Brave New World: Can We Engineer a Better Start for Freshers?

Abstract - The crucial importance of first experiences in shaping future success has been widely acknowledged. Creating the best foundations in large cohorts of students from diverse backgrounds presents special problems of its own. But a secure foundation can enhance student achievement and improve retention – and the students may even have fun too. Research has suggested that building learning communities can enhance student engagement and achievement. This paper examines how introducing non-technical activities can establish sound foundations for a university career by a) addressing objectives in the wider curriculum and b) promoting non-technical skills and experience of group working. A set of changes introduced to five degree cohorts in our academic school were designed to complement enhancements to our technical curriculum introduced during many years of debate and consideration. The changes have impacted upon generic and technical educational experiences. The paper presents an evaluation of the programme of changes through two iterations from the perspective of both faculty and student

Curriculum Guidelines for Undergraduate Programs in Data Science

The Park City Math Institute (PCMI) 2016 Summer Undergraduate Faculty Program met for the purpose of composing guidelines for undergraduate programs in Data Science. The group consisted of 25 undergraduate faculty from a variety of institutions in the U.S., primarily from the disciplines of mathematics, statistics and computer science. These guidelines are meant to provide some structure for institutions planning for or revising a major in Data Science

Learning requirements engineering within an engineering ethos

An interest in educating software developers within an engineering ethos may not align well with the characteristics of the discipline, nor address the underlying concerns of software practitioners. Education for software development needs to focus on creativity, adaptability and the ability to transfer knowledge. A change in the way learning is undertaken in a core Software Engineering unit within a university's engineering program demonstrates one attempt to provide students with a solid foundation in subject matter while at the same time exposing them to these real-world characteristics. It provides students with a process to deal with problems within a metacognitive-rich framework that makes complexity apparent and lets students deal with it adaptively. The results indicate that, while the approach is appropriate, student-learning characteristics need to be investigated further, so that the two aspects of learning may be aligned more closely

Unifying an Introduction to Artificial Intelligence Course through Machine Learning Laboratory Experiences

This paper presents work on a collaborative project funded by the National Science Foundation that incorporates machine learning as a unifying theme to teach fundamental concepts typically covered in the introductory Artificial Intelligence courses. The project involves the development of an adaptable framework for the presentation of core AI topics. This is accomplished through the development, implementation, and testing of a suite of adaptable, hands-on laboratory projects that can be closely integrated into the AI course. Through the design and implementation of learning systems that enhance commonly-deployed applications, our model acknowledges that intelligent systems are best taught through their application to challenging problems. The goals of the project are to (1) enhance the student learning experience in the AI course, (2) increase student interest and motivation to learn AI by providing a framework for the presentation of the major AI topics that emphasizes the strong connection between AI and computer science and engineering, and (3) highlight the bridge that machine learning provides between AI technology and modern software engineering

Educating the educators: Incorporating bioinformatics into biological science education in Malaysia

Bioinformatics can be defined as a fusion of computational and biological sciences. The urgency to process and analyse the deluge of data created by proteomics and genomics studies has caused bioinformatics to gain prominence and importance. However, its multidisciplinary nature has created a unique demand for specialist trained in both biology and computing. In this review, we described the components that constitute the bioinformatics field and distinctive education criteria that are required to produce individuals with bioinformatics training. This paper will also provide an introduction and overview of bioinformatics in Malaysia. The existing bioinformatics scenario in Malaysia was surveyed to gauge its advancement and to plan for future bioinformatics education strategies. For comparison, we surveyed methods and strategies used in education by other countries so that lessons can be learnt to further improve the implementation of bioinformatics in Malaysia. It is believed that accurate and sufficient steerage from the academia and industry will enable Malaysia to produce quality bioinformaticians in the future

Philosophy of Computer Science: An Introductory Course

There are many branches of philosophy called “the philosophy of X,” where X = disciplines ranging from history to physics. The philosophy of artificial intelligence has a long history, and there are many courses and texts with that title. Surprisingly, the philosophy of computer science is not nearly as well-developed. This article proposes topics that might constitute the philosophy of computer science and describes a course covering those topics, along with suggested readings and assignments

Transforming students through peer assessment and authentic practice

This briefing document reports on a seminar where participants were provided with the opportunity to consider how they can provide authentic assessment and involve students as peers and mentors in the assessment process within their own discipline areas. The session explored the potential benefits of these approaches and also addressed the fears and possible drawbacks of such approaches, creating the opportunity to explore these in more detail and discuss solutions and approaches to avoid. The workshop was built around three different experiences of assessment practice in the higher education sector. It used a combination of speed geeking and a world cafe to allow participants to move around the room and listen to a short presentation on each experience and contribute to a related question in a conversational manner. The first experience was based on the use of students to provide feedback to their peers on formative work. The second experience used students from one subject area to help ‘mentor’ students in a different subject area. The final experience used a conference with external delegates to provide an authentic assessment experience for students

Developing the Curriculum for Collaborative Intellectual Property Education

Intellectual property education, i.e. how intellectual property should be taught or more importantly how intellectual property is learnt, is a recent addition to the academic 'intellectual property' agenda. The regulation, acquisition and management of intellectual property rights presents economic, ethical, social and policy challenges across the international academic and business communities. Intellectual property is also the starting point of interesting academic cross-disciplinary collaborations in learning and teaching and in research. It will probably always be primarily a law subject taught by lawyers to law students hoping to practice. At the same time there is a growing array of disciplines demanding an awareness of and a competence in handling intellectual property concepts and regulations. At Bournemouth, we have been teaching IP across the disciplines for more than a decade. Recently, the Higher Education Academy subject centres in Law and in Engineering jointly funded a project to research 'IP for Engineers'. WIPO has begun addressing IP Education in earnest. At an international symposium in July 2005, papers addressed different aspects of IP Education, including Collaboration between Law Faculties and other disciplines. In November 2005, they jointly sponsored a National Conference in China to consider IP Education from primary school thru postgraduate research. IP education beyond the law school raises interesting questions for anyone contemplating teaching this complex law subject to non-lawyers. What constitutes the IP syllabus? Who should be teaching IP? When should it be taught? How should it be taught? What resources should be available? This paper begins to explore some of the answers