Summary of Paper: BCS/CPHC
Conference on Grand Challenges
in Computing Education,
Gosforth Park, Tyneside, 29th-31st March 2004
Computing for The New Generation
How, in a world of plug and play, self-configuration, automatic updates and installations, personal profiles and information on-tap, can we convince students that there is work still to be done? Is there work still to be done?
|
Richard
Hebblewhite |
Stuart Cunningham |
Vic Grout |
|
Centre for Applied
Internet Research |
||
This paper notes both the technical
advances in applications and communications over recent years and the effect
these have had on the learning experience of computing students. The ongoing change in the nature and balance
of course material is discussed, with a particular emphasis on
programming. Key issues relating to
perception and delivery are introduced in conclusion.
Introduction and Background
Advances have
been made across the entire information technology spectrum in the past two to
three decades. Two in particular are
relevant here:
·
The
ubiquity of the Internet.
·
The
sophistication of computing applications.
Through the use
of improved, largely simplified, hardware and software solutions, a typical
computer user can now perform complex activities and search vast information
banks in a manner that would have been considered unthinkable a single
generation ago. Indeed, anyone in
possession of the skills necessary to maintain, or even operate, a computer
from the late seventies or early eighties, would now be considered a computing
professional. As a result of this
increased range of applications and the reduction in skill necessary to use
them, the emphasis in most computing courses has shifted from the computer
science based interest in understanding to the computer studies principles of
exploitation. It is common today to find
entire computing degree programmes that, apart from a grudging concession to a
computer systems module or two, do little more than introduce students to a
succession of packages written for them by someone else. Programming in particular suffers in two
respects: firstly as just another applications environment to master but one
whose relevance students struggle to appreciate; secondly, in requiring skills
not to be found elsewhere in the curriculum, as an unpopular and difficult
subject.
Discussion
For a number of
years now, programming and systems modules, once the foundation of any
computing programme have been under threat.
The causes are not complex, merely linked, and can be summarised as
follows:
·
It
takes considerably less skill to achieve substantially more in modern computing. Off-the-shelf solutions abound and are
readily available and easy to implement.
The complexities of algorithmic design, language syntax, architectural
and organisational studies are seen as unnecessary and unpleasant by many
students, and some staff.
·
With
staff-student contact hours a scarce resource on most
courses, the largely laboratory-based, time-intensive, often unpopular,
developmental subjects such as programming have been ready candidates
for the axe. The introduction of rapid
applications development techniques and visual programming have, far from
alleviating the problem, merely caused students to lose sight of underlying
principles altogether and further confusion results.
·
With
the wealth of material available on the Internet, it is becoming increasingly
difficult to find assessment methods with adequate protection against
plagiarism. Programming suffers
particularly in this respect. The use of
cut-and-paste, for example, is easily detected and proved in a report but far
less so in program code. There is also a
growing attitude, for right or wrong, that much of the code that needs to be
written, has been written, so why learn how to write more?
And of course,
the process is cyclic. As the technical
areas are seen as increasingly irrelevant and unpopular, they are, where
possible, avoided more and taught less.
The subjects become less common and the skills regarded as more
specialist. The perception of computing
as a subject shifts. Under constraints
of lack of time and resources, quality of delivery declines and attitudes
harden further.
Questions and Challenges
So
what, if anything, should be done to rescue the technical areas, particularly
programming, of a computing degree. Should we
find ways to make these subjects more approachable, enjoyable, understandable,
relevant, even simpler, or are they to be abandoned to the sanctuary of the
computer science programmes, which in turn become the equivalent of the cryptic
crossword in a world of word-searches?
There may not be simple answers in store but these questions must be
posed nonetheless:
·
Will
the continued erosion of technical content from many computing programmes lead
to a two-tier graduate system: the builders and the users? If so, are we content to let this happen? Is it right for the majority of the
computer-literate population thus educated to be devoid of technical knowledge,
to become borrowers, in effect, of expertise available from elsewhere?
·
If we
think it necessary to support the ongoing inclusion of programming and systems
subjects on courses then what can be done to make them more accessible to the
majority of students? How can they be
delivered in a hostile environment with originality and assessed with
authenticity?
There are some
tough choices ahead of us!