The widespread use of information and communications technologies (ICT) over the past decades has created a trend that ICT is perceived as part of daily life. 31% of Americans are elite tech users, who have information gadgets and services and are fluent in internet usage such as Web 2.0 activities [1]. A knowledge society is emerging, with skillful use, sharing, and management of information in all disciplines. New areas such as bioinformatics and computational economics are embracing ICT. Despite this, the discipline of computing itself is facing tremendous challenges such as declining student enrollment and a lack of diversity.
In 2000, the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) and Association for Information Systems (AIS) published the “Model Curriculum and Guidelines for Graduate Degree Programs in Information Systems” [2]. While its focus was on filling industry requirements for more IT workers, broader needs for producing college graduates who possess the knowledge and skills to work in a knowledge society must be addressed. In 2001, ACM and the IEEE Computing Society (IEEE-CS) published “Computing Curricula 2001”, which assigned only 10 out of 280 core hours in the Information Management related content, which is essential for the Knowledge Society.
The Living In the KnowlEdge Society (LIKES) Community Building Project [2], led by four sites (Virginia Tech, Villanova University, North Carolina A&T, and Santa Clara University) and funded by the National Science Foundation, aims to revitalize undergraduate computing education. The vision of LIKES is to build a community that will define the way to make systematic changes in how computing concepts are taught and applied in both computing and non-computing disciplines.
Our goals are to transform computing education so college graduates could help build the knowledge society, and to promote collaboration between computing and all other disciplines to guide the emergence of the knowledge society. We focus on spreading computational thinking skills [3], ICT paradigms, and key computing concepts, across the society. We ran three workshops (SCU, Dec. 2007; NC A&T, Apr. 2008; VT, Nov. 2008) and plan to have another at Villanova University in March 2009. From three workshops, challenges and lessons were identified through participant discussion sessions (details will be presented in the poster). Participants came from diverse areas in academia:
• SCU – Architecture, Art/Art history, Biology, Chemistry/Biochemistry, English, Marketing, Modern languages and literature, Music, Biological and Agricultural engineering and Plant sciences
• NC A&T – Biology, Geography (GIS), Music, Physics, Statistics, University studies
• VT – History, Mathematics, Engineering, Chemistry, Economics, Psychology, Political Science
• Villanova – Archeology, Environmental Science, Ethics, Global Studies, Political Science, Sociology
New courses were created too. They are:
• VT: Introduction to LIKES, LIKES Capstone
• SCU: Information Technology, Business and Society
• NC A&T: Introduction of Web Science
• Villanova: The Laptop Instrument (CS + Music)
Online communities were formed to facilitate collaboration, communication, and sharing of ideas about LIKES:
• LinkedIn.com: LIKES Educators
• Facebook.com: LIKES, LIKESVT (for VT students)
• Second Life Group: LIKES
• Virginia Tech’s site scholar.vt.edu: LIKES Team, LIKES Development and LIKES students
The three LIKES workshops with keynote speeches and discussion sessions helped disseminate our effort to other institutions and to advance academia toward the knowledge society. We plan to continue our effort through the Villanova workshop, a Faculty Development Institute at VT (Jul. 21-23, 2009), and identification of LIKES-designated courses at VT. We invite everyone who is willing to participate in building the knowledge society.
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