History of the Computer Productivity Initiative (CS 410 & CS 411W)

The Computer Productivity Initiative (CPI) began as a research project supported by the National Science Foundation (NSF) as the first attempt of tying together a Computer Science set of curricula courses by providing a project based course sequence that required the knowledge and skills previously learned. Since the completion and reporting of the research success, several courses of similar nature have been developed and placed in use as part of the curricula of other universities.

Computer science traces its foundation to mathematics, logic and engineering. Studies in computer science range from theory through experimental techniques, to engineering methodology. The computer science curriculum exposes students to each of these disciplines and fosters an appreciation and understanding of them. Students grasp the broad theoretical basis of computer science in a context of strong laboratory components.

The Computer Science Department’s curricular model increases the relevance of computer science education to the real world. The capstone Professional Workforce Development (PWD) courses, in a new theme each semester, go beyond the experimental and design approaches of typical computer science curricula by emphasizing the creativity and productivity required for business and industrial applications today.

The first course, CS 410, is presentation/collaboration intensive, with grading and evaluation of students performed by faculty and industry review boards. The topics and learning objectives include:

• technical research
• market research
• presentation skills
• group collaboration- interviews
• budgeting
• proposal writing
• presentation tools
• scheduling
• hardware availability research
• system architectural design
• requirements specification
• simulation
• prototyping
• cost estimation

The second course, CS411W, is writing intensive, with grading and evaluation of students performed by CS faculty, English graduate students, and industry review boards. Documents required in the writing intensive course include: descriptive papers, requirement specifications, test plans, user manuals, and grant proposals. A working laboratory prototype is developed and demonstrated for evaluation. All student projects can be accessed through this page by utilizing the links above. The products were never developed for production or for sale to the general public.