | |
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3.2 The NSF UFE Proposal: |
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| In June 1996 the Committee submitted a proposal to NSF for funding under the Undergraduate Faculty Enhancement grant program. The proposal consists of a set of four workshops to be conducted at four different geographical locations within the United States to provide a financially-realistic opportunity for computing faculty, instructional support staff, and instructional computing administrators at two-year colleges and lower-division four-year colleges to become familiar with current issues and obtain a working knowledge of some of the emerging technologies in instructional computing. Four two-day workshops and follow-up activities involving four groups of thirty participants each would be held. The Committee is very hopeful about the funding prospects for this proposal. | |
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3.3 Community College Initiative: |
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| The Committee, in conjunction with SIG3C, will be submitting proposals for a workshop, and a birds-of-a-feather reception at SIGCSE '97 as part of a continuing Community College Initiative designed specifically to address the two-year college environment. At this point, we do not have a financial assistance commitment from SIGCSE for this project. | |
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3.4 Survey Project: |
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| The Committee has recently decided not to resubmit the survey project (described above) to the SIG Board for funding during this year's funding cycle for the following reasons. We feel the funding chances for our NSF UFE proposal are better than average. If funded, the NSF project will consume a lot of our available time resources. Secondly, important changes are occurring at some two year colleges nationwide relative to curricula and staffing. Some of these changes are a result of state mandates and funding reallocations. Other changes are a result of new teaching methodologies. Perhaps next year will be a better year to begin the process of conducting such a survey. The Committee has discussed funding prospects with some NSF Program Directors, but it is not clear which NSF programs would be best to target for such a survey project. | |
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3.5 Articulation: |
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The Committee will continue to deal with the very important topic of articulation. The topic of articulation includes not only the two-year to four-year program articulation, but also the secondary school to two-year college articulation. |
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4. COMMENTS |
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No additional comments are being made. |
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Addendum |
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The ACM Two-Year College Education Committee is comprised of the following members: |
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Karl J. Klee (Committee Chair) |
Robert D. Campbell |
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Richard Austing |
Joyce Currie Little |
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Pikes Peak Community College Colorado Springs, CO 80906 (719) 540-7397 cover@ppcc.cccoes.edu |
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