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U of S Overview
The University of Scranton is in the process of changing its core curriculum. Since the University has its roots in the Jesuit liberal arts tradition, any discussion of core curricula is taken seriously. The University is a comprehensive university with over 4500 undergraduates. The University has tried to maintain a core curriculum that is common to all the colleges within the University. Since the late eighties the University has been trying to update its core in the light of a variety of pressures, including pressures from various accrediting agencies. During the past few years the Academic Vice President made a concerted effort the change the curriculum. This paper describes the effort made by members of the Computing Sciences Department to have a Computer and Information Literacy (CILit) course included in the core.
The Seven Liberal Arts
Practically any discussion about core curricula should include a discussion of the Seven Liberal Arts (also called the Seven Liberal Sciences). In the fourth century of the common era Martianus Cappella and Varro codified a curriculum called the Seven Liberal Arts. The Seven Liberal Arts were divided of two groups called the Trivium and the Quadrivium. The trivium consisted of Grammar, Rhetoric and Logic. The quadrivium consised of Arithmetic, Geometry, Music (including harmonics), and Astronomy (including cosmology).
The use of the terms trivium and quadrivium were also a play on words. Roughly translated trivium means "where three roads meet." Quadrivium means "where four roads meet." Capella and Varro were also stating that it was not enough to simply learn the seven subject areas, but that an essential part of the educational process is the synthesis – learning how the subjects interact.
One might argue about the relevance of the particular seven subjects described in the fourth century to education in the twentieth century. I've heard people use the argument that since the Seven Liberal Arts included Latin, the grammar of the time, we should be teaching students Latin. Those who have studied the writing of Cappela and Varro seem to agree that Latin was a coincidence of the time and place of their work. However, one cannot argue with the conceptual abstractions of the trivium and the quadrivium. The trivium focuses on general tools. The quadrivium focuses on major bodies of knowledge.
The role of trivium – grammar, rhetoric, and logic – is to obtain the tools for gathering, evaluating and disseminating information. In the liberal arts tradition students are prepared with the proper resources for gathering, evaluating, and disseminating information. Although one may argue over the quadrivium aspects of a liberal arts curriculum, one cannot argue about the fundamental and essential character of the trivium. Simply stated, a well educated person requires the essential tools for gathering, evaluating, and disseminating information. It today's world, network and computer technology are becoming essential tools that assist in the gathering, evaluating, and dissemination of information.
CILit and the Trivium
In many respects, it is relatively easy to make the argument about the inclusion of CILit in a core curriculum. The real problems are: What is taught in this course? Will the course be relevant in the near future at the college level? These problems are difficult to address because we all approach them with our particular sets of biases and desires about how the course should be formed.
Those in the computing sciences must understand that the arguments for including this course focus on the trivium, not the quiadrivium. That is, this is not a course in which we are attempting to teach students about the computing sciences. We are providing them with resources for gathering, evaluating and disseminating information. Along these lines, I am reminded of a piece I read many years ago. I could not find the reference, but I believe it is attributed to Peter Wegner. It goes something like this: The industrial revolution of the eighteenth century was about machines and their ability to amplify human muscle power. For good or for bad, look where society has come over the last 150 years. We are now in the middle of a computer revolution. Computers amplify our mental abilities (unfortunately that amplification works both ways). If we believe that mental power is more important than muscle power, where will the computer revolution take us by the year 2100?
Just as CILit is not teaching computer science, it is not teaching spreadsheets, or how to use Maple. Granted, the CILit course may include material on these and other topics, but it must focus on broader aspects . Specifically, it must address the general role of computing and networking as a topic in the trivium.
The UofS CILit Subcommittee Report
The University's Curriculum Committee established a subcommittee to establish goals and objectives for courses in Computer and Information Literacy. The committee met during the Spring of 1995. The committee included faculty from the various colleges within the University. There was substantial agreement regarding the goals of the course. The goals are in line with the general goals of the trivium, providing students with the resources to gather, evaluate and disseminate information. The committee established that the goals of the CILit is to develop proficiency with computing and information technology resources as general purpose problem solving tools. Problem solving can be subdivided into several steps: problem definition, analysis, design of solution, presentation of solution. Specifically, software of the following types are useful in the problem solving process:
Upon satisfactory completion of a CILit course a student should:
Goals were established for each of the five major areas. The goals were established to place an emphasis on abstraction, emphasizing what we want to do over how it is done. For example, it is not enough to introduce students to Microsoft Word, students should be aware of the general features available in word processors in general, not just Word in particular. The goals and objectives are in the process of being established for CILit courses. The current state of these goals and objective appear in the following subsections. It should be noted that these goals and objectives will change as the course matures.
Upon completion of the GE computer and information literacy requirement, the student will be able to produce a document (both hard copy and electronic forms) that is acceptable in style and format for publication in a professional journal.
The student should be able to:
Upon completion of the GE computer and information literacy requirement, the student should be able t interpret, use, and analyze spreadsheets to create useful information.
The student should be able to:
Group members agreed to refine their goals and objectives for the other tools: operating systems, database management system, presentation, graphics, communication, and integration of various tools.
Upon completion of the information technology requirement of GE, an individual will be able to use data communications effectively.
Upon completion of the information technology requirement of GE, an individual will be able to apply several appropriate integration techniques.
The student should be able to:
Upon completion of the information technology requirement, an individual will be able to search databases and retrieve information effectively.
Students should be able to:
Students should be able to use various computer graphic capabilities as they relate to basic computing resources, the students' majors, or other student's interests.
Students should be able to demonstrate the ability to work with several appropriate graphics resources be performing some of the following actions:
Students should understand the principles upon which a computer operates.
The student should be able to:
Upon completion of the GE computer and information literacy requirement, the student should be able to understand the advantages, disadvantages, and the ethical impact of computers on society.
The student should be able to:
These goals and objectives must guide any course being prepared to satisfy the CILit requirement in the new curriculum.
The CILit for Health Sciences Course
CILit at other colleges and Universities
Nobody has a monopoly on CILit. What works in one college or university might be inappropriate for another. As others give me links to their CILit pages I will include links to those pages. The first four links appearred on a SIGCSE list posting by Renee McCauley