waashk/acm huggingface dataset:
the ethics of macines which mimic people  in presenting machines as "intelligent" we produce an illusion which may be beneficial, may lead to breakdown in the interaction, or may be used by parties to deceive and exploit others.  the following quote (from a researcher at a major computer firm) is a bit extreme, but makes it clear the concern clear.  "from my point of view, natural language processing is unethical for one main reason: it plays on the central position which language holds in human behavior. i suggest that the deep involvement weizenbaum found some people to have with eliza, is due to the intensity with which most people react to language in any form. when a person sees a lingusitic utterance in any form, the person reacts, much as a dog reacts to an odor. we are creatures of language .... since this is so, it is my feeling that baiting people with strings of characters (tokens) clearly intended by someone to be interpreted as symbols, is as much misrepresentation as would be your attempt to sell me property for which you had a false deed. in both cases, an attempt is made to encourage someone to believe that something is a thing other than what it is, and, only one party in the interaction is aware of the deception."  this talk will examine the ethical and practical choices in developing machines which mimic human behavior.  terry winograd
concepts in the classroom, programming in the lab  computing curricula 1991 calls for breadth in the undergraduate computer science curriculum. many authors have recommended structured laboratories for computer science. this is a report on a project to combine these goals in an introductory sequence of courses. we present two courses in which all programming is done in a laboratory environment, leaving the lectures for more conceptual material that ranges over a broad selection of topics. student reactions to this project have been very positive---we have increased the number of students continuing with the major, as well as student satisfaction with the courses themselves.  robert geitz
towards integrated safety analysis and design there are currently many problems with the development and assessment of software intensive safety- critical systems. in this paper we describe the problems, and introduce a novel approach to their solution, based around goal-structuring concepts, which we believe will ameliorate some of the difficulties. we discuss the use of modified and new forms of safety assessment notations to provide evidence of safety, and the use of data derived from such notations as a means of providing quantified input into the design assessment process. we then show how the design assessment can be partially automated, and from this develop some ideas on how we might move from analytical to synthetic approaches, using safety criteria and evidence as a fitness function for comparing alternative automatically-generated designs. p. fenelon j. a. mcdermid m. nicolson d. j. pumfrey
proposed criteria for accreditation of computer information systems programs  a working group, representing acm, dpma, and ieee-cs, was formed to draft a set of guidelines, including criteria, for the accreditation of computer information systems' undergraduate programs. the guidelines and criteria are summarized below.  faculty: typically a minimum of 4 faculty, with 3 full time, are needed. normally, 25% of a faculty member's time should be available for scholarly activity and development. teaching loads should not exceed 12 hours and should not exceed 4 courses with 2 preparations.  curriculum: curricular assume a 120 semester hour, four year, baccalaureate program. the program should consist of approximately 30% computer information systems, 20% business, at least 40% in general education and up to 10% other.  forty to 60 percent of the cis portion should cover a broad core that includes a) computer concepts and software systems, b) program, data, and file structures, c) data management,  d) data and computer communications, and e) systems analysis and design. students should be exposed to a variety of programming languages and be proficient in one structured language. the remaining courses should cover breadth and depth.  resources: appropriate computing facilities must exist for students and faculty. adequate software and documentation must be available.  students: established standards and procedures must insure that graduates have the requisite qualifications to function as cis professionals.  institutional support: adequate support must be provided to support the faculty, department office administration, and library. faculty support includes leave programs, reasonable teaching loads, competitive salaries, and travel support.  robert cannon john gorgone tom ho john d. mcgregor
critique and evaluation of the cal poly/dpma model curriculum for computer information systems  the authors have been intimate observers of a significant movement within computer education. this paper presents a history of this curriculum project and an assessment of its future influence. the forces which mandate the focus of attention in the area of data processing education are identified and the nature of the response evoked from this project is analyzed. the paper reveals the need for a better understanding of curriculum development enterprises, and the necessity to promote greater cooperation both within the academic community and within the computer industry to insure that useful curriculum materials will emerge.  william mitchell james westfall
an automated management system for applications software  the applications group at the academic computing center maintains approximately 100 applications software products on our cdc 170/750 cyber computer. we also maintain some 30 products on each of five instructional digital equipment vaxes. most of these we receive from vendors, some have been developed locally, and some of these we distribute to other sites.  in order to manage the workload, we have developed over a period of time an automated product management system, which we call hellas. the basic philosophy behind hellas is that a software maintenance system will be successful if it is simple to use, has a straight-forward methodology, and fits our computing system management requirements.  for the most part, this paper will describe the hellas system as it is implemented on the cyber computer. the features, however, have their analogs on the vax computers as well.  john jacobsen
computer science education for industry software personnel (panel session)  this panel discussion was convened to share experiences and ideas on an issue which is critical to our profession. advances in computer science hold forth a promise of increased quality of software development in industry. yet the industry is composed of a large number of very experienced personnel lacking this computer science knowledge. thus the issue is how these experienced members of our profession can be taught computer science topics in a way which promotes the usage of the technology in industrial environments.  thomas m. kraly
new metaphors for understanding the new machines  though frequently misunderstood and dismissed as irrelevant ornamentation, metaphors are useful tools for writers in the computer industry. metaphors are especially useful for presenting information about new technologies because they help readers grasp whole concepts immediately and because they illuminate concepts that are difficult to communicate otherwise. it is important to distinguish this use of metaphors from their use in literature and advertisement.  participants in the workshop will follow procedures for investigating the suitability of several metaphors. they will analyze the power and appropriateness of metaphors currently used in the computer industry by applying seven criteria: is the metaphor useful? understood? close? illuminating? acceptable? economical? memorable?  richard m chisholm
sivil: a true visual programming language for students  this paper discusses the advantages and disadvantages of using sivil (simple visual language), a new visual programming language in development at canisius college, to teach novice programmers to think more deeply about programming. in consideration of how sivil meets its goal of making programming easier for beginners, the paper will look at bloom's taxonomy, specifically at bloom's levels of learning and how a visual language might aid or speed up the learning curve for students endeavoring to join the world of programming.  timothy f. materson r. mark meyer
free-ridership in the standards-setting process: the case of 10baset  in many cases, standards have public goods attributes. as a result it is important to consider how the development costs are provided. it is well known that public goods, due to their nonexclusionary nature, are subject to free riders. we consider free-ridership in standardization in general, and examine the case of one standard, ieee 802.3i (10baset) in particular. we show that free-ridership existed in the development of the 10baset standard, and in the subsequent product market, by specifying the criteria for the existence of free-ridership and by providing the necessary data to show that such an issue actually exists. we discuss the consequences of free-ridership and consider the implications for the standards development process in general.  martin b. h. weiss ronald t. toyokuku
teams need a process! this paper begins with a discussion of the importance of software development and the problems encountered by those trying to work effectively on software project teams. it is argued that for students to be effective in working on teams they need the discipline and organization offered by a rigorous team software process. the author describes his experiences in using the team software process (tsp) to teach an introductory course in software engineering. the structure and key elements of the process are presented, along with techniques used in selecting and forming teams. the paper examines the tsp quality assurance features and finishes with a discussion of the techniques used to acquire feedback and to evaluate the affect of the tsp on student learning. thomas b. hilburn
advantages and disadvantages of decentralized computing services  as computers expand further and further into all academic communities, so must the user services group. however, this expansion places a burden on a centralized computer center, and therefore, it is not surprising to see a trend developing in many large universities where the primary user services function is transferred from the main computer center to colleges and departments within the university. this results in the main computer center providing secondary user services and the college or department providing primary user services. such is the situation at the university of south carolina.  the university is the largest in the state of south carolina with approximately 35,000 students enrolled. for many years certain computing services functions have been the responsibility of the various colleges within the university, although the main computing center provides some short courses on programming languages, programming packages, and utilities plus, a newsletter, limited consulting, and technical support. the bulk of the teaching, consulting, and dissemination of information is the responsibility of the individual colleges within the university.  this paper will discuss the problems encountered in establishing an individual college computing center as well as its advantages and disadvantages based on our experiences at the college or department level.  deborah a. truesdale
business planning in technical documentation organizations  business planning is a process of deciding what an organization will do to be successful, and how it will do it. business planning can benefit any organization that wants to control its future and to succeed. however, a literature review and some practical experience at at&amp;t; bell laboratories suggests that technical documentation organizations have virtually ignored the application of business planning, both as a means of creating their futures and as a means of advancing their profession. the business planning process involves creating an organizational mission; diagnosing the organization's strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and risks; setting goals; developing objectives and action plans; developing a financial plan; and writing, sharing, and implementing the plan. following these steps in the bell labs publication center, we have seen our budget and staff grow and our client base diversify.  d. mongeau
a case for data-driven testing this paper describes a novel approach to the on-line assessment of large groups of students, in which it may be desirable to maintain common questions between the groups. it is clear from the literature that computer based assessment has the potential to dramatically reduce the effort involved in testing and marking however problems arise where the cohort of students is larger than the number of available computers. however, the opposite situation is often true in practice, due to the perceived need to design multiple tests. the solution described here uses a small computer laboratory (20 machines) to administer a test to a series of groups of students in existing lab sessions. each group receives the same set of questions but the data to which the questions apply, and hence the test answers, vary from group to group. the data from tests that have been applied to students is analysed to determine whether discussions with early candidates have influenced the performance of students in later testing sessions. tony greening glenn stevens david stratton
when an advantage is not an advantage  discussion of the merits and shortcomings of affirmative action (aa) has raged at all levels and in many forums and has been the concern of many policymakers, including president clinton. notably absent from the discussion is the perception of aa, and the effect of the angry backlash on women and minorities. recently, the question of whether women enjoy an "unfair advantage" was posted electronically on systers, a private organization of over 1,800 professional women in the male-dominated field of computing. the 42 responses contained strong personal stories from women at every level of professional growth who had all dealt with the issues of gender bias and aa at each step of the way.  lisa m. zurk barbara simons rebecca parsons dawn cohen
a tale of two shortages: an analysis of the it professional and mis faculty shortages  there are hundreds of articles, numerous governmental research papers and congressional acts that are focused on attending to a shortage or information technology (it) labor. many predict a crippling effect from such a shortage, and a minority opinion suggests that there is no shortage. in part, this difference may reflect a lack of conceptual clarity of what constitutes a shortage. this paper, then, examines the nature of what shortages are, how shortages might look in the context of it professionals and mis faculty, and how we might be able to ascertain the nature of the it labor and faculty shortages. the outcome is that by understanding the specific nature of the shortage, we can then hope to provide a remedy.  timothy babbitt
a study of organizational structures in academic computing centers  this paper reports the findings of an informal survey of organizational structures in several academic computing centers. small, medium, and large centers were studied and an attempt was made to identify the advantages and disadvantages or the various structures. not unexpectedly, the most serious criticisms of their own structures came from small computing centers, where severe shortage of staff was listed as the biggest disadvantage. all sizes of computing centers claimed that dual responsibilities for both academic and administrative computing frequently caused severe organizational problems. successful organizational structures are most often due to a cooperative staff and good lines of communication.  john e. bucher
computer education for pre-college teachers (panel session)  over the past few years we educators in computer science have become increasingly aware of the need for computer science education of pre-college teachers. the es3 committee is working on an organized approach to this need; however, as more and more high and elementary schools offer instruction in computer programming and related cs subjects, an immediate ad hoc approach is frequently necessary. each of the members of this panel has had direct experience with teaching computer science to pre-college teachers. they will share some of these experiences with us and in so doing answer some questions and raise others for those faced with implementing programs for pre-college educators.  spotswood d. stoddard
agent technology in computer science and engineering curriculum in recent years, agent technology has been used increasingly in information management and distributed computing. a cse curriculum that cultivates the knowledge of agent technology will increase the likelihood that the next generation of it professionals have the background needed to design and develop software systems that are scalable, reliable, adaptable, and secure. in this paper, we present the rationale and our practice in incorporating agent technology into the cse curriculum. we develop agent-based teaching materials and software modules and apply them to existing cse courses including artificial intelligence, parallel and distributed processing, networking, and software engineering. promising results have been obtained in teaching two graduate level courses using agent components. yi shang hongchi shi su-shing chen
does it help to have some programming experience before beginning a computing degree program? there is an intuitive perception that students with prior programming experience have an initial advantage in an introductory programming course, but that this advantage may decrease over the duration of the course if the style of programming is different from what the student has learnt previously. this paper reports on a study that indicates that students who have experience in at least one programming language at the beginning of an introductory programming course perform significantly better in the assessment than those with none, and that the more languages with which a student has experience, the better the performance tends to be. dianne hagan selby markham
recommendations for the first course computer science  working under the curriculum committee of the education board of the acm, the committee has developed a detailed analysis of the requirements of the first course in computer science as described in the current acm curriculum guidelines. the report includes the material which should be included in such a course and also recommendations for effective presentation of the material. discussion of the computer laboratory and implications of increased exposure to programming experiences by incoming students is included.  elliot koffman philip muller caroline wardle
what makes things fun to learn? heuristics for designing instructional computer games  in this paper, i will describe my intuitions about what makes computer games fun. more detailed descriptions of the experiments and the theory on which this paper is based are given by malone (1980a, 1980b). my primary goal here is to provide a set of heuristics or guidelines for designers of instructional computer games. i have articulated and organized common sense principles to spark the creativity of instructional designers (see banet, 1979, for an unstructured list of similar principles). to demonstrate the usefulness of these principles, i have included several applications to actual or proposed instructional games. throughout the paper i emphasize games with educational uses, but i focus on what makes the games fun, not on what makes them educational.  though i will not emphasize the point in this paper, these same ideas can be applied to other educational environments and life situations. in a sense, the categories i will describe constitute a general taxonomy of intrinsic motivation\\---of what makes an activity fun or rewarding for its own sake rather than for the sake of some external reward (see lepper and greene, 1979).  i think the essential characteristics of good computer games and other intrinsically enjoyable situations can be organized into three categories: challenge, fantasy, and curiosity.  thomas w. malone
a student system development diagrammer  new approaches to system development depend heavily on graphical methods for representation of system requirements and the depiction of final design configuration. among various diagramming methods, data flow diagrams, entity- relationship diagrams and structure charts have received the most attention.  an automated diagramming tool is created and is made available to students. this tool requires minimum hardware and does not require the use of licensed software to operate. it therefore can be made accessible to many students at different schools.  iraj hirmanpour
programming for learning in mathematics and science  this paper presents a learning-research based argument for the integration of computer programming into the science and mathematics curricula in pre-college education as well as college. students who generate solutions to science and mathematics problems develop a procedural understanding of the fundamental theories of these disciplines. students should be taught to use programming languages for these solutions for the same reasons they are taught the universal tools of arithmetic and algebra, and because only a computer provides the means to describe solutions in explicit, correct, and executable form. programming should be integrated into all mathematics and science teaching from the earliest years. in precollege education, programming should be taught over a period of eight to ten years, rather than as a 6-12 week separate topic, and should be matched to the level of complexity of the science and mathematics content.  sylvia a. shafto
women in management - entering and growing(acm '81 panel session abstract)  linda taylor will discuss how to get your first management position, the requirements and the transition from using your technical skills to gain success to using management skills emphasizing delegation, motivation, training, etc. of others to gain your success.  nell cox's discussion focuses on breaking through the middle management plateau into top management. techniques for gaining "election" to corporate officer status, and the differences between middle and top management responsibilities and activities will be highlighted.  peggy mckelly will provide perspective on the attitude and skills she has observed to be requirements or prerequisites for entrepreneurial success. starting your own business and the transition from employee/worker to owner/boss/worker will be featured, as well as capitalization and governmental reporting requirements.  linda taylor
heavy machinery for deforestation: establishing a dialogue between ghc and hugs for program transformation development  functional programmers pride themselves on writing elegant and modular programs for the case with which such programs can be read, updated, and extended. in the modular style of programming, larger programs are written as compositions of smaller mix- and-match components that communicate via intermediate data structures. unfortunately, however, intermediate data structures are a major source of inefficiency in functional programs, consuming both unnecessary time and unnecessary space. as a result, the development of techniques to remove intermediate data structures from --- or deforest --- functional programs is important in overcoming the inefficiencies of functional languages while reaping their benefits.  aaron j. wheeler