“Crosscutting Themes in Computer Science: Where Does PDC Education Fit?”

Abstract

Since 1968, ACM and IEEE Computer Society have jointly led the development of curricular guidelines in various computing disciplines, starting with Computer Science (CS). The last major release of the undergraduate CS Curriculum Guidelines (CS2013) recognized 18 knowledge areas underpinning the discipline; the next decennial release is also likely to have the same number of knowledge areas. Viewing these knowledge areas as distinct silos does disservice to their interconnected nature, especially as crosscutting or recurring themes run across them and help to unify fundamental concepts in the CS discipline. In this talk, I will discuss crosscutting themes as providing an orthogonal view of the CS discipline, a view girded by knowledge and experience gained over the past 50 years. Providing explicit instruction in the presence and variety of crosscutting themes in CS will help students see each area not just in a silo of insular ideas, but also as part of the ethos of the discipline. I will use examples from the different knowledge areas to show where Parallel and Distributed Computing could fit into CS.