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CCSCNE 2007
April 20-21, 2007

B. Thomas Golisano College of Computing and Information Sciences (GCCIS) at Rochester Institute of Technology
Rochester, NY

Statement of Purpose

The CCSCNE brings together faculty, staff, and students from academic institutions throughout the Northeast for exchange of ideas and information concerning undergraduate computing curricula.

This conference provides an affordable regional forum for the exchange of information and ideas pertaining to the concerns of computing and computing curricula in a smaller academic environment. The conference proper runs from Friday at 1:00 p.m. to Saturday at 2:00 p.m. and includes a plenary speaker on Friday at 1:00, a Friday evening banquet, a Saturday morning speaker, a Saturday luncheon, parallel paper sessions, tutorials, panels, student posters, a best paper award, and vendor displays. There are pre-conference workshops, and a pre-conference programming contest.

Invited Speakers

Friday plenary session (co-sponsored by ACM SIGCSE)

A radical approach to teaching object-oriented programming

Andries van Dam
Thomas J. Watson, Jr., University Professor of Technology and Education and Professor of Computer Science, Brown University

Abstract:

rad-i-cal. adj.

1.Arising from or going to a root or source.

2. Departing markedly from the usual or customary; extreme.

6. Slang. Excellent, wonderful.

(Excerpted from the American Heritage Dictionary definition.)

In this talk, I describe the approach to teaching introductory programming that I have followed for more than a decade at Brown, and that has been successfully adopted at other schools such as Rhode Island College and the University of Connecticut. It is radical in the sense that it stakes out a clear position at one end of a spectrum: we teach object-oriented programming first - all of it. Classes, inheritance, and polymorphism, all before if-then-else or loops or arrays. It is radical because it goes to the root of object-oriented programming: we emphasize the most central, characteristic features of object-oriented languages. And (we believe) it is radical because it is excellent in that students really learn to think in terms of object decomposition and systems of interacting objects rather than the more traditional paradigm of functional decomposition.

In this talk I will describe the motivation and philosophy of this radical approach and illustrate with examples of PowerPoint lectures. The approach is embodied in the book by Sanders and van Dam, _Object-Oriented Programming in Java_.

Bio:

Dr. Andries van Dam is the Thomas J. Watson Jr. Professor of Technology and Education and Professor of Computer Science at Brown University and was Brown’s first Vice President for Research. He has been a member of Brown's faculty since 1965, is a co-founder of Brown’s Computer Science Department, and was its first Chairman, from 1979 to 1985. His research includes work on computer graphics, hypermedia systems, post-WIMP user interfaces, including pen-centric computing, and educational software. He has been working for nearly four decades on systems for creating and reading electronic books with interactive illustrations for use in teaching and research.

He is the co-author of nearly a dozen books, including, Computer Graphics: Principles and Practice, with James D. Foley, Steven K. Feiner, and John F. Hughes (Addison-Wesley 1990) and, most recently, Object-Oriented Programming in Java: A Graphical Approach with Kathryn E. Sanders (Addison-Wesley, 2005). He received a B.S. degree, with honors, in Engineering Sciences from Swarthmore College in 1960 and Ph.D. (1966) from the University of Pennsylvania. He is a Fellow of ACM, IEEE, and AAAS, is a member of National Academy of Engineering and the American Academy of Arts & Sciences.

His web page is at: http://www.cs.brown.edu/~avd/

Saturday Plenary Session

Impacts of Moore’s Law: What Every CIS Undergraduate Should Know About the Impacts of Advancing Technology

Mary Jane Irwin
Evan Pugh Professor and A. Robert Noll Chair in Engineering in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering, Pennsylvania State University

Abstract:

Moore’s Law postulated by Gordon Moore, then CEO of Intel, in 1965 – that the number of transistors that can be integrated on a single integrated circuit will double every 24 months – has been projected to hold for at least the next decade. Motivated by the semiconductor industry’s technology roadmap, this talk will present the impacts of advancing technology that will determine what our students will need to know in order to use these systems of the future most effectively. For example, in order to contain the energy costs yet stay on the performance curve, manufacturers are moving to multi-core systems rather than continuing to increase single-core clock rates. Thus, multi-threaded, multi-core applications programming will be the norm, not the exception. Power will be the most important computing resource: battery power for mobile systems, heat dissipation for large systems, and power generation/delivery for large server/compute farms. Systems will become less reliable, not more, due to inevitable increases in both transient and permanent faults in the underlying hardware. The usual computing resources (time, space, communication) and the emerging computing resources (power, resiliency, security) will have to be cooperatively managed by the user, by the programmer, and by the run-time system.

Bio:

Dr. Mary Jane Irwin has been on the faculty at Penn State since 1977 where she currently holds the title of Evan Pugh Professor and A. Robert Noll Chair in Engineering in the Department of Computer Science and Engineering. Her research and teaching interests include computer architecture, embedded and mobile computing systems design, power and reliability aware design, and emerging technologies in computing systems. Dr. Irwin received her Ph.D. from the University of Illinois. She received an Honorary Doctorate from Chalmers University, Sweden, in 1997, was named a Fellow of The Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE) in 1995, a Fellow of The Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) in 1996, and was elected to the National Academy of Engineering in 2003. Dr. Irwin is currently serving as Co-chair of ACM's Publications Board, as the co-Editor-in-Chief of ACM's Journal on Emerging Technologies in Computing Systems, and as a member of the CRA-W Steering Committee. In the past she has served as an elected member of the CRA's (Computing Research Association) Board of Directors, of the IEEE Computer Society's Board of Governors, of ACM's Council, and as Vice President of ACM. Dr. Irwin's complete curriculum vitae is available online via vitae.pdf. More details on her research (including publications) are available at the Microsystems Design Lab (mdl) group's webpage at http://mdlwiki.cse.psu.edu/twiki/bin/view/MDL/WebHome.

Her web page is at:
http://mdlwiki.cse.psu.edu/twiki/bin/view/Main/MaryJaneIrwin

Preliminary Program

The Preliminary Program will be available in early January 2007. To receive the preliminary program when it becomes available subscribe to our email announcements list.

Authors

Authors are invited to submit papers, as well as proposals for panels, tutorials and workshops. Undergraduate students are invited to submit poster abstracts. More information is available on the authors page.

Vendors

Vendors are invited to purchase display tables at the conference, and to sponsor breaks or the reception. Direct questions to vendors@ccscne.org

Student Programming Contest

A pre-conference Computer Programming Contest for 3-person college teams will be held on Friday morning, April 20th from 9:00-12:00, preceded by a briefing on contest rules and the computer system. Space is limited and pre-registration is required. There is a $50 non-refundable team fee; in addition, each team member must register for the conference. A faculty sponsor is required. Rules will be similar to the ACM International Contest. All judging will be done objectively using sets of data meant to test all cases. Winners will be announced at the banquet. Direct all questions to pgmcontest@ccscne.org.

Registration for the CCSCNE-2007 College Programming Contest is open now. The deadline for registration is Feb. 28th. This pre-conference Computer Programming Contest for 3-person college teams will be held on Friday morning, April 20th. Space is limited and pre-registration is required. A faculty sponsor is required. The Contest will run from 9:00am to 12:00noon and winners will be announced at the banquet.

To register for the contest, please use this form.

Birds of A Feather Sessions

Birds of a feather tables will be available at the banquet. Those who wish to suggest topics or volunteer as group leaders should send email to bof@ccscne.org.

Conference Committee

Conference Chairs

Paul Tymann, RIT
Keith Whittington, RIT
confchair@ccscne.org

Papers Chairs

Ali Erkan, Ithaca College
James Heliotis, RIT
Jim Teresco, Williams College
papers@ccscne.org

Undergraduate Posters Chairs

Rameen Mohammadi, SUNY Oswego
Evelyn Stiller, Plymouth State University
posters@ccscne.org

Panels/Tutorials/Workshops Chairs

Tim Fossum, SUNY Potsdam
Lonnie Fairchild, SUNY-Plattsburgh
Yana Kortsarts, Widener University
panels@ccscne.org
tutorials@ccscne.org
workshops@ccscne.org

Speakers Chair

Ingrid Russell, University of Hartford
speakers@ccscne.org

Publicity Chairs

Frank Ford, Providence College
Nadia Bolaek, RIT
publicity@ccscne.org

Vendors Chairs

Hemant Pendharkar, Worcester State College
Adrian Ionescu, Wagner College
vendors@ccscne.org

Programming Contest Chairs

Frank Ford, Providence College
Zack Butler, RIT
James Kwon, RIT
pgmcontest@ccscne.org

Registration Chair

Roxanne Canosa, RIT
registration@ccscne.org

Local Arrangements Chair

Wendy Benjamin, RIT
local@ccscne.org

Birds of A Feather Coordinators

Stephen Bloch, Adelphi University
Ziya Arnavut, SUNY Fredonia
bof@ccscne.org

Click here for the preliminary conference program. (PDF)

Click here the conference registration form.

Click here for directions and accomdations information.

Programming Contest registration is now open. Click here for information and registration form.