Revised MS Program in Computer Science INFORMATION AND COMPUTER SCIENCE DEPARTMENT December 2002

INFORMATION AND COMPUTER SCIENCE DEPARTMENT Revised MS Program in Computer Science Agenda Reasons for Revision Comparison with Old MSCS program Program Requirements and Coursework Philosophy Curriculum Design Degree Plan Comparisons with MSCS Programs in North America Summary

December 2002 INFORMATION AND COMPUTER SCIENCE DEPARTMENT Revised MS Program in Computer Science Reasons of Revision Rapid growth and changes in Computer Science field High demand in the Kingdom for Computer Scientists with the advanced knowledge and skills Ensuring that our MS program is inline with those programs offered at reputable universities in North America

December 2002 INFORMATION AND COMPUTER SCIENCE DEPARTMENT Revised MS Program in Computer Science Comparison with Old MSCS Program

December 2002 INFORMATION AND COMPUTER SCIENCE DEPARTMENT Revised MS Program in Computer Science Program Requirements and Coursework Philosophy The revised MSCS program is designed with the objective of providing a well-balanced breadth and depth knowledge at the graduate level, with some degree of flexibility. The coursework requirement is broken down into: –Core coursework requirement (Breadth Requirement) Four core courses Three philosophies exist –Elective coursework requirement Four elective courses

December 2002 INFORMATION AND COMPUTER SCIENCE DEPARTMENT Revised MS Program in Computer Science Philosophies for Core Coursework Requirement I. No-Core Requirement –All courses are elective II. Fixed-Core Requirement –The program has a certain number of fixed core courses. These courses are considered as a must-have competence. III. Selective-Core Requirement –Students must complete a breadth requirement by taking three or four courses of either a list of courses or courses within a set of subject areas. –We adopted this philosophy: Most common and current trend Not new at KFUPM -- adopted by EE & ME Depts. Philosophy I is too loose As for Philosophy II, we believe student should be able to pursue advanced-level studies as long as he meets Core Background Requirement.

December 2002 INFORMATION AND COMPUTER SCIENCE DEPARTMENT Revised MS Program in Computer Science Coursework Requirement Breadth Requirement Elective Requirement

December 2002 INFORMATION AND COMPUTER SCIENCE DEPARTMENT Revised MS Program in Computer Science Breadth Requirement KEY OBJECTIVE: –CS discipline is very diverse. The program must provide an advanced holistic view of the discipline for these important and popular topics, with some degree of flexibility that matches the interest of the individual student. The following steps were taken to meet this objective: –Classify courses into a number of subject areas –Identify core subject areas which are important and popular –Identify a set of courses from each core subject area that would constitute adequate representation of the area –These set of courses are the core courses.

December 2002 INFORMATION AND COMPUTER SCIENCE DEPARTMENT Revised MS Program in Computer Science Breadth Requirement (Cont.) Four core courses –These four core courses must be taken such that each course is from a different core subject area Breadth Requirement flexibility –Allowing the individual student to select four core subject areas out of five –Offering a variety of courses from the same area, as opposed to having fixed core courses that must be offered once per academic year Subject AreaCore Subject AreaCore Course Software EngineeringYesAny course SystemsYesAny course TheoryYesICS 552 or ICS 553 Net-Centric ComputingYesICS 570 or ICS 571 or ICS 572 Artificial IntelligenceYesICS 581 or ICS 583 or ICS 584 Applied ComputingNoNone

December 2002 INFORMATION AND COMPUTER SCIENCE DEPARTMENT Revised MS Program in Computer Science Elective Requirement The four remaining 3-credit-hour courses are counted as elective courses. –The four electives courses must include at least two ICS courses. –Other elective courses can be taken from departments of related discipline such as COE, SE, MATH, and EE. Graduate courses from other departments are also allowed. –Students must seek ICS departmental approval prior to taking non-ICS elective courses.

December 2002 INFORMATION AND COMPUTER SCIENCE DEPARTMENT Revised MS Program in Computer Science Curriculum Design The curriculum of the revised MSCS program was designed with the goal of: –meeting the rapid growth and change in computing –meeting the increasing demand for highly qualified computer professionals in the Kingdom Introduction of newly subject areas such as Net-Centric Computing and Applied Computing Modifications and update were made to courses within subject areas

December 2002 INFORMATION AND COMPUTER SCIENCE DEPARTMENT Revised MS Program in Computer Science Curriculum Design (Cont.) Area 1: Software Engineering ICS 511Software Project Management ICS 512Software Requirement Engineering ICS 513Software Design ICS 514Software Validation, Verification, and Quality Assurance ICS 519Special Topics in Software Engineering Area 2: Systems ICS 531Advanced Operating Systems ICS 532Performance Analysis and Evaluation ICS 533Modeling and Simulation of Computer Systems ICS 535Design and Implementation of Programming languages ICS 536Architecture and Design of Computer Systems ICS 537Real Time Systems ICS 539Special Topics in Systems Area 3: Theory ICS 552Theory of Computation ICS 553Advanced Computer Algorithms ICS 554Applied Combinatorics and Graph Theory ICS 555Data Security and Encryption ICS 556Parallel Algorithms ICS 559Special Topics in Theoretical Computer Science Area 4: Net-Centric Computing ICS 570 Advanced Computer Networking ICS 571 Client Server Programming ICS 572 Distributed Computing ICS 573 High-Performance Computing ICS 575 Application Development for Internet Based Services ICS 576Concurrent and Parallel Processing ICS 579Special Topics in Net-Centric Computing CSE 550 Computer Network Design CSE 551 Computer and Network Security CSE 552 Network Management CSE 553 Fault Tolerance and Reliability in Computer Networks CSE 554Modeling and Analysis of Computer Networks CSE 555 Protocol Engineering CSE 559 Special Topics in Computer Network Design and Management Area 5: Artificial Intelligence ICS 581Advanced Artificial Intelligence ICS 582Natural Language Processing ICS 583Pattern Recognition ICS 584Automated Theorem Proving ICS 585Knowledge-Based Systems ICS 586Neural Networks ICS 589Special Topics in A.I. Area 6: Applied Computing ICS 541Database Design and Implementation ICS 542Multimedia Computing ICS 543Advanced Computer Graphics ICS 544E-Commerce Technologies ICS 545Arabic Computing ICS 549Special Topics in Applied Computing Subject AreaCore Course Software EngineeringAny course SystemsAny course TheoryICS 552 or ICS 553 Net-Centric ComputingICS 570 or ICS 571 or ICS 572 Artificial IntelligenceICS 581 or ICS 583 or ICS 584 Applied ComputingNone

December 2002 INFORMATION AND COMPUTER SCIENCE DEPARTMENT Revised MS Program in Computer Science Degree Plan

December 2002 INFORMATION AND COMPUTER SCIENCE DEPARTMENT Revised MS Program in Computer Science Degree Plan – Example I

December 2002 INFORMATION AND COMPUTER SCIENCE DEPARTMENT Revised MS Program in Computer Science Degree Plan – Example II

December 2002 INFORMATION AND COMPUTER SCIENCE DEPARTMENT Revised MS Program in Computer Science Comparisons with MSCS Programs in North America Degree Requirement Coursework Philosophy Curriculum and Courses Several experts in the field of CS from North America and Europe reviewed the program. Suggestions of the reviewers were taken into consideration when preparing this version of the revised program. Feedback from industry is underway. Aside

December 2002 INFORMATION AND COMPUTER SCIENCE DEPARTMENT Revised MS Program in Computer Science Comparison -- Degree Requirement The revised degree requirement is very much inline

December 2002 INFORMATION AND COMPUTER SCIENCE DEPARTMENT Revised MS Program in Computer Science Comparison -- Coursework Philosophy The philosophy of having selective core requirement is the most common among all. The revised program has adopted this philosophy.

December 2002 INFORMATION AND COMPUTER SCIENCE DEPARTMENT Revised MS Program in Computer Science Comparison -- Curriculum and Courses The subject areas of our revised program are inline of popular MSCS programs in North America. Core subject areas match these of most popular.

December 2002 INFORMATION AND COMPUTER SCIENCE DEPARTMENT Revised MS Program in Computer Science Summary The revised MSCS program meets the requirements of: –The rapid growth, change, and high demand in the discipline –Ensuring high quality and being inline with current and most popular curriculum design and pedagogy. The program is very much comparable to those offered at highly reputable universities in North American. The program has a well-balanced requirement of breadth and depth with some degree of flexibility.