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Computing Across Curricula: The View of Industry Leaders

Abstract

With the aim of preparing students for pervasive, advanced computing in the workplace, a project funded by the National Science Foundation CISE Pathways to Revitalized Undergraduate Computing Education (CPATH) was initiated in 2007. The multidisciplinary project has two overarching goals: (1) create a computational thinking thread in the engineering curriculum that spans from the freshman to senior years and bridges the divide between freshman year computing and computing in upper-level classes, and (2) enable students to take computing competency to the next level, where they are able to perform high-level computing tasks within the context of a discipline.

The first phase of the project entailed the establishment of an academe-industry community in which stakeholders from a broad range of engineering disciplines convened to discuss the challenges and opportunities inherent in transforming the undergraduate computing education and to identify creative strategies for implementation. To effectively facilitate group communication within the “Computing Across Curricula” (CAC) community, the Delphi method was employed for the systematic knowledge collection and the achievement of consensus among industry leaders. Three critical phases are described in this process: (1) organize an industry panel to identify potential Delphi participants and to generate questions for an open-ended Delphi survey, (2) design, implement, and analyze an open-ended Delphi survey, and (3) design, implement, and analyze a quantifiable Delphi survey. A model of computational capabilities was also derived from the industry panel and is being used to promote a common language of computational capabilities in engineering.

As part of the Delphi process, the project has gathered the first round of feedback from industry leaders, thematically identifying a set of computational capabilities vital for engineering professionals. In the next phase a refined set of computational themes was sent back out to the industry panel for ranking. Results from the industry panel and the current Delphi process will be presented. Implications of the results for a computational thinking thread in the engineering curriculum will be discussed as well as plans for future project activities.

Introduction

Rapidly developing computational technologies are radically reshaping the nature of the workplace 1. Jobs that consist primarily of routine engineering and computational activities are quickly moving oversees to cheaper labor markets or being completely automated. This and other immense changes in global political and economic dynamics means the 21st century engineer will look very different than their 20th century counterparts 2. While these changes can be seen as a real threat to the engineering job market, engineers who have learned how to harness computational capabilities for

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Wiebe, E., & Ho, C., & Bullard, L., & Raubenheimer, D., & Joines, J., & Miller, C., & Rouskas, G. (2009, June), Computing Across Curricula: The View Of Industry Leaders Paper presented at 2009 Annual Conference & Exposition, Austin, Texas. 10.18260/1-2--4918