DOI: 10.1145/1498765.1498767
Andrew McGettrick

computing education matters

The student enrollment crisis in computer

science has propelled the need to re-examine

all aspects of computing education on a

global scale. This disturbing drop has

occurred at a time when there is a

strong need to recruit more partici-

pants into the field and to engender an

interest both in the discipline itself and

in related innovation. For those of us

in education, this downslide has been

of great concern. Daunting challenges

such as “transforming computing edu-

cation” and “rebooting computing”

(see story on page 19) are high on the

agenda. ACM’s Education Board and

Education Council, charged with pro-

moting computer science education in

every possible way, have made enroll-

ment a key focus of attention.

For background, the Education

Board has existed within ACM for over

three decades. Over the years, the Board

has initiated important education ac-

tivities regarding computer science

curriculum developments as well as

provided support and encouragement

for projects such as Eric Roberts’s not-

ed work on the Java Task Force, Peter

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Denning’s work on Great Principles, ³

and Lillian Cassel’s work on ontology. ²

Over the last four years, the Board’s

activities were restructured and the

ACM Education Council was born to

bring together the educational and ac-

creditation activities existing through-

out ACM’s various committees, task

forces, and special interest groups.

Part of the strategy for revamping the

Education Board and the Education

Council was to include greater indus-

try representation. Due to this realign-

ment, the work of the Education Board

itself was reshaped with considerable

emphasis on managing the work of the

Education Council.

The Education Council meets about

every eight months to keep members

abreast of the educational concerns

from industry, high-school teachers, as

well as those involved in K– 12 educa-

tion. The Education Council also keeps

track of the activities of professional

bodies such as the National Science

Foundation and NCWIT. Moreover, a

vital role for the Education Council is

to adopt an international perspective

in identifying the concerns in comput-

ing education and to respond by under-

taking activities that will ideally have a

positive impact.

Some of the recent accomplish-

ments of the Education Board and the

Education Council include:

˲ The completion of a major under-

taking in curriculum guidance in the

form of the five volumes of CC2001:

namely in Computer Science (2001

with an update in 2008); Information

Systems (2002); Software Engineering

(2004); Computer Engineering (2004);

and Information Technology (2009).

The board also finalized an Overview

Report (2006) on this project (see ACM

Educational Activities¹).

˲Producing and distributing ap-

proximately one million copies of a

brochure promoting the many positive

images of computing to middle- and

high-school students. ⁴ The brochure

and accompanying Web site were de-

signed, with support from the Com-

puter Science Teachers Association

(CSTA), to increase the visibility of

computer science in an encouraging

way to a young audience.

˲ Supporting ACM’s Journal of Edu-

cational Resources in Computing (JERIC)

as it transformed into Transactions on

Computing Education, with a first issue

due this month.

˲ Creating a comprehensive chart of

all the educational activities and initia-

tives within ACM and making it widely

available.

˲ Supporting an initial computing

education summit in China as well as

a number of European conferences un-

der the auspices of Informatics Educa-

tion Europe.

Together, ACM’s Education Board

and Education Council have estab-

lished an effective pattern of activities

and accomplishments among their

many programs and initiatives. Their

primary activities of curricular guid-

ance will continue and even expand.

Working closely with CSTA and K– 12

is vital to move educational initiatives

in the upward direction. Above all, the

Education Board must continue to

ensure there is an international per-

spective and a leadership dimension

to its activities. All of these programs

and more will be summarized twice

a year in inroads, the quarterly pub-

lication from ACM’s special interest

group on computer science education

(SIGCSE).

While successes have been many,

there are still many challenges ahead

for the education community. Projects

and initiatives designed to reverse de-

clining enrollment in computing disci-

plines must proliferate and prevail if we

are to succeed in stemming the enroll-

ment downturn. One potential catalyst

for the cause will be the adoption of new

technological developments (for exam-

ple, involving multi-core processors,

IBM’s racetrack memory, and vastly en-

hanced levels of interconnectivity) that

are poised to transform the computing

community and those drawn to it. As al-

ways, ACM will be at the forefront con-

tinually revitalizing its Education Board

and the Education Council and seeking

new and inspiring ways to address the

challenges of the day.

References

11. acm educational activities; www.acm.org/education.

22. cassel, l. computing ontology; http://what.csc. villanova.edu/twiki/bin/view/main/ontologyProject.

33. Denning, P.j. great Principles; cs.gmu.edu/pjd/gP.

44. education board and csta; computingcareers.acm.org.

5. roberts, e. java task force; jtf.acm.org.

Andrew McGettrick ( andrew.mcgettrick@cis.strath. ac.uk) is a professor of computer science at the university of strathclyde, glasgow, scotland, and chair of acm’s education board and education council.

© 2009 acm 0001-0782/09/0400 $5.00

APriL 2009 | voL. 52 | no. 4 | communicAtionS of the Acm

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