Keeping Curriculum Relevant: Identifying Longitudinal Shifts in Computer Science Topics through Analysis of Q&A Communities

Abstract

Keeping up with new knowledge being produced in computing related domains is a difficult task given the pace of change in the field. Specifically, in domains that are undergoing a lot of innovation, such as Data Science or Artificial Intelligence, updating curricula is not easy. Yet, there is a need to be cognizant of new topics in order to create and update curricula and keep it relevant. In this paper we present an innovative approach to help educators keep a better track of changes in a domain and be able to map their curricula objectives to emerging topics and technologies. We leverage Q&A sites, Reddit and StackExchange, which provide a useful online platform for sharing of information and thereby generate a valuable corpus of knowledge. We use Data Science as a case study for our work and through a longitudinal analysis of these sites we identify popular topics and how they have changed over time. We believe innovations such as these are essential for improving computer science education and for bridging the workplace-school divide in teaching of newer topics. Our unique and innovative approach can be applied to other CS topics as well.