Special Projects 2003
Since 2003 SIGCSE has awarded a limited number of Special Projects Grants each year. These grants help SIGCSE members investigate and introduce new ideas in the learning and teaching of computing. Projects must provide some clear benefit to the wider disciplinary community in the form of new knowledge, developing or sharing of a resource, or good practice in learning, teaching, or assessment.
Here is a list of the awards given in 2003.
A Framework for Playing Network Games in CS1/CS2
Richard E. Pattis, Carnegie Mellon University <pattis@acm.org>
Award: $3,200
Award date: May 2003
Description: I will develop a Java framework (and JavaDoc API) allowing CS1/CS2 students to write games played over a network. Games are hosted on one machine (storing shared state). Manual or automated players on other machines command/query it via strings. I'll write several assignments and sample games to distribute with this framework. Refer to the project home page for current status and additional information: http://www-2.cs.cmu.edu/~pattis/grants/sigcsegrant2003.html
Student Program Documentation Analysis and Feedback
Jesse M. Heines, University of Massachusetts Lowell <heines@cs.uml.edu>
Award: $5,000
Award date: May 2003
Description: This project will produce a publicly available, Web-based application that analyzes program documentation and provides constructive feedback on how to improve that documentation. The final product will be similar in look and feel to the validators on the W3C Web site, but with added guidance on how to correct shortcomings. http://teaching.cs.uml.edu/~heines/projects/docvalidator
Electronic Archiving of Workshop on Computer Architecture Education Proceedings
Edward F. Gehringer, North Carolina State University <efg@ncsu.edu>
Award: $1,600
Award date: May 2003
Description: Since 1995, approximately ten Workshops in Computer Architecture Education have been held in conjunction with ACM/SIGArch conferences. The proposer has organized the last three workshops (2000, 2002, and 2003). The pre-2000 proceedings are not online or in any other archival form. The proposed activity is to pay a student to contact the authors, obtain the files, and put those proceedings on line with appropriate metadata. Refer to the project home page for current status and additional information: http://www4.ncsu.edu/~efg/wcaes.html
Bioinformatics in the Computer Science Curriculum
Matt DeJongh <dejongh@hope.edu>
Mark D. LeBlanc, Hope College; Wheaton College <mleblanc@wheatoncollege.edu>
Award: $5,000
Award date: July 2003
Description: We propose to identify computationally rich examples from bioinformatics that map to core units in Computing Curricula 2001 and investigate ways of incorporating them into the computer science curriculum. We will develop sample course materials that will benefit members of SIGCSE who are interested in incorporating bioinformatics in their courses. http://www.cs.hope.edu/~dejongh/bioinformatics/sigcse/
Task Force to Develop Java-Based Resources for Introductory CS
Eric Roberts, Stanford University <eroberts@cs.stanford.edu>
Award: $5,000
Award date: October 2003
Description: This project supports the work of a new ACM Education Board task force to develop a collection of Java-based resources to support the teaching of introductory computer science at both the secondary school and college level
Building Research in Australasian Computer Education (BRACE)
Raymond Lister, University of Technology, Sydney <raymond@it.uts.edu.au>
Award: $5,000
Award date: October 2003
Description: We propose to run a workshop on research into computer science education (4 days, up to 20 participants). The workshop leads onto a shared research project and publication(s). It will be set in Australasia, and modeled on two successful NSF-funded workshops previously held in America. http://www.cs.otago.ac.nz/brace