Date: June 1, 2005

Chairperson: Aaron Tenenbaum

Department: Computer & Information Science

Annual Report Form for Academic Year 2004-2005

Please respond to each question. Use as much space as you need before going on to the next question.

1    What were your department’s goals as stated in the 2003-2004 annual report? To what extent were they realized in academic year 2004-2005?

a.   To stabilize falling enrollment.

This goal was partially achieved. While CIS enrollment continued to fall, in line with national trends, the rate of decline has decreased. Since 1999-2000, CIS enrollment (including Core) has dropped 42%. We attribute the drop to past weakness in the economy, the dot-com collapse, and the increasing use of offshore employees for information technology development. The employment picture in the information technology sector weakened considerably in 2001-03 from its unnatural peak in the late 1990s through the year 2000, and this is reflected by fewer students seeking to enter that sector. Indeed, the UCLA survey of entering freshmen reports a 60% drop nationally in entering freshmen who plan to major in the computing disciplines.

Although the economy and the job situation have now turned decidedly upward, there is a significant lag between the upturn in the demand for workers and its effects on student enrollment. Also, the precise mix of jobs in the information technology sector has probably been altered irreversibly by the offshoring phenomenon, and our curricula will have to adjust to demand.

In addition, homeland security policies have made it more difficult for international students to study here. This particularly affects CIS graduate enrollment, which had been made up in large part by international students. Again, this is part of a well-recognized national trend.

As after past recessions, we expect CIS enrollment to regain its historical levels, although perhaps not the most recent highs, as the economic direction continues its current turn upward. We are seeing a definite improvement of employment prospects over last year, and an up tick in students entering the field is sure to follow. Long-term forecasts of IT sector employment remain high, and the field will see peaks again, despite short-term valleys. We expect that students now entering the computer science major or in the first two years of computer science study will have exceptionally good job prospects because of the shortage of supply of entry-level employment candidates in the 2006-2012 timeframe.

Another cause for the drop in CIS-assigned FTEs was the abolition of Core 5 and the institution of Core 5.1. Students are more reluctant to register for a 1.5 credit course than for a 3-credit course, especially since Core 5.1 requires two hours for only 1.5 credits. Students were also less familiar with the nature of Core 5.1 since their friends have not taken it. An additional factor is that many transfer students no longer have to take Core 5.1 because of new CUNY transfer policies. The College is steering transfers to other Core courses rather than to Core 5.1.

We are now seeing increases in Core 5.1 enrollment as it becomes an established part of the Brooklyn College curriculum. We are also seeing increased demand for CIS 1.0, the 3-credit, 3-hour alternative to Core 5.1. However, due to the drop in transfer student registration for Core 5.1, it is unlikely that the levels of FTEs will reach the historical levels for Core 5. Additionally, the coming new Core requirements will require either a 3-credit Math or CIS course. It is difficult to predict the effect of this new requirement on FTEs allocated to CIS. This will depend on the number of sections we can mount, the number of sections math mounts of its Core course, and proclivities of students between the two disciplines and to a 3-credit, 3-hour Core course versus a 1.5-credit, 2-hour version.

One way in which we have been mitigating the drop in enrollment is by expanding our service offerings for nonmajors. The percentage of departmental enrollments that are in service courses (including Core) is approaching the number in major courses. An additional tactic we are using is cross-listing courses with other departments. We have found that the mix of students in such courses is beneficial to the overall class atmosphere and intellectual discussion, as well as to FTE counts

b.   To increase external funding.

This goal has been partially met. Professor Ted Raphan, whose external funding productivity is prodigious, was awarded another grant. Professors Parsons and Scarlatos received a large NSF equipment grant. Professor Eskicioglu obtained a small subcontract. However, despite significant attempts, the other members of the department have been unsuccessful in attracting external funding over the past year. There are a number of significant grant applications from department faculty currently pending, and we hope to see several of these converted into actual awards.

c.   Recruiting a high-quality faculty member in graphics and/or multimedia computing.

This goal was met. We were successful in attracting Dr. Elizabeth Sklar from the faculty at Columbia University. Dr. Sklar, who specializes in robotics, adds an extra dimension to our multimedia activities.

d.   Progressing in introducing an undergraduate major in Multimedia Computing.

This goal was met, though at a slow pace. Our letter of intent, which was sent to the College Administration last Spring has now been approved by the administration and by Faculty Council. It has now been sent to CUNY for approval. Once CUNY approves the letter of intent, we can begin work on submitting a full proposal.

e.   Obtaining space for a multimedia research laboratory and a robotics laboratory.

This goal was partially met. Room 130cNE is being used as a multimedia laboratory. Additionally, there has been agreement on space for a robotics laboratory to be shared by Profs. Parsons of CIS, and Grasso of Psychology. The department also made available space for a temporary robotics laboratory for our new recruit, Prof. Sklar in 4412N. The Administration has assured us that it will work to allocate a more permanent suitable laboratory for Prof. Sklar during the next academic year.

f.   Obtaining space for a larger CIS seminar room to hold our growing faculty, and instituting a CIS faculty lounge.

This goal has not been met. The need for a larger CIS meeting room is evident at every department meeting. An attempt to use rooms in SUBO was unsuccessful, due to cost and configuration.

2    What were the major events of the year for your department?

a.   Significant progress was made in establishing the Core offerings in computer science.

Core 5.1 is now offered regularly in multiple sections. We ramped up the number of sections in the past year, and have reached a steady state. CIS 1.0 is also offered regularly.

b.   Continuing falling enrollment.

See item 1a. As prior students complete their major, and fewer students register for the rigorous first programming course, enrollment continues to drop. We anticipate that we will hit bottom in 2005-06, and then slowly turn around.

c.   Curricular changes

Our curriculum continues to change, as technology advances. Perhaps most significant, we introduced a writing-intensive computer ethics course, jointly with the Department of Philosophy. This course will be required for our major. Such a course has been advocated by an external CUNY-wide advisory committee to the computer science disciplinary committee.

In addition, the CUNY external committee advocated increased business awareness among our students. We have cross-listed an additional two Business courses in CIS: Technology Management (BUS 51.8 / CIS 9.50) and Operations Management (BUS 31.4 / CIS 10.31) in addition to our Electronic Commerce course (CIS 3.2 / BUS 31.5)..

Additionally, we have introduced two new multimedia computing courses, CIS 17 (introduction to Multimedia Programming) and CIS 36 (Multimedia Coding and Compression).

We also cross-listed a new course (BIO 33 / CIS 10.33) with Biology. This course is our first offering in Bio-informatics, an area that is becoming increasingly important at the forefront of both disciplines.

We also streamlined our major requirements, so that students choose courses from a range of numbers, rather than from a long list of specific courses that is constantly changing as courses are added and dropped.

We offered two advanced special topics courses during the course of the year, one on Quantum Computing, and one on Databases and Advanced Java Programming.

We have sent to 80^th Street a Letter of Intent for a Bachelor’s Program in Multimedia Computing.

In the graduate area, we have introduced two new courses, CIS 717.5 (Multimedia Databases) and CIS 739 (Computer Security). We have also done away with the requirement of the General GREs for entry to our graduate programs. This requirement was cumbersome to administer, and did not noticeably improve our programs.

d.   Continued progress on the SmartTutor project.

This goal was met. SmartTutor development has been proceeding in a wide variety of subjects, as outlined below. After each description of status, is a list of the contributors to that set of modules:

CIS 1.5

The original concept map is still being filled in and expanded—including examples and test questions. This year a version of Code-Lab is being integrated into the program to provide many additional examples. We plan to have the updated CIS 1.5 completed and on line by the end of the spring semester. Keith Harrow, Jackie Jones, David Arnow, George Medvedkov

Core 1

A substantial website that supports Core 1, especially the Iliad, has been completed and is being reviewed by the classics department. Materials on other Core 1 readings have been done, and they will be expanded and added to the website next year. We plan to have the Iliad on line by the end of the spring semester. Jane Belton, Donna Wilson, Nicholas Pitsirikos

Economics

A concept map and substantial amount of material in support of gateway economics courses has been completed and is now being reviewed and edited by Jane (on employment, inflation, and taxes). We plan to show this new website to economics faculty in a week or two, and hope to have it on-line by the end of the semester. Jane Belton, Joe Francis, Dmitriy Chudnovskiy

Writing Across the Curriculum

This year a major writing site was developed—made up of links to effective materials at OWLs across the country. That is currently on line. Two projects are in progress. Lilia Melani is working on a template that will help students understand how to cite references in research papers (Bobby Gagliardi) and two writing fellows are designing a format for showing students examples of successful essays and research papers. We hope that both projects will be on-line by the end of the spring semester. Jane Belton, Lilia Melani, grad fellow.

Redesigning the On-Line LC main pages

We have been working on a redesign of the on-line LC main pages. Several possible versions were developed and faculty, students and tutors were queried (some with a formal questionnaire). We hope that this process will be completed by the end of the spring semester and that the site has a newly designed main page (with appropriate back-up pages). Oksana and Jane Belton.

Pre-Calculus

Laurel Cooley is supervising the redesign of an extensive math website that were developed for us several years ago by a graduate student. Laurel feels that the new website will be innovative and effective. Work is in progress. Guillermo Creus.

Biology

A very innovative and interesting set of materials has been developed in support of Bio 17, but work on the website has recently been stalled by our inability to extract information from a former tech assistant’s website. Ronald Eckhardt, Danny Kopec,

Calculus

A considerable amount if material has been developed for a calculus website—made up of extensive examples. Jane is currently looking into what we have to do to put this material on-line this semester. Marvin Kohn, Shai Silver.

Chemistry

Mark Kobrak has reported that he is going back to an earlier plan for designing the gateway chemistry website. He will report on his progress. Aalia Rafique

Psychology

We have a concept map, definitions of key terms, and information on title pages, methods, abstracts, introduction and discussion. The content still needs to be put into html/flash. Robert Emikule Greene.

Core 5.1

Charles Sirmans worked on the project last semester. We have a concept map and work on an Introduction,Computer Architecture, HTML the Internet and WWW. There is a great deal of text and some good visuals. We need to make the pages more consistent and to add content,

Physics

Files that were set up by a Carnegie-Mellon student in summer 2004, have been translated to a web program. The topics are kinematics and energy. Harry Kwan, Yevgeny Abov.

e.   The introduction of robots in some of our classes.

The Student Technology Fee was used to purchase several robots for instructional purposes. These have been used in sections of both CIS 26 and Core 5.1, with great success. Students enjoy programming these robots and display heightened interest in the class. We expect to expand this activity in the year to come.

f.   The move of the ITS computer labs to the Field building.

This move has gone very smoothly, and has given us an additional computer classroom. However, our students have expressed a need for CIS-enabled workstations in the central campus. We are investigating this possibility.

g.   Research of the Metis group in distributed computing

The Metis cluster is composed of 15 PC's running Debian Linux coordinated by the Mosix distributed operating system. The faculty members that participate in the project are Dayton Clarke, James Cox, Scott Dexter, Murrary Gross, Paula Whitlock and Noson Yanofsky.

Progress in 2004-2005:

Testing of the Brooklyn College version of the parallel Haskell compiler on the Metis cluster has led to publication of a paper on performance improvement* and several poster presentations by Lori Collins, a graduating Masters candidate. Meanwhile, work continues on debugging the compiler's run-time system, which still contains a number of disabling errors.

Ahmed Ali, a graduating senior, has installed and tested a quantum computing simulator and will continue this project as part of his Master’s studies this coming fall. Our plan is to parallelize this simulator to run on the Metis cluster, and to extend the quantum computing language supported by this simulator.

We have installed the Subversion version control system and a web interface. Current archives on file are the Brooklyn College Haskell compiler, our quantum simulator, and source code for SWC. We are prepared to permit use of the archive on request by others with legitimate needs for software-configuration management.

A CD writer has been installed on one cluster machine, and a troublesome hub has been replaced by a small gigabyte switch. If we can find funds, we intend to replace our power-hungry and obsolete Cisco switch over the next year.

As in past years, Metis participants have nailed down plum competitive post-graduate offers: One of our participants has been offered a fellowship at Oak Ridge National Laboratories, and another has taken a position with Google In previous years, we have placed Metis participants in Microsoft, the Museum of Natural History, Bloomberg, Rutgers, and Vonage.

*'Improving Performance of Distributed Haskell in Mosix Clusters' Lori Collins, Murray Gross and P.A. Whitlock, Lecture Notes in Computer Science, Vol. 3516, ed. V.S. Sunderam, G.D. van Albada, and P.M.A. Sloot, (Springer-Verlag, 2005) pg. 983. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/11428862_153

h.  Establishment of a Long-Range Planning Committee for the Department

We have established a Departmental Long-Range Planning Committee to discuss major initiatives and revisions in department activities. The majority of the members of this committee are relatively newer faculty, who have a longer-term stake in its welfare. The establishment of this committee can be seen as a first step in a gradual transition of department governance from the “first generation” of the department, hired in the 70s and 80s, to the new generation of the late 90s and the 21^st century.

The Committee has submitted a first report, and will continue its activities throughout next year.

3.   Discuss your department’s activities in the following areas:

a.   curricular change

See item 2c above.

b.   participation in the Core

CIS offers two versions of its Core course: Core 5.1, which is a 1.5 credit, 2-hour course, and CIS 1.0, a 3-hour, 3-credit version. Both courses are quite popular, and are great successes. Students and faculty both enjoy the courses.

In the new Core, CIS will teach a 3-hour, 3-credit course, much like CIS 1.0, that will be an alternative with a Math course in satisfying a Core requirement.

c.   developing new programs and discontinuing old ones

We have developed a letter of intent for a Bachelor’s Program in Multimedia Computing that has been approved by the College and sent to CUNY.

            We are actively considering whether or not to continue the MS Program in Computer and Information Science and Health Science. Student demand for this program has historically been very low, and Admissions to the Program have been discontinued. However, recently there have been signs of increased student interest. Unfortunately, while some of our faculty members are interested in the Program, there is no focal faculty member in Health and Nutrition Sciences for the Program due to resignations, leaves, and lack of new lines.

d.   participation in faculty development, including the use of educational technology

As members of a computer science department, our faculty naturally keeps up with the latest technologies, including educational technologies. Many of our courses have a Web presence, and we teach our students use of the Web in several courses (Core 5.1 and CIS 3, 3.1, 13.2, 26, 52, 53, 751 and 752).

e.   any modifications in departmental organization

An Outcomes Assessment Committee was formed consisting of Profs. Kopec (chair), Augenstein, and Gurwitz.

A Long-Range Planning Committee was formed, consisting of Profs. Rudowsky (chair), Chopra, Scarlatos, Parsons, Clark, Sokol, Weiss, Bar-Noy and Cox.

There were no other changes.

f.   improvement of services to students

We have Deputy Chairs for day (Yedidyah Langsam), for evening (Joseph Thurm) and for graduate students (Danny Kopec), who hold regular office hours. We have extensive Advice brochures (accessible from http://www.sci.brooklyn.cuny.edu/cis/) for our students. We also maintain a large email list for our majors. Many courses also have mailing lists. In addition, each semester before registration, we mail a packet of registration advice to our major students. We also do a mailing to students in our non-major courses, inviting them to take additional CIS service courses.

We are constantly updating our curriculum and offering new courses to our students. Recently, we began offering Honors Research opportunities to our students under the new course rubrics, CIS 88.1 and 88.2. An increasing number of students are taking advantage of this opportunity.

The Atrium and Wolfe computer laboratories and associated computer classrooms recently moved to the Field Building. There are advantages and disadvantages to this move. One disadvantage is the distance from Ingersoll and the central campus. This does not make it as conducive for students and faculty. The other disadvantage is the temporary nature of the building. The advantages are: it enables more computer availability in a single expanse, it adds another computer classroom, and it expands and improves the format of the existing computer classrooms.

We also email our students regular information about internship and job opportunities, particularly those offered through the New York Software Industry Association.

g.   reaching out to your majors and advising your students

            See item f above. The availability of Degreeworks is also very helpful in advising students.

h.  increasing faculty diversity

We have hired a female faculty member in our recent search. Three female faculty members have joined our faculty within the past five years.

It has been very difficult locating minority faculty who wish to come to Brooklyn College. Although we had recommended several such candidates in past years, Brooklyn College was unable to attract them, and they went to other schools that were offering better recruiting packages. We will need to do better institutionally if we are to make progress in this area.

i.   increasing curricular diversity

Within the field of computer science, we have one of the most diverse curricula in the city. The technical nature of the field makes population diversity an unlikely subject for our courses.

j.   reviewing, assessing, re-vitalizing good programs

We have formed a Long-Range Planning Committee to assess and revitalize our programs. We are also very active in establishing program assessment in our department. Next year, we will undergo a self-study and an external evaluation.

k.   funded research

Professor Theodore Raphan continues to be the largest grant recipient in the College, with over $1 million in funding per year, primarily from NIH.

Professors Parsons and Scarlatos have received an NSF grant for establishing a virtual environment.

Professor Bar-Noy has a small grant from the State.

Many of our faculty have PSC-CUNY grants, and many have submitted external grant proposals.

l.   involvement of students (undergraduate, masters, doctoral) in research.

We have continued offering honors research courses (CIS 88.1 and 88.2), and undergraduate students have done research with Profs. Eskicioglu, Whitlock, Dexter, Chopra, Parsons, Kopec, Harrow, Scarlatos, Sokol, Cox, and Raphan. Several Master’s students are writing research theses, and our doctoral students all do research. Students have co-authored a number of scholarly papers. Approximately 10 students are involved in the METIS research effort, and several are involved in SmartTutor.

4.   Describe your Outcomes Assessment plan. Be sure to include your learning objectives-courses grid as well as a chronology of assessment goals.       

The Department of CIS has developed a mission statement, learning objectives (or goals) for our undergraduate major, and we have developed a learning objectives-courses grid for our required courses in the major. We have also defined course objectives for all the required courses, and we are in the midst of identifying which course objectives promote which program goals for each course. In order, here are the products of that activity:

a.   Mission Statement

The mission of the Department of Computer and Information Science of Brooklyn College is to develop and maintain high-quality research and educational programs in computer and information science. The department is committed to transmitting and expanding knowledge in both fundamental and applied areas and in the growing number of interdisciplinary fields that computing encompasses and impacts. The department is also committed to maintaining an awareness of the current and anticipated needs of the community that it serves. To achieve this mission, the department provides degree programs to part-time and full-time students as well as a wide range of research opportunities at the undergraduate, graduate and doctoral levels. These opportunities are provided within the framework of a collegial environment with equal opportunities for all faculty, staff and students.

Departmental programs include the following:

Educational programs that:

·   Present fundamentals of computer and information science that foster disciplinary and intellectual maturity,

·   Promote analytical and critical thinking,

·   Emphasize knowledge that is relevant to technological innovation and business needs,

·   Prepare students both for the job market and advanced studies, and

·   Provide computer and information science courses for students who are in other programs at the College.

Research opportunities that:

·   Foster leading edge research in the major areas of computer and information science, and

·    Encourage students to participate in research relevant to industrial or academic careers.

b.  Program Goals and Goals-Courses Grid

      See next pages.

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