Advanced standing is a requirement that all undergraduates must meet in order to take upper division classes. While there have been slight changes in the requirement over the years, it has been in effect for over a decade. The advanced standing requirement serves as one of the major assessment and quality management tools of the program. It has three components, a coursework requirement; a GPA (Grade Point Average) requirement; and an examination requirement.
Coursework and GPA Requirements
The coursework requirement for advanced standing is comprised of computer science and mathematics classes as required for the different emphases in the undergraduate major. Students must receive a grade of at least C- in each course. The GPA requirement is a minimum of 2.0. This GPA requirement applies to both the advanced standing requirement, and the student’s overall GPA. The advanced standing GPA is computed using courses taken at USU and those specific courses transferred for advanced standing classes. The overall GPA is computed using only the USU GPA.
Advanced Standing Exams
The advanced standing exams associated with this requirement must all be passed in order to receive advanced standing and thus enroll in upper division classes. These exams are given as part of the sophomore seminar class (CS3000).
Since 2000, the department has mailed a newsletter to its alumni on a regular basis (twice yearly). Included with this newsletter is a request for information about their lives since graduation. While such information is anecdotal, it does represent one more data point for assessment purposes. In general, to date, the responses have been positive about the program and the preparation students are being given for their careers. Also, every five years, 2000, 2005, 2010, ... the department performs a survey of its alumni to address the question of the long term educational quality of the program.
In 2000 and 2005, alumni from the department were surveyed. In the 2000 survey, the questions were fairly general. In the 2005 survey, a more detailed survey form was developed and sent. In general, both surveys indicate satisfaction with the program and the preparation received by students for their careers. The next survey will be held in 2010.
Based on an assessment of the projects developed by students in various programming classes in relation to the stated undergraduate outcomes (2004-5), it was decided to initiate a capstone course for all computer science majors. This course will be offered for the first time in Fall, 2006. The major goal of the capstone class is assessment, and thus there are no specific outcome goals for the course.
The course is a one credit class requiring each student to develop a significant software product. In this class, the student will be expected to exhibit the following technical and communication skills.
Technical skills which should be exhibited in a capstone project
- Programming skills (from CS 1700 & 1720: persistent stores, classes, objects, etc.)
- Use of data structures (from CS 2200: trees, queues, hashing, etc.)
- Software engineering principles (CS 2370: planning, analysis, design, user interface, implement, testing, documentation)
- Machine architecture (CS 2550 & 2650: assembly language, data representations)
- Operating system / network knowledge (CS 3100: concurrency, scheduling, memory management, interrupt servicing, communications, etc.)
- Programming language concepts (CS 4700: parsing, language representation, finite automata, etc.)
Communication skills which should be exhibited in a capstone project
Written communication via the following kinds of documents:
- User guide
- Project Plan
- Requirements Definition
- System Design Document
- Implementation Documentation
- Testing Plan and Results
Oral presentation
NOTE: Based on faculty reviews of student performance in the capstone class, it was decided to transition the CS5070 class from a one credit pass/fail class to a 1,3 (CS5070, 5071) credit class. CS5070 (1 credit) would be taken pass/fail, cs 5071(3 credits) would be taken for a grade. The CS5070 class will be for system design, and the 5071 class would be for implementation, testing, and oral presentation. This transition was begun Fall 2009.
Each year the College of science surveys all graduating seniors. During the summer, the surveys are given to the departments including a tabulation of the results. The purpose of the survey is to allow students to asses their program. Since six departments with differing goals are involved, the individual responses are not tailored to any single department’s outcomes. However, the information is valuable in that it gives the department an overall image of students’ impressions of the program and how it compares to others in the College and on campus.
Course Examinations and Homeworks
Each year the department head interviews most of the graduating seniors. For 2005-6, the process was made a requirement, and thus essentially all of the graduating seniors are being interviewed. The main purpose of the survey is to give students the opportunity to self-asses in terms of the department’s expected outcomes. Additionally there are questions on issues such as the quality of advising, plans for the future, and interests in other courses. The data shown in is for the last two years of graduate interviews. There has been other data collected in previous years. The modifications to the survey of these last two years make summarization with previous years problematic, and so they have not been included.
Faculty Course Self-Assessments
While faculty have always performed an informal self-assessment of their courses, this process was not formalized until Fall 2005. It is now required that all faculty assess every class every semester. The assessment is done in terms of the goals or learning outcomes for each class. This material is (will be) reviewed each year at the Fall department retreat.
Three times in the last six years the department has invited to campus graduates of our program and/or industry recruiters. During these meetings, discussions are held about our program, the curriculum, graduate goals, etc. Industrial advisory board meetings were held regularly in 1998-2000. Since then, because of cost restrictions, they have been held less frequently.
Department and University policy requires that student evaluations be given for every course, every semester. While there is little information to be acquired from the evaluations with respect to department outcome objectives, there is feedback given on the quality of the instruction. Quality teaching is an important element of the department's mission statement. As such, these evaluations represent an important data point or indicator of the quality of instruction in a class. Teacher evaluations are reviewed each semester by the class instructor and by the department head.