https://dx.doi.org/10.1145/3160489.3160501">
 

Abstract

Through the auspices of ACM and with support from the IEEE Computer Society, a task group charged to prepare the IT2017 report conducted an online international survey of computing faculty members about their undergraduate degree programs in computing. The purpose of this survey was to clarify the breadth of and disparities in nomenclature used by diverse communities in the computing field, where a word or phrase can mean different things in different computing communities. This paper examines the English-language words and phrases used to name the computing programs of almost six hundred survey respondents, and the countries in which those names are used. Over eight hundred program names analysed in this paper reveal six program names that together account for more than half of all program names. The paper goes on to consider possible correspondence between reported program names and the five areas of computing identified by the ACM. Names such as computer science and information technology appear to dominate, but with different meanings, while the names of other computing disciplines show clear geographic preferences. Convergence towards a very small number of highly representative program names in computing education worldwide might be deceptive. The paper calls for further examination and international collaborations to align program names with program curriculum content.

Publication Date

1-1-2018

Journal Title

ACE 2018: 20th Australasian Computing Education Conference

Publisher

ACM, New York, NY, USA

Digital Object Identifier (DOI)

https://dx.doi.org/10.1145/3160489.3160501

Document Type

Conference Proceeding

Comments

© ACM, New York, NY, USA,2018. This is the author's version of the work. It is posted here for your personal use. Not for redistribution. The definitive Version of Record was published in ACE 2018: 20th Australasian Computing Education Conference, https://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=3160501.

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