Workshop on Aligning Educational Goals
with Professional Practice

Sponsored by the National Science Foundation (NSF) and
ABET (Accreditation Board for Engineering & Technology)

October 2 and 3, 2020

The goal of this NSF-funded workshop is to initiate a long-term partnership between the computing/software industry and academia with the express purpose of keeping computing curricula relevant and globally competitive.

We envision a periodic survey administered to industry and government employees nationwide by which computing professionals can provide actionable feedback to universities (e.g., which competencies are most important; which course experiences are most valuable, and which are not needed). We are aiming for a long-term industry-academia partnership rather than a short-term venture with immediate payoff. Instead, our goal is to collectively build and sustain the foundation for university-level computing programs, with the goal of creating stronger employees that will support U.S. competitiveness.

At the workshop, you will meet others like you, as well as people at different career stages. Through a robust discussion, we hope to find the best way to build a long running partnership to help keep U.S. computer science education at the forefront.

Workshop details

  • 11a.m. - 1p.m. Eastern Daylight Time on October 2 and 3, 2020.
  • A Zoom link will be emailed to all who registered.
  • It’s not too late if you want to bring a colleague: register here.
  • It would be best to use a laptop/desktop computer with reasonable internet speed as we will be using a group collaboration and whiteboarding tool (miro.com) to conduct various activities with digital sticky notes and using Zoom breakout rooms to facilitate the online discussion.
  • The workshop will feature online group-activities and brainstorming using shared whiteboarding (miro.com).
  • If you have difficulty getting into Zoom, please email techsupport@abet.org.

How to prepare for the workshop

  • Please take about 10 minutes to look at this sample survey to get you thinking about what a survey might look like.
  • At the workshop, we will engage you in a set of activities to address the following questions:
    • What kinds of information will be most important to gather as computing professions continue to evolve?
    • What balance should curricula strike between narrow technical education and long-term intellectual development?
    • What will it take to get survey participation from computing professionals?
    • What will it take to sustain this effort over the coming years?

Steering Committee

  • Marisa Exter, Professor, Curriculum & Instruction, Purdue University
  • Colin Gray, Department of Computer Graphics Technology, Purdue University
  • Lawrence Jones, Former President, ABET, and Distinguished Principal Researcher, Software Engineering Institute, Carnegie Mellon University.
  • Allen Parrish, Professor, Department of Computer Science, University of Alabama
  • Rajendra Raj, Professor, Department of Computer Science, Rochester Institute of Technology
  • Carol Romanowski, Professor, Department of Computer Science, Rochester Institute of Technology
  • Mihaela Sabin, Professor, Department of Applied Engineering & Sciences, University of New Hampshire
  • Rahul Simha, Professor, Department of Computer Science, The George Washington University
  • Tiffani Williams, Professor, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
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