Proposed calendar changes: CMPT Concentrations

Greg Baker, Margo Leight, School of Computing Science

February 13, 2008

Summary of Changes

This motion introduces six "concentrations" within the Computing Science major or honors program. These concentrations correspond to the six areas that are already defined by "Table I" in our calendar section.

Rationale

Computing Science is a large field. This can be seen by the wide variety of courses that we offer in the upper division of our undergraduate program.

The CMPT major and honours programs include a great deal of flexibility in course selection. Many students use this flexibility to concentrate their upper-division courses in a particular area within the discipline. We regard this as a positive feature of our program: students can select courses because of their own interest (whether academic or career-related), as long as they meet the core degree requirements.

This change will allow focus in a particular area to be officially recognized by the University. Students will be able to legitimately claim to have received a "BSc with a Computing Science major and Artificial Intelligence concentration" (for example).

Completing a concentration will not be required as part of a major: a student wishing to take a broad selection of courses will not be restricted by this change.

Revised Wording

Addition of "Concentrations" in CMPT major/honors
CurrentProposed
[None. Should be a new section before the "Specialist Programs" section, p. 112 of the 2006/7 Calendar.]

Concentrations

As part of a major or honors program in Computing Science, students may receive one or more Concentrations from these six areas: Artificial Intelligence, Computer Graphics and Multimedia, Computing Systems, Information Systems, Programming Languages and Software Engineering, and Theoretical Computing Science.

To complete a Concentration, students must complete the requirements for the major or honors program, including four courses in the corresponding section of Table I, at least two of which must be at the 400-level. Courses used to meet the requirements of a Concentration may also be used to meet other requirements of the program.