Towards a syllabus repository for computer science courses

ABSTRACT

A syllabus defines the contents of a course, as well as other information such as resources and assignments. In this paper, we report on our work towards creating a syllabus repository of Computer Science courses across universities in the USA. We present some statistics from our initial collection of 8000+ syllabi. We show a syllabus creator that is integrated with Moodle [5] moodle_2006_moodle, an open-source course management system, which allows for the creation of a syllabus for a particular course. Among other information, it includes knowledge units from the Computing Curricula 2001 body of knowledge. The goal of the syllabus repository is to provide added value to the Computer Science Education community, and we present some such offerings. We conclude by presenting our future plans for the syllabus repository. These include using automated techniques to collect and classify syllabi, providing recommendations to instructors when creating a syllabus, and allowing the community to share their syllabi automatically. The syllabus collection will be part of the Computing and Information Technology Interactive Digital Educational Library (CITIDEL), a collection of the National Science Digital Library (NSDL).

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INDEX TERMS

Primary Classification:
  H. Information Systems
  H.3 INFORMATION STORAGE AND RETRIEVAL
      H.3.m Miscellaneous

General Terms:
Management

Keywords:
computing curricula 2001, curriculum, syllabus