# Presentation: 553978

## Computer Science Outside the Box

**Jeannette M. Wing**
- Assistant DirectorComputer and Information Science and Engineering

- Computer Science Outside the Box Workshop NSF, November 10, 2008

## Why Are You Here?

- Outside the Box

- Jeannette M. Wing

- Goal: To ensure the vibrancy of our field.

- It’s all about our community: who we are, what we think, what we do.

- It’s all about pushing the frontiers of our field.

## It’s a Collective Effort

- Outside the Box

- Jeannette M. Wing

- We are in this together!
- ACM, CCC, CRA, CSTB, IEEE Computer, NSF/CISE, ...

## Why NSF Cares

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- Jeannette M. Wing

- NSF support as a percentof total federal supportof academic basic research

## Goals

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- Jeannette M. Wing

- Recognize scientific and technical opportunities for our field.

- Address the cultural challenges we face.

- Enumerate for the CRA best practices and recommendations   for academia and funding agencies.

- Today: Start with four (interrelated) topics.

- Today: What incentives, processes and procedures should we revisit and change, and how?

- Today: Identify next steps.  Writing.  Further meetings (with broader audiences).

- For Today

## 1. Go Outside Your Box

- Outside the Box

- Jeannette M. Wing

- Intra- and inter-disciplinary research

- theory

- systems

- AI

- applications

- Computer Science

## Challenges

- Outside the Box

- Jeannette M. Wing

- Hiring
- Joint committees?   X . CS+X hardly scales.
- Mentoring young faculty
- “Go for it” or “Wait till after tenure”?
- Promotions
- Joint committee?  Formed when (at hiring or JIT)?
- Single tenure review or double jeopardy?
- Financial
- Differences in stipend, salary, etc. across disciplines
- Who gets the overhead?
- Funding
- As a PI, which NSF program do I apply to?  Will my proposal fall between the cracks?
- As a funding agency, striking balances: deepening the core vs. broadening our reach; disciplinary vs. inter-disciplinary; single PI vs. multi-PI, etc.

## 2. The World Needs Us

- Outside the Box

- Jeannette M. Wing

- Societal Grand Challenges

## Challenges

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- Jeannette M. Wing

-  Do we value use-inspired basic research?  How do we evaluate it?

-  In what ways do we encourage students and faculty to work with those in the socialsciences, the arts and humanities?

-  In what ways do we support and teach collaborative research?  Working in teams (e.g., communication skills)?

## 3. Breaking the Cycle

- Outside the Box

- Jeannette M. Wing

- Long-term vision, long-lasting impact, high-risk research

- tenure and promotion

- conference
- papers

- conference deadlines

- incrementalism,unscholarly

*proposal deadlines*

*panel and *
*ad hoc reviews*

*funding recommendations*

## Challenges (Academic)

- Outside the Box

- Jeannette M. Wing

- Faculty
- Do you (just) count the number of SIG-X papers at promotion time?
- Do you count conference papers alone and not even bother (any more) about journal articles?
- Do you not tenure someone if he/she does not have an NSF CAREER award?
- Graduate Students
- Do you say
-    “Conference deadline in 2 weeks?  No problem, let’s start the work now.”
-  “Don’t waste your time submitting to that workshop.  Better to wait till you have solid results and submit to (sigh ) SIG-X.”
-    “We need to write up this work for a journal paper.”
- Do they say
- “If I don’t have N publications, I won’t get any job interviews.” or “... I won’t get any academic offers.”
- Graduate Admissions
- How much do you weigh the (number of) publications undergraduates have in making admissions decisions?

## Challenges (Funding)

- Outside the Box

- Jeannette M. Wing

- Traditional high-quality versus _bold high-risk_

- competitive

- high risk

- high quality

-  We are hypercritical.  It hurts us in broader competitions.

## 4. Serving the Community

- Outside the Box

- Jeannette M. Wing

- who we are, what we say, what we do.

- Service matters.

- Others judge our field by:

- It’s all about our community: who we are, what we think, what we do.

- These are (some) of the people who make decisions aboutwhat our children choose to study, our image, ..., funding priorities.

- parents and teachers

- industry

## Challenges

- Outside the Box

- Jeannette M. Wing

- Does service really count?
- It’s a hard balance to strike!
- Here are some FREE things we can all do:
- Put on our c.v. (and give credit to others) for
- Service as an NSF reviewer
- Selection of our (their) NSF highlights for the President’s Budget or the CISE website
- Cultivate the next generation
- Suggest junior faculty to participate in departmental committees, to serve on university/gov’t/industry committees/boards, to give keynotes, to meet with gov’t/industry reps, etc.

## CISE Needs Good People

Quality of program directors
 Affects quality of reviewers chosen for panels and ad hoc reviews
  Affects quality of reviews PIs receive
 Affects funding decisions
 Affects the nature and content of our research
 Affects the frontiers of our discipline!

- Outside the Box

- Jeannette M. Wing

- CISE Needs Good People
- Quality of program directors
-  Affects quality of reviewers chosen for panels and ad hoc reviews
-   Affects quality of reviews PIs receive
-  Affects funding decisions
-  Affects the nature and content of our research
-  Affects the frontiers of our discipline!

- CISE’s Biggest Challenge

-  Quote from Dr. Arden Bement, Director of NSF:“Send us talent.”

## Last Word:The Future of Computing is Bright!

## Drivers of Computing

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- Jeannette M. Wing

*Science*

*Society*

*Technology*

-   What is computable?
-   P = NP?
-   (How) can we build complex        systems simply?
-   What is intelligence?
-   What is information?

- J. Wing, “Five Deep Questions in Computing,” CACM January 2008

- 7A’s
- Anytime Anywhere
- Affordable
- Access to Anything by Anyone Authorized.

## Thank You!

## Credits

- Outside the Box

- Jeannette M. Wing

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