Workshop Participation Invited

Workshop Participation Invited

[Michael Feldman]

C A L L   F O R   P O S I T I O N   P A P E R S
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ACM SIGAda Academic/Industry Workshop: 
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How Shall We COOPERATE to Produce Tomorrow's Software Developers?
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Michael Feldman, Chair, SIGAda Education Working Group
Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science
The George Washington University, Washington, DC 20052
mfeldman@seas.gwu.edu

This full-day invited workshop will be held at the McLean Hilton, 
McLean, VA, on Tuesday, June 24, 1997, in conjunction with the 14th 
Annual Washington Ada Symposium (WAdaS) (http://www.ois.com/wadas97/). 
A report on the workshop's conclusions will be given during a WAdaS 
session on Thursday, June 26, 1997, and workshop positions and results
will be distributed via the Internet.

Position papers are due by e-mail to mfeldman@seas.gwu.edu, no later 
than Friday, May 9, 1997. Selected workshop participants will be
notified by the end of May. There is no fee for participating in
the workshop; funding for travel or conference participation is, 
unfortunately, not available.

Background
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Software pervades our lives. We all know that the visible software
on our desktop computers is just the tip of the iceberg. Software 
working behind the scenes controls our telephone calls, flies our 
planes, brakes our cars. Current attention to "smart" automotive 
airbags, air traffic control, and the "Year 2000 Problem" has raised 
public awareness of the degree to which we all depend upon software 
that works. 

It is more important than ever to find the "right" education, especially
at the undergraduate level, to produce the developers who will produce,
maintain, and manage this pervasive and critical software. Today's 
undergraduates will be developers tomorrow, and managers the day after.

Yet the gulf between educators' approaches and industry's expectations 
appears to be wider than ever.

Many of us have attended, or participated in, many conference sessions 
and panels on this subject, but they generally end up (or were created
purposely) as finger-pointing, adversarial, exercises. Computing education
is alleged to be irrelevant to the "real world." Industry is alleged to
be uninterested in real improvement, and in any case continues to "purchase" 
our graduates, the product of allegedly irrelevant education. Tempers 
flare; little or no practical results emerge. Both "sides" walk away 
frustrated from the high adrenalin which is never channeled into action 
items.

Yet this community has a large number of very experienced engineers 
in government and industry, and also an experienced and committed 
core of educators, especially of undergraduates. There is no shortage
of intelligence and good faith, yet we seem to be talking past each other.

There must be a better way. Is the gulf really as wide as is alleged,
or are we substantially in "violent agreement?" If the gap is wide, how
- in practical terms - do we narrow it?

Workshop Objective
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This workshop will assemble an invited group of educators and practitioners
to attempt to develop a set of manifestly achievable goals, the achievement
of which will result in better academic/industry understanding and, if
need be, consequent improvements to the education and employment
processes.

Participation will be limited to 10-15 individuals.

You are cordially requested to submit a position paper; participants
will be selected based on these factors:

1. The submitter has direct, recent experience in the subject. (S)he is

   - an educator actively and currently engaged in undergraduate computing 
     education, and/or

   - a practitioner actively employed in industry or government, interacting 
     on a day-to-day basis with recent graduates from baccalaureate programs

2. The position paper is articulate and relatively brief, suggests 
   some practical, feasible, actions to be developed in the workshop and 
   reported to the conference and the general community, and indicates 
   the individual's desire to work on achieving the workshop's goals.

3. The resulting workshop is relatively balanced between educators and
   practitioners.

Posturing, flippancy, and selling of products is actively discouraged.

Please respond by e-mail to mfeldman@seas.gwu.edu, no later than Friday,
May 9, 1997.