Assessing Computer Science Programs: What Have We Learned

摘要

How does a department evaluate the effectiveness of its major programs in computer science? In years past it might have been done rather informally by faculty members having a sense of what their students are learning and measuring that against curriculum guidelines developed by national organizations such as ACM and the IEEE Computer Society. Or, maybe faculty members might have made that judgment by the types of jobs their students were obtaining right after they graduate or the number of students who would go on to graduate school in computer science. Nowadays, however, because of both internal and external forces, computer science departments are introducing formal processes. These involve articulating objectives (or goals) and outcomes for their programs and using a variety of instruments to measure success in meeting those objectives and outcomes, all with the idea of using the results to improve the program. Such a formal process for evaluating a department's programs by measuring student learning outcomes has become known as outcomes-based assessment. The driving force for this movement is the criteria of the regional accrediting agencies such as Middle States and North Central. At both SIGCSE 2005 and SIGCSE 2006 panels presented the highlights of this method of assessment. Of particular interest was a description of ABET's Computing Accreditation Commission's (CAC) proposed new outcomes-based criteria for accrediting computing programs, including computer science. However, neither the presentations nor the ensuing discussions were limited to only those programs that will be seeking accreditation or re-accreditation through CAC. All computer science programs are grappling with developing outcomes-based plans. Because of the above, a logical next step in informing the computer science community about current assessment processes is to provide examples from departments that have already developed (and tested) outcomes-based assessment plans. This panel plans to do just that. The participants in this panel come from a variety of institutions. All have experience in developing and implementing assessment plans that seek to articulate and measure learning outcomes for their students who are majoring in computer science. Each will present a brief overview of her/his department's assessment plan, what has been learned by going through this process (including successes and pitfalls), and what improvements, if any, have been made either to the program(s) or to the plan itself.