Andrew McGettrick ACM Education Council Meeting Denver, CO March 2013 The Education Board and Education Council – an update on activity

Outline Provide an overview of the Education Council and Education Board priority areas and changes here Provide an brief update on activity Provide an overview of discussions at a recent Ed Board meeting Give a brief outline of some European developments

The Education Council Education Council is internal to ACM and brings together all the computing education interests within ACM Contains representatives from –Various SIGs, e.g. SIGCSE, SIGITE, SIGPLAN, SIGGRAPH, SIGCHI, SIGCAS –The two-year colleges committee (CCECC) –CSTA and the Computing Education Policy Committee –Editors of computing education publications –CSAB and ABET representatives –Industry –Education Board members There are around 30 members in total Meetings held every 8 months approximately

Identifying Priorities At a meeting of the Education Board in Seattle back in December 2010, the Board agreed its strategic priorities but also felt that it needed to provide a focus for current activity. The following priority areas were identified CS 2013, the next major version of the Computer Science guidelines The Advanced Placement initiative and the related CS 10k teachers issue An educational initiative involving ACM India has been developing Statistics gathering for all CS institutions which evolved into TauRus or rather the ACM-NDC project

Review of priorities The Ed Board held a meeting in San Diego on 17 th and 18 th January 2013 and reviewed its priority areas. It would retain –CS 2013 –The Advanced Placement initiative and the related CS 10k teachers issue –An educational initiative involving ACM India It also added two new priority areas for attention, namely online education and cyber security education Of course, it would continue to retain an active interest in ACM- NDC (formerly TauRus) Other projects are ongoing – CCECC project involving IT, IS project to review Masters level guidance, SE and CE updates, update of IT guidance

Online Education At the previous Ed Council meeting in San Francisco in June 2012 we had an excellent session and associated discussion on MOOCs. It was organized by Mehran Sahami and involved –Candice Thille (CMU), Woodie Flowers (MIT), John Mitchell (Stanford) –Peter Norvig (Google) and Dave Patterson (Berkeley) An outcome of that was the white paper which has appeared under the name of the Ed Council and can be found at It was also felt that some follow-up was needed and accordingly it was decided to hold a Symposium on Online Education A co-chair will be Armando Fox from UC Berkeley; it will be held prior to SIGCSE 2014 in Atlanta, March 2014; Armando wishes to have a co-chair and this is being addressed

Towards the Symposium on Online Learning Plans are at a very early stage of development. Tentatively: –The symposium (lasting around one and a half days, perhaps) should take place relatively soon, but not too soon; agreed date seems to be SIGCSE 2014 approximately –The proceedings should be published by ACM –There is much happening and it would be desirable to establish ACM’s position as a supporter of these efforts –An outcome of the Symposium should be a clearer picture of how online learning might be embedded in the ongoing activities of ACM –Online learning has the potential to underpin many of ACM’s activities in support of its members and it would be important for ACM to establish a position on this

Cyber security The Ed Board had been approached by the National Science Foundation (NSF) regarding the possibility of creating a report similar to CS 2013 but for the area of cyber security Following lots of discussion it was felt that the most appropriate way forward was to hold a meeting of recognized experts who would advise on the best way ahead That meeting took place in Atlanta on 21 st and 22 nd February 2013 More about this later

ACM Europe - Educational Developments One initiative involves working with Informatics Europe and SIGCSE (Special Interest Group in Computer Science Education) to consider creating a highly prestigious computing education conference in Europe for Europeans –A meeting is due to take place at the Centrum Wiskunde & Informatica (CWI), the national research institute for mathematics and computer science, in Amsterdam –This will be adjacent to the (ninth) annual European Computer Science Summit (ECSS) organized by Informatics Europe and taking place on 7-9 th October 2013 –SIGCSE will be present as well as Informatics Europe (IE) but also others who hold conferences on computing education in Europe –Possible annual conference co-sponsored by SIGCSE and IE A second initiative also involves working with Informatics Europe and to create a report on computing in schools for Europe

Notes on Ed Board meeting The Ed Board had a meeting in San Diego on 17 th and 18 th January Topics for discussion included: –The review of priorities –Certain changes to Ed Board and Ed Council membership –The various projects, etc. in which the Ed Board / Council are involved –Certain financial matters leading to our budget submission for the next fiscal year –Discussion of aspects of this Education Council meeting –Planning the cyber security meeting (that took place in February) Ed Board and Ed Council changes have been implemented; there are ongoing issues here

Activity in UK Considerable progress is being made in the UK on computing in schools A new curriculum has been devised, and there is increased recognition of computer science, etc These developments and others can be followed at the CAS - Computing at School web site

Summary of Education Board / Council activity Strategic priorities have been revised with –two new areas added for immediate attention Progress on all, and in particular progress on the new areas Certain changes have been made to Ed Board and Ed Council membership; a note on these changes had been circulated A brief overview of the recent Ed Board meeting Other activities remain important and are ongoing