Data from CRA’s own Taulbee Survey of PhD-granting computer science and computer engineering departments in North America shows that the number of newly declared CS majors has increased for the first time since the height of the dot-com boom in Fall 2000. This might indicate that interest in CS has stabilized after a long period of decline post-2000, writes Jay Vegso in the CRA Bulletin.
While the number of enrollments in undergraduate CS departments continues down among the CS departments surveyed, the increase in newly declared CS majors suggests that these highly-cyclical enrollments may be poised to exit their current trough in the coming years. The Taulbee numbers also show that though enrollments are down from Fall 2000 peak, enrollments are still above the pre-boom 1995 numbers.
CRA will release the full results from the Taulbee Survey in May.
There’s good coverage of the release of the undergraduate info today in both Inside Higher Ed and Computerworld. Both are worth reading. And of course, Jay’s got the full detail at the CRA Bulletin. Update: Also, E-week.
CRA’s Distinguished Service Award is presented annually to a person who has made an outstanding service contribution to the computing research community. The award recognizes service in the areas of government affairs, professional societies, publications or conferences, and leadership that has a major impact on computing research. The CRA Board of Directors has selected W. Richards (Rick) Adrion, University of Massachusetts at Amherst, to receive its 2008 Distinguished Service Award.
Adrion was recognized for his sustained record of effective and significant service contributions spanning more than two decades. He has played a key role in building, nurturing and shaping todays computer science community. Among these contributions are leadership in the development of the Internet; leadership in setting strategic directions at the National Science Foundation; leadership in developing a stronger political voice for computer science in national politics; leadership in strengthening the software engineering community; leadership in strengthening, modernizing and invigorating computing and information technology programs in Massachusetts public higher education; and overall service to the computer science community. Rick Adrion was general chair of the first ACM/CRB Conference on Strategic Directions in Computing. He also played a leadership role in the formation of CRA and was an active board member for many years, serving on the Executive Committee and Government Affairs Committee.
Rick Adrion is Professor of Computer Science at UMass Amherst, Co-Director of RIPPLES, Co-Director of the Commonwealth Information Technology Initiative (CITI), and Director of CRICCS. He served as Division Director for Experimental and Integrated Activities in the NSF Directorate for Computer and Information Science and Engineering (CISE) from January 2000 through August 2002 and as a part-time Senior Advisor in CISE until September 2003.
CRA’s A. Nico Habermann Award is usually presented annually to a person who has made outstanding contributions aimed at increasing the numbers and/or successes of underrepresented members in the computing research community. It honors the late A. Nico Habermann, who headed NSF’s Computer and Information Science and Engineering Directorate and who was deeply committed to increasing the participation of women and underrepresented minorities in computing research. The CRA board has selected Richard E. Ladner, Boeing Professor in Computer Science and Engineering at the University of Washington, to receive the 2008 Habermann Award. Professor Ladner is recognized for his lifelong, strong and persistent advocacy on behalf of people with disabilities in the computing community.
Ladner’s contributions have taken three forms: mentoring of students, research both with and for persons with disabilities, and national advocacy. He is known for his dedicated, one-on-one mentoring of students (both with and without disabilities). Over the past 15 summers, he has worked with 38 severely disabled high school students on week-long summer projects in computing. Ladner has also mentored undergraduates and graduate students with disabilities, often working with them on assistive technology research. His assistive technology efforts have resulted in networking (remote login, email) for Seattle’s deaf-blind community, large-print user interfaces for Unix machines, video compression algorithms that are tailored to American Sign Language and simple enough to implement in real-time on a cell phone, and new image processing and enhancement algorithms to convert graphical images–diagrams in math and science textbooks–into tactile images.
Richard Ladner currently co-leads the NSF-sponsored AccessComputing Alliance, a national effort to increase the number of students with disabilities majoring in computing. As part of their effort, the Alliance hosts workshops and summer camps around the country, and Ladner has run many of these, including a three-day Vertical Mentoring Workshop for the Blind in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics, and a nine-week summer camp for deaf students. Ladner has also been tireless in his advocacy at the national level: he has spoken to many groups, including department chairs at the CRA Conference at Snowbird, and worked with organizations and departments (through AccessComputing’s communities of practice) to make it easier for students with disabilities to fully participate.
[The following guest post by CRA Chair Dan Reed originally appeared on Dan’s blog, Reed’s Ruminations. We’re pleased to repost it here.]
Much has been written about declining enrollments in computer science, the image of computing among secondary school students, and the depressingly small numbers of women and minorities enrolled in computer science programs. There are many opinions about the root causes of our enrollment problems and at least as many opinions about possible solutions. The reality of the problem is not in dispute, however. Slicing the Infinite Onion
As I reflect on the past thirty years of computer science curricula and my experience as both a student and a professor, I am often struck by how little has changed. The core elements of our curricula remain centered on formal languages and theory, data structures, programming languages and compilers, operating systems and computer architecture. These are the courses I took as an undergraduate in the 1970s, and we still teach their evolutionary variants today.
Around continuous and discrete mathematics, physical and biological science and this computing core, we have added successive layers to the computing curriculum onion: graphics and human-computer interaction, artificial intelligence, mobile and embedded devices, computational geometry, networks and distributed systems, numerical and scientific algorithms, parallel computing, databases and data mining, privacy and information security, just to name a few.
As this non-exhaustive list illustrates, the computing curriculum onion has grown ever larger and more complex, with each layer derived from new discoveries and technologies. I do not believe this expansion can continue indefinitely. Asymptotics do apply the number of students will tend (indeed, is tending toward) zero as the knowledge and degree expectations approaches infinity. This must change. Rethinking Computing Education
I believe we must rethink our computing education approaches in some deep and fundamental ways. First, as researchers and technologists we seek to reproduce students in our technical image, failing to acknowledge that most of our students will not develop compilers, write operating systems or design computer chips. Rather, they benefit from training in logical problem solving, knowledge of computing tools and their applicability to new domains.
In short, most of our graduates solve problems using computing rather than working in core computing technologies. We must recognize and embrace the universality of computing as a problem solving process and introduce computing via technically challenging and socially relevant problem domains.
The magic hierarchy of computing from atoms to gates to bits to in-order instruction architecture and machine language to code translation to “hello world” was an attractive and emotionally enticing technology story to previous generations. It is often esoteric and off-putting to a generation of students reared on ubiquitous computing technology.
This does not mean we should eviscerate the intellectual core of computing. Rather, we must emphasize relevance and introduce computing as a means to solve problems. Show the importance of computing to elections and voting, energy management and eco-friendly design, health care and quality of life.
Second, we struggle to accept the fact that not every student needs detailed knowledge of every computing specialization. If I were to draw a tortured analogy with the history of automobile, drivers need not understand combustion dynamics, the stiff ODE solutions underlying antilock brakes or superheterodyne radio engineering. Drivers do need to understand how to operate a car safely and recognize the high-level principles underlying that operation.
All of this suggests we should create multiple educational tracks that emphasis the disparate aspects of computing, layered atop a smaller, common core. Of course, I could be wrong I often am. CRA-E Committee
To explore the future of computing education, CRA has chartered a new committee, CRA-E (E for education), chaired by Brown professor Andries (Andy) van Dam. The new committee seeks to understand how the broad computing community needs to move forward in order to develop principles and philosophy underlying the computing education of the future. As I noted in the press release:
I am delighted that Professor van Dam has agreed to service as the initial chair of CRA-E. Not only is Andy a distinguished and respected researcher, he is passionate about computing education, both its theory and its practice. Moreover, he has long worked to apply novel technologies to computing education.
Andy will be assembling a committee to think deeply and strategically about the future of computing education, especially at the undergraduate level. I look forward to the outcome of these explorations.
The National Science Foundation (along with all other federal agencies) released its FY 09 Budget Request to Congress on Monday. We’ve already had some preliminary coverage of it, noting that, on the whole, computing research does pretty well. Late Monday afternoon NSF hosted a briefing on its budget to provide a little finer resolution look at what they hope to get from Congress in this appropriations season — and we’ve got those details below (spoiler: they’re pretty good).
But maybe just as importantly, NSF’s Computer and Information Science and Engineering (CISE) directorate also provided some detail about how it plans to deal with the austere appropriation it received from Congress for FY 2008. Before we get to the relatively good news from the request, it’s probably appropriate to close the book on the FY 2008 numbers. You’ll recall that CISE had some big plans for FY 2008. We’ve listed some of the potential impacts on NSF overall from the omnibus funding levels in a previous post, but here’s what we know specifically about CISE:
NSF had requested a 9.0 percent increase for CISE in FY 2008, an increase of $47 million. Instead, CISE will see just a 1.5 percent increase — $39 million less than requested.
The Cyber-enabled Discovery Initiative (CDI), a new initiative when it was proposed for FY 08, will see all of its requested funding. For FY 08, that’s $20 million. Foundation-wide, CDI will be funded at $48 million in FY 08, down a bit from the overall request of $52 million, but still a strong commitment to a program that has attracted considerable attention within the computing community (with more to come in FY 09).
The biggest impact on CISE, therefore, is the growth that won’t occur across the rest of the core in FY 08. Because NSF has targeted an average award size of $120,000 for FY 08, that’s approximately 325 grants they had planned to award that they will not now as a result of the omnibus. On average, those 325 awards would have supported more than 400 graduate students this year.
Now, the good news.
For FY 2009, NSF hopes to make up the ground lost in the omnibus by requesting significant increases for its research directorates. Overall, NSF would see its budget increase by 14 percent over FY 08, to $6.06 billion in FY 09. Within that increase, computing research is featured prominently in the request. The Foundation-wide, but CISE led, Cyber-enabled Discovery and Innovation program would expand considerably under the agency’s plan, growing from $48 million in FY 08 to $100 million in FY 09, including $33 million in CISE. Additionally, the agency has proposed two new foundation-wide initiatives that have strong computing foci. The first is a $20 million investment in “Science and Engineering Beyond Moore’s Law,” which “aims to position the U.S. at the forefront of communications and computation capability beyond the physical and conceptional limitations of current systems.” That program would be led by the Mathematics and Physical Sciences directorate, but CISE would control $6 million in awards. The second is a $15 million investment ($3.5 million in CISE) in “Adaptive Systems Technology” that focuses on “generating pathways and interfaces between human and physical systems that will revolutionize the development of novel adaptive systems.”
Additionally, CISE would see its core research budget increase by 19.5 percent, or $104 million, in FY 09 under the President’s plan — essentially making up all the ground lost with the omnibus. Programs of note within the directorate include:
$78 million for Computing Fundamentals — set-aside for basic, potentially transformative research answering fundamental questions in computing that have the potential for “significant, enduring impact.” Foci include cyber-physical systems, data-intensive computing, software for complex systems, cybersecurity, network science and engineering, and understanding “what is computable?” when humans and machines work together to solve problems neither can solve alone.
$33.6 million for CDI — CISE would contribute over a third of the total NSF investment in the initiative and would be the “lead” directorate.
We’ll have some additional charts spelling out exactly how CISE plans to spend its money in FY 09 very soon.
For now, it’s enough to say that the budget appears to once again represent a good start for NSF and computing in the appropriations cycle. But it’s just the start of a long, unpredictable process.
Next up, a focus on DOD IT R&D….
WASHINGTON, DC — The Computing Research Association is pleased to announce the appointment of Andries van Dam, Brown University Professor of Technology and Education and Professor of Computer Science, to lead its new effort to improve the quality of computing education, particularly at the undergraduate level. Professor van Dam will chair CRA’s new Education Committee, called CRA-E, charged to think broadly about the future of computing education
I am delighted that Professor van Dam has agreed to service as the initial chair of CRA-E, said Daniel Reed, Microsofts Scalable and Multicore Computing Strategist and Chair of CRA. Not only is Andy a distinguished and respected researcher, he is passionate about computing education, both its theory and its practice. Moreover, he has long worked to apply novel technologies to computing education.
CRA established the CRA-E after declining enrollments in computer science led to a reexamination of the image of computing and the nature of the 21st Century computing curriculum. The new committee seeks to understand how the broad computing community needs to move forward in order to develop principles and philosophy underlying the computing education of the future. I dont believe we can continue the indefinite addition of layers to the computing curriculum onion that was defined in the 1970s, said Reed. We need to rethink some of our fundamental assumptions about computing education approaches and content, and Professor van Dam is the right person to lead that effort.
Professor van Dam has been on Browns faculty since 1965 and was one of the founders and first Chair of its Computer Science Department. Along with J.D. Foley, van Dam authored seminal texts on computer graphics, and has authored or co-authored over 100 papers. He is a fellow of the IEEE, Association for Computing Machinery, American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the American Association for the Advancement of Science, a member of the National Academy of Engineering, recipient of awards for outstanding contributions to computing education from ACM, IEEE and SIGCSE, and a winner of the 2002 CRA Distinguished Service Award. van Dam also served as the Chair of CRA from 1985 to 1987. About CRA. CRA was established 30 years ago and has members at more than 250 research entities in academia, industry and government. Its mission is to strengthen research and advance education in the computing fields, expand opportunities for women and minorities, and improve public and policymaker understanding of the importance of computing and computing research in society.
For more about CRA.
Congratulations to Edmund M. Clarke of Carnegie Mellon, E. Allen Emerson of UT-Austin, and Joseph Siafkis of Verimag Laboratory in France, on being awarded ACM’s 2007 A.M. Turing award, the highest honor in computing, for their work on a quality assurance process known as Model Checking!
ACM has all the details in their press release.
It looks like a decent year for Advanced Scientific Computing Research at the Department of Energys Office of Science. Following the FY08 omnibus, in which ASCR received an almost 25 percent increase, the President has requested another 5 percent increase for FY09, for a total of $368.8 million. Here is a brief breakdown:
Applied mathematics and computer science research $93.2 million
Scientific Discovery through Advanced Computing (SciDAC) $58.1 million
High-performance computing and network facilities and testbeds $217.5 million
The high-performance computing number includes:
$54.8 million for the National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center
$85 million for Oak Ridge Leadership Computing Facility
$30 million for Argonne Leadership Computing Facility
$25 million for an Energy Sciences Network (ESNet)
US high-performance computing is expected to reach a petaflop this year at Oak Ridge and Raymond Orbach, the director of the Office of Science, stated at the budget briefing presentation that the US will increase computing power by a factor of ten every two years moving forward.
Overall, the Office of Science did well in the request with $4.7 billion, an 18.8 percent increase. This keeps the Office of Science close to the ACI trajectory announced by the President in 2006. Funding levels include:
$805 million for high energy physics
$510 million for nuclear physics
$568.5 million for biological and environmental research
$1.57 billion for basic energy science
$493 million for fusion energy sciences
$110 million for science laboratories infrastructure
In FY08, there were $123.6 million in earmarks in a total appropriation of $4.02 billion, which the President has zeroed out in the FY09 budget request.
The President’s budget request for FY 2009 is now online and we’ve done a quick read through to glean some numbers of interest to the computing research community. These will likely be refined over the next few days as we figure out exactly what’s in there and what’s not, but it’s a pretty good indication of where the President’s priorities are as we head into his final year. The Networking and Information Technology Research and Development (NITRD) program
NITRD represents the sum total of the federal government’s investment in information technology research across 13 federal agencies. Overall, the NITRD program would see an increase of 6 percent compared to estimated levels for FY 2008, due largely to increases in the three agencies featured in the President’s American Competitiveness Initiative (ACI). IT R&D at the National Science Foundation would grow 17 percent> over FY 08 levels to $1.090 billion (putting NSF’s share of NITRD at over a billion dollars for the first time). The Department of Energy’sOffice of Science computing research would grow 13 percent over FY 08 to $494 million. Dept of Commerce, which includes the National Institute of Standards and Technology, would grow 6 percent to $90 million.
Defense IT R&D appears to decrease 2 percent in the President’s request vs FY08, but it’s hard to assess that decrease without understanding exactly how many congressionally-directed projects (earmarks) were removed in the agency request. (More below.) NASA and the National Institutes of Health also see either flat-funding or slight decreases in the request, but again, without knowing what earmarks were removed, it’s hard to assess the budgets. EPA and the National Archives and Records Administration would get what little they received in FY 08 in FY 09 ($6 million and $5 million, respectively).
Agency budgets: NSF (pdf)
NSF research accounts would increase 16 percent (14 percent for NSF overall) over FY 08 in the President’s plan, to $6.06 billion. Included in that $6 billion is “$1.1 billion for fundamental information technology research and cutting-edge supercomputing and networking resources, including: $100 million, an 110-percent increase, for an NSF-wide effort to develop radically new computational concepts and tools [this is Cyber-enabled Discovery and Innovation — Peter]; and $30 million for a new targeted cyber-security research effort in privacy, fundamental theory and usability.”
We’ll have CISE numbers after NSF’s budget briefing later this afternoon. DOE (pdf)
DOE Science Programs would grow 19 percent vs FY 08 to $4.7 billion. As noted above, DOE’s IT R&D would see a 13 percent increase (on top of the nearly 25 percent increase DOE’s Advanced Scientific Computing Research account received in the omnibus for FY 08). NIST (pdf)
NIST core research would increase 4 percent over FY 08, but given the heavy earmarks in the omnibus that were likely stripped from this agency request, that may actually seem like a much more substantial increase. NASA (pdf)
NASA science would drop 4 percent to $4.4 billion. NIH (pdf)
NIH is flat-funded in the President’s request. Defense (pdf)
This is trickiest to figure out given the how heavily the DOD budget is earmarked. The President’s budget calls for an increase of just 4 percent for Defense Basic (6.1) research and a decrease of 16 percent to Defense Applied (6.2) research vs. FY 08. However, if you subtract the earmarks from the FY 08 baseline, the increase for DOD 6.1 is more like 17 percent. DOD 6.2 shorn of earmarks would also grow in FY 09 to look like a 3.5 percent *increase* over FY 08 (not a 16 percent decrease). But the devil’s in the details and we’ll have many more of those in the coming days.
On the whole, it looks like the President has followed through with his commitment to ACI in his final budget. Of course, he’s also pledged to take some very firm stands regarding earmarks in the upcoming appropriations process (he’s threatened to veto any appropriations bill sent to his desk that doesn’t cut FY08 earmark levels in half). That stand virtually guarantees he won’t be around when Congress finally gets around to passing approps bills. It’s very unlikely Congress will want to a) give up that many earmarks and b) engage in a battle over appropriations before the election, so it’s likely this won’t get settled until January 09 (or later). But, as with last year, we start with some pretty healthy numbers. In fact, in terms of IT R&D, we start with the healthiest requests we’ve seen in many years.
More details to come.
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Interest in Computer Science Degrees Improving?
/In: CRA, People /by Peter HarshaData from CRA’s own Taulbee Survey of PhD-granting computer science and computer engineering departments in North America shows that the number of newly declared CS majors has increased for the first time since the height of the dot-com boom in Fall 2000. This might indicate that interest in CS has stabilized after a long period of decline post-2000, writes Jay Vegso in the CRA Bulletin.
While the number of enrollments in undergraduate CS departments continues down among the CS departments surveyed, the increase in newly declared CS majors suggests that these highly-cyclical enrollments may be poised to exit their current trough in the coming years. The Taulbee numbers also show that though enrollments are down from Fall 2000 peak, enrollments are still above the pre-boom 1995 numbers.
CRA will release the full results from the Taulbee Survey in May.
There’s good coverage of the release of the undergraduate info today in both Inside Higher Ed and Computerworld. Both are worth reading. And of course, Jay’s got the full detail at the CRA Bulletin.
Update: Also, E-week.
Rick Adrion Recognized for Distinguished Service to Computing Community
/In: CRA, Events, People /by Peter HarshaCRA’s Distinguished Service Award is presented annually to a person who has made an outstanding service contribution to the computing research community. The award recognizes service in the areas of government affairs, professional societies, publications or conferences, and leadership that has a major impact on computing research.
The CRA Board of Directors has selected W. Richards (Rick) Adrion, University of Massachusetts at Amherst, to receive its 2008 Distinguished Service Award.
Adrion was recognized for his sustained record of effective and significant service contributions spanning more than two decades. He has played a key role in building, nurturing and shaping todays computer science community. Among these contributions are leadership in the development of the Internet; leadership in setting strategic directions at the National Science Foundation; leadership in developing a stronger political voice for computer science in national politics; leadership in strengthening the software engineering community; leadership in strengthening, modernizing and invigorating computing and information technology programs in Massachusetts public higher education; and overall service to the computer science community. Rick Adrion was general chair of the first ACM/CRB Conference on Strategic Directions in Computing. He also played a leadership role in the formation of CRA and was an active board member for many years, serving on the Executive Committee and Government Affairs Committee.
Rick Adrion is Professor of Computer Science at UMass Amherst, Co-Director of RIPPLES, Co-Director of the Commonwealth Information Technology Initiative (CITI), and Director of CRICCS. He served as Division Director for Experimental and Integrated Activities in the NSF Directorate for Computer and Information Science and Engineering (CISE) from January 2000 through August 2002 and as a part-time Senior Advisor in CISE until September 2003.
CRA Selects Richard Ladner as 2008 A. Nico Habermann Award Winner
/In: CRA, Diversity in Computing, Events, People /by Peter HarshaCRA’s A. Nico Habermann Award is usually presented annually to a person who has made outstanding contributions aimed at increasing the numbers and/or successes of underrepresented members in the computing research community. It honors the late A. Nico Habermann, who headed NSF’s Computer and Information Science and Engineering Directorate and who was deeply committed to increasing the participation of women and underrepresented minorities in computing research.
The CRA board has selected Richard E. Ladner, Boeing Professor in Computer Science and Engineering at the University of Washington, to receive the 2008 Habermann Award. Professor Ladner is recognized for his lifelong, strong and persistent advocacy on behalf of people with disabilities in the computing community.
Ladner’s contributions have taken three forms: mentoring of students, research both with and for persons with disabilities, and national advocacy. He is known for his dedicated, one-on-one mentoring of students (both with and without disabilities). Over the past 15 summers, he has worked with 38 severely disabled high school students on week-long summer projects in computing. Ladner has also mentored undergraduates and graduate students with disabilities, often working with them on assistive technology research. His assistive technology efforts have resulted in networking (remote login, email) for Seattle’s deaf-blind community, large-print user interfaces for Unix machines, video compression algorithms that are tailored to American Sign Language and simple enough to implement in real-time on a cell phone, and new image processing and enhancement algorithms to convert graphical images–diagrams in math and science textbooks–into tactile images.
Richard Ladner currently co-leads the NSF-sponsored AccessComputing Alliance, a national effort to increase the number of students with disabilities majoring in computing. As part of their effort, the Alliance hosts workshops and summer camps around the country, and Ladner has run many of these, including a three-day Vertical Mentoring Workshop for the Blind in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics, and a nine-week summer camp for deaf students. Ladner has also been tireless in his advocacy at the national level: he has spoken to many groups, including department chairs at the CRA Conference at Snowbird, and worked with organizations and departments (through AccessComputing’s communities of practice) to make it easier for students with disabilities to fully participate.
CRA-E in the Chronicle
/In: Computing Education, CRA, People /by MelissaNorrAndries van Dam, the newly appointed chair of the Computing Research Association Education Committee (CRA-E), is already hard at work getting the word out about the problems of computing education. He spoke to the Chronicle of Higher Education about the concerns and the future work necessary.
Computing Education and the Infinite Onion
/In: Computing Education, CRA, People, Policy /by Peter Harsha[The following guest post by CRA Chair Dan Reed originally appeared on Dan’s blog, Reed’s Ruminations. We’re pleased to repost it here.]
Much has been written about declining enrollments in computer science, the image of computing among secondary school students, and the depressingly small numbers of women and minorities enrolled in computer science programs. There are many opinions about the root causes of our enrollment problems and at least as many opinions about possible solutions. The reality of the problem is not in dispute, however.
Slicing the Infinite Onion
As I reflect on the past thirty years of computer science curricula and my experience as both a student and a professor, I am often struck by how little has changed. The core elements of our curricula remain centered on formal languages and theory, data structures, programming languages and compilers, operating systems and computer architecture. These are the courses I took as an undergraduate in the 1970s, and we still teach their evolutionary variants today.
Around continuous and discrete mathematics, physical and biological science and this computing core, we have added successive layers to the computing curriculum onion: graphics and human-computer interaction, artificial intelligence, mobile and embedded devices, computational geometry, networks and distributed systems, numerical and scientific algorithms, parallel computing, databases and data mining, privacy and information security, just to name a few.
As this non-exhaustive list illustrates, the computing curriculum onion has grown ever larger and more complex, with each layer derived from new discoveries and technologies. I do not believe this expansion can continue indefinitely. Asymptotics do apply the number of students will tend (indeed, is tending toward) zero as the knowledge and degree expectations approaches infinity. This must change.
Rethinking Computing Education
I believe we must rethink our computing education approaches in some deep and fundamental ways. First, as researchers and technologists we seek to reproduce students in our technical image, failing to acknowledge that most of our students will not develop compilers, write operating systems or design computer chips. Rather, they benefit from training in logical problem solving, knowledge of computing tools and their applicability to new domains.
In short, most of our graduates solve problems using computing rather than working in core computing technologies. We must recognize and embrace the universality of computing as a problem solving process and introduce computing via technically challenging and socially relevant problem domains.
The magic hierarchy of computing from atoms to gates to bits to in-order instruction architecture and machine language to code translation to “hello world” was an attractive and emotionally enticing technology story to previous generations. It is often esoteric and off-putting to a generation of students reared on ubiquitous computing technology.
This does not mean we should eviscerate the intellectual core of computing. Rather, we must emphasize relevance and introduce computing as a means to solve problems. Show the importance of computing to elections and voting, energy management and eco-friendly design, health care and quality of life.
Second, we struggle to accept the fact that not every student needs detailed knowledge of every computing specialization. If I were to draw a tortured analogy with the history of automobile, drivers need not understand combustion dynamics, the stiff ODE solutions underlying antilock brakes or superheterodyne radio engineering. Drivers do need to understand how to operate a car safely and recognize the high-level principles underlying that operation.
All of this suggests we should create multiple educational tracks that emphasis the disparate aspects of computing, layered atop a smaller, common core. Of course, I could be wrong I often am.
CRA-E Committee
To explore the future of computing education, CRA has chartered a new committee, CRA-E (E for education), chaired by Brown professor Andries (Andy) van Dam. The new committee seeks to understand how the broad computing community needs to move forward in order to develop principles and philosophy underlying the computing education of the future. As I noted in the press release:
Andy will be assembling a committee to think deeply and strategically about the future of computing education, especially at the undergraduate level. I look forward to the outcome of these explorations.
FY 09 Budget Close-Up: National Science Foundation
/In: American Competitiveness Initiative, Funding, FY08 Appropriations, FY09 Appropriations, Policy /by Peter HarshaThe National Science Foundation (along with all other federal agencies) released its FY 09 Budget Request to Congress on Monday. We’ve already had some preliminary coverage of it, noting that, on the whole, computing research does pretty well. Late Monday afternoon NSF hosted a briefing on its budget to provide a little finer resolution look at what they hope to get from Congress in this appropriations season — and we’ve got those details below (spoiler: they’re pretty good).
But maybe just as importantly, NSF’s Computer and Information Science and Engineering (CISE) directorate also provided some detail about how it plans to deal with the austere appropriation it received from Congress for FY 2008. Before we get to the relatively good news from the request, it’s probably appropriate to close the book on the FY 2008 numbers. You’ll recall that CISE had some big plans for FY 2008. We’ve listed some of the potential impacts on NSF overall from the omnibus funding levels in a previous post, but here’s what we know specifically about CISE:
Now, the good news.
For FY 2009, NSF hopes to make up the ground lost in the omnibus by requesting significant increases for its research directorates. Overall, NSF would see its budget increase by 14 percent over FY 08, to $6.06 billion in FY 09. Within that increase, computing research is featured prominently in the request. The Foundation-wide, but CISE led, Cyber-enabled Discovery and Innovation program would expand considerably under the agency’s plan, growing from $48 million in FY 08 to $100 million in FY 09, including $33 million in CISE. Additionally, the agency has proposed two new foundation-wide initiatives that have strong computing foci. The first is a $20 million investment in “Science and Engineering Beyond Moore’s Law,” which “aims to position the U.S. at the forefront of communications and computation capability beyond the physical and conceptional limitations of current systems.” That program would be led by the Mathematics and Physical Sciences directorate, but CISE would control $6 million in awards. The second is a $15 million investment ($3.5 million in CISE) in “Adaptive Systems Technology” that focuses on “generating pathways and interfaces between human and physical systems that will revolutionize the development of novel adaptive systems.”
Additionally, CISE would see its core research budget increase by 19.5 percent, or $104 million, in FY 09 under the President’s plan — essentially making up all the ground lost with the omnibus. Programs of note within the directorate include:
We’ll have some additional charts spelling out exactly how CISE plans to spend its money in FY 09 very soon.
For now, it’s enough to say that the budget appears to once again represent a good start for NSF and computing in the appropriations cycle. But it’s just the start of a long, unpredictable process.
Next up, a focus on DOD IT R&D….
CRA Names Computing Leader to Head New Education Effort
/In: CRA /by Peter HarshaWASHINGTON, DC — The Computing Research Association is pleased to announce the appointment of Andries van Dam, Brown University Professor of Technology and Education and Professor of Computer Science, to lead its new effort to improve the quality of computing education, particularly at the undergraduate level. Professor van Dam will chair CRA’s new Education Committee, called CRA-E, charged to think broadly about the future of computing education
I am delighted that Professor van Dam has agreed to service as the initial chair of CRA-E, said Daniel Reed, Microsofts Scalable and Multicore Computing Strategist and Chair of CRA. Not only is Andy a distinguished and respected researcher, he is passionate about computing education, both its theory and its practice. Moreover, he has long worked to apply novel technologies to computing education.
CRA established the CRA-E after declining enrollments in computer science led to a reexamination of the image of computing and the nature of the 21st Century computing curriculum. The new committee seeks to understand how the broad computing community needs to move forward in order to develop principles and philosophy underlying the computing education of the future. I dont believe we can continue the indefinite addition of layers to the computing curriculum onion that was defined in the 1970s, said Reed. We need to rethink some of our fundamental assumptions about computing education approaches and content, and Professor van Dam is the right person to lead that effort.
Professor van Dam has been on Browns faculty since 1965 and was one of the founders and first Chair of its Computer Science Department. Along with J.D. Foley, van Dam authored seminal texts on computer graphics, and has authored or co-authored over 100 papers. He is a fellow of the IEEE, Association for Computing Machinery, American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the American Association for the Advancement of Science, a member of the National Academy of Engineering, recipient of awards for outstanding contributions to computing education from ACM, IEEE and SIGCSE, and a winner of the 2002 CRA Distinguished Service Award. van Dam also served as the Chair of CRA from 1985 to 1987.
About CRA. CRA was established 30 years ago and has members at more than 250 research entities in academia, industry and government. Its mission is to strengthen research and advance education in the computing fields, expand opportunities for women and minorities, and improve public and policymaker understanding of the importance of computing and computing research in society.
For more about CRA.
ACM Announces 2007 Turing Award Winners
/In: People /by Peter HarshaCongratulations to Edmund M. Clarke of Carnegie Mellon, E. Allen Emerson of UT-Austin, and Joseph Siafkis of Verimag Laboratory in France, on being awarded ACM’s 2007 A.M. Turing award, the highest honor in computing, for their work on a quality assurance process known as Model Checking!
ACM has all the details in their press release.
FY 09 Budget Close-up: DOE Office of Science
/In: American Competitiveness Initiative, Funding, FY09 Appropriations /by MelissaNorrIt looks like a decent year for Advanced Scientific Computing Research at the Department of Energys Office of Science. Following the FY08 omnibus, in which ASCR received an almost 25 percent increase, the President has requested another 5 percent increase for FY09, for a total of $368.8 million. Here is a brief breakdown:
The high-performance computing number includes:
US high-performance computing is expected to reach a petaflop this year at Oak Ridge and Raymond Orbach, the director of the Office of Science, stated at the budget briefing presentation that the US will increase computing power by a factor of ten every two years moving forward.
Overall, the Office of Science did well in the request with $4.7 billion, an 18.8 percent increase. This keeps the Office of Science close to the ACI trajectory announced by the President in 2006. Funding levels include:
In FY08, there were $123.6 million in earmarks in a total appropriation of $4.02 billion, which the President has zeroed out in the FY09 budget request.
Computing Research Appears to Do Well in First Look at FY 09 Budget Numbers
/In: American Competitiveness Initiative, Funding, FY08 Appropriations, FY09 Appropriations, Policy /by Peter HarshaThe President’s budget request for FY 2009 is now online and we’ve done a quick read through to glean some numbers of interest to the computing research community. These will likely be refined over the next few days as we figure out exactly what’s in there and what’s not, but it’s a pretty good indication of where the President’s priorities are as we head into his final year.
The Networking and Information Technology Research and Development (NITRD) program
NITRD represents the sum total of the federal government’s investment in information technology research across 13 federal agencies. Overall, the NITRD program would see an increase of 6 percent compared to estimated levels for FY 2008, due largely to increases in the three agencies featured in the President’s American Competitiveness Initiative (ACI). IT R&D at the National Science Foundation would grow 17 percent> over FY 08 levels to $1.090 billion (putting NSF’s share of NITRD at over a billion dollars for the first time). The Department of Energy’s Office of Science computing research would grow 13 percent over FY 08 to $494 million. Dept of Commerce, which includes the National Institute of Standards and Technology, would grow 6 percent to $90 million.
Defense IT R&D appears to decrease 2 percent in the President’s request vs FY08, but it’s hard to assess that decrease without understanding exactly how many congressionally-directed projects (earmarks) were removed in the agency request. (More below.)
NASA and the National Institutes of Health also see either flat-funding or slight decreases in the request, but again, without knowing what earmarks were removed, it’s hard to assess the budgets.
EPA and the National Archives and Records Administration would get what little they received in FY 08 in FY 09 ($6 million and $5 million, respectively).
Agency budgets:
NSF (pdf)
NSF research accounts would increase 16 percent (14 percent for NSF overall) over FY 08 in the President’s plan, to $6.06 billion. Included in that $6 billion is “$1.1 billion for fundamental information technology research and cutting-edge supercomputing and networking resources, including: $100 million, an 110-percent increase, for an NSF-wide effort to develop radically new computational concepts and tools [this is Cyber-enabled Discovery and Innovation — Peter]; and $30 million for a new targeted cyber-security research effort in privacy, fundamental theory and usability.”
We’ll have CISE numbers after NSF’s budget briefing later this afternoon.
DOE (pdf)
DOE Science Programs would grow 19 percent vs FY 08 to $4.7 billion. As noted above, DOE’s IT R&D would see a 13 percent increase (on top of the nearly 25 percent increase DOE’s Advanced Scientific Computing Research account received in the omnibus for FY 08).
NIST (pdf)
NIST core research would increase 4 percent over FY 08, but given the heavy earmarks in the omnibus that were likely stripped from this agency request, that may actually seem like a much more substantial increase.
NASA (pdf)
NASA science would drop 4 percent to $4.4 billion.
NIH (pdf)
NIH is flat-funded in the President’s request.
Defense (pdf)
This is trickiest to figure out given the how heavily the DOD budget is earmarked. The President’s budget calls for an increase of just 4 percent for Defense Basic (6.1) research and a decrease of 16 percent to Defense Applied (6.2) research vs. FY 08. However, if you subtract the earmarks from the FY 08 baseline, the increase for DOD 6.1 is more like 17 percent. DOD 6.2 shorn of earmarks would also grow in FY 09 to look like a 3.5 percent *increase* over FY 08 (not a 16 percent decrease). But the devil’s in the details and we’ll have many more of those in the coming days.
On the whole, it looks like the President has followed through with his commitment to ACI in his final budget. Of course, he’s also pledged to take some very firm stands regarding earmarks in the upcoming appropriations process (he’s threatened to veto any appropriations bill sent to his desk that doesn’t cut FY08 earmark levels in half). That stand virtually guarantees he won’t be around when Congress finally gets around to passing approps bills. It’s very unlikely Congress will want to a) give up that many earmarks and b) engage in a battle over appropriations before the election, so it’s likely this won’t get settled until January 09 (or later). But, as with last year, we start with some pretty healthy numbers. In fact, in terms of IT R&D, we start with the healthiest requests we’ve seen in many years.
More details to come.