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From: mpj@mist.cs.orst.edu (Michael P. Johnson)
Newsgroups: comp.edu
Subject: CS Service Course Survey
Message-ID: <21435@orstcs.CS.ORST.EDU>
Date: 30 Oct 90 19:12:22 GMT
Sender: usenet@orstcs.CS.ORST.EDU
Organization: Computer Science Department, Oregon State Univ.
Lines: 40
Originator: mpj@mist.CS.ORST.EDU

The Oregon State University Computer Science Department 
just switched from the College of Science to 
Engineering. As a result, we're taking a look at our 
service courses and trying to answer the following 
questions:

1. What, if any, service courses should be taught by the 
Computer Science Department? (We currently offer a 
popular applications/implications course, FORTRAN, and 
COBOL. In addition, a large number of non-majors take 
our introductory programming/data structures sequence to 
learn Pascal, and a growing number of non-majors are 
taking our Unix/C course and our operating systems 
sequence.)

2. Should all service courses be separate tracks, or 
should non-majors and majors be mixed in some classes?
3. Should we offer courses like COBOL that are targeted 
specifically at narrow groups of students, or have the 
departments that benefit from those courses take them 
over?

4. How, in general, should service courses be funded?

5. Should enrollment be restricted in large service 
courses, and if so, how?

Since these are questions that almost all CS departments 
have to deal with at some time, we decided to turn to 
the net for input. What are your experiences at other 
schools? How have you solved these problems?

Please mail responses to curriculum@mist.cs.orst.edu. If 
there's sufficient interest, we'll post a summary.

Thanks in advance.

Curriculum Committee
Computer Science Department
Oregon State University