The University of Queensland has recently established a new design-focused, studio-based computer science degree. The Bachelor of Information Environments degree augments the core courses from the University's standard CS degree with a stream of design courses and integrative studio-based projects undertaken every semester. The studio projects integrate and reinforce learning by requiring students to apply the knowledge and skills gained in other courses to open-ended real-world design projects. The studio model is based on the architectural studio and involves teamwork, collaborative learning, interactive problem solving, presentations and peer review. This paper describes the degree program, its curriculum and rationale, and reports on experiences in the first year of delivery. Almost immediately after the first computer programs were written, we began to wrestle with the problem of how best to teach what became computer science (CS). Building even simple systems was quickly recognized as very difficult, and finding the correct approach or perspective could potentially provide a platform from which to build systems more easily. Briefly, the discipline has gone through two major stages: CS as Science and CS as Engineering. The names imply the pedagogical heritages from which the discipline has drawn. The scientific approach attempted to teach CS in a highly theoretical way, and drew on the notion of the scientific method and essential rationality of approach -as the foundations for an approach to teaching CS that found expression in areas such as formal methods and program synthesis. The engineering approach tries to make CS an applied discipline. The notable feature of this approach is an attempt to make the rigor of the scientific approach realworld applicable, primarily by attempting to apply the scientific approach on a larger scale, and using a more project-based approach to show that larger scalability is indeed possible. While the engineering approach is clearly a successful evolution of the scientific, significant problems with teaching CS -and indeed understanding the essence of CS as a discipline -remain. The essence of the problem is that both these approaches assume that CS, like traditional science or engineering is a tame [9] discipline. Tameness is characterized by the separability of problem and solution spaces, and the existence of stopping rules. In other words, we can clearly specify a problem independent of any solution, and then solve that problem, with a clear guide that indicates when it's time to stop (in other words, an optimal solution has been found). Unfortunately, CS is just not a tame discipline. Instead, it is wicked [9] . With wicked problems, in opposition to tame problems, problem and solution are inseparable, and there are no clear stopping rules. Thus, rather than being able to specify a problem completely and then solving it, one must proceed iteratively, with each attempted solution throwing new light onto the problem. Because there are no clear stopping rules, one stops when a satisficing [11] or 'good enough' solution is found. Wickedness is hardly a phenomenon unique to CS -it is common to all design disciplines. This made us stop and question whether an approach based on the pedagogies employed in design disciplines, such as architecture and industrial design, particularly the model of studio, critiques and iterative problem-based learning, would not form the basis of a better approach to teaching CS. This, then, is the unique feature of the new Information Environments degreetreating computer science, not as engineering or science, but as in its essence a design discipline.
In the direct lineage of our research, the University of Queensland's Bachelor of Information Environments degree REF was designed extensively around studio practice, including a studio in every semester of the students' studies.
An innovative design and studio-based CS degree
SIGCSE '01
Engineering Computer Science