| Routing/Approval: (chair’s initials/date) |
Department |
Division |
APC |
Senate |
Date of proposal: 4/10/06
Title: Software Development Projects
Department and Course Number: CSCI 381
Crosslisted? Yes No X If yes, crosslisting department and number:
Credit: 1/2 Hours/week: 6
One-time: or Permanent Offering: X
Instructor: Darrah Chavey, Steven Huss-Lederman or Rama Viswanathan
How will this course be taught, given present staffing, without creating a course overload?
This course proposal is part of a comprehensive change to the computer science curriculum. The course load under this proposal will not create an overload.
Are there any course fees? If so, specify what the course fees are intended to cover.
None
Prerequisite(s):
Computer Science 205 and two courses higher numbered than 205 or consent of instructor
Catalog description (50-150 words, please):
If applicable, include the following language at the end: “May be repeated for credit if topic is different.”
In this course, students enhance publicly available software through design, implementation and deployment. It is designed to be the senior capstone experience. Students work in teams to effectively utilize the information learned in previous computer science courses. Students are exposed to the larger community of computer science, including its international flavor. Students regularly present ideas and progress reports as well as writing designs and reflective essays. (LW)
Additional course content description (aims, purposes, etc.) beyond the catalog description:
This course is a transition course from the types of work usually done at
a student
level to the work expected of a professional; i.e. to allow a student to
evaluate a
transition to a career in the computer science fields. Students will be working
together, and working with international communities of professionals involved
in teacher-selected open source projects. These are programming projects
aimed
at producing high-quality, free (and freely customizable) software projects
for a
wide variety of purposes. The course is intended to implement, as precisely
as possible,
the Beloit College definition of "experiential learning". In particular,
it "locates the
learner in a community of practice", specifically the virtual community
of
professionals actively working on a particular open-source project. Each
semester
will begin with "explicit goal-setting" and conclude with presentations
by students
to the class on the work that they did that semester, including "reflections
...
after the experience" on what they got out of the project. Students will
also write a reflective essay on their experiences.
The exact open-source projects that students will participate in will
evolve over time, and will depend on both teacher and student interests.
Two particular projects that will be the basis of initial course offerings
are
expected to be Moodle, with which all students should be familiar, and
Eclipse,
the professional programming environment being used by most Beloit CS
courses. Student projects will generally involve working on correcting
reported
bugs in such existing projects, or adding features of interest both to
current
students and to the community at large.
The lettered/numbered lines below come from CC2001. Underlined
items are considered essential to a basic curriculum in computer science.
Numbers in () indicate minimum number of hours to cover in a lecture style
according to CC2001.
Items with
a * indicate we plan to cover them in multiple courses.
Other lines include additional topics we plan to cover or clarification of
topics
we will cover within a CC2001 topic.
No specific topics but course will touch on many areas.
Course goals/objectives/outcomes:
Course structure. Check all that apply:
Lecture/Discussion X Studio Lab/Workshop X Other (Specify)
If current library or equipment holdings are inadequate, estimate the cost of additional holdings required.
$200-$500
Please attach names of a proposed text and/or core readings.
Form revised 11/04