INFORMATICS AND THE DIVERSIFICATION OF THE COMPUTING CURRICULUM
James Wolfer, Ruth Schwartz, Hossein Hakimzadeh · 2005
Abstract ⎯ The computing infrastructure has, and continues, to endure rapid change as hardware, software, and communication infuse society and as the user community gains experience and sophistication. To meet these changing demands the educational computing community has experienced something of a metamorphosis, starting from a fundamentally computer science curriculum and emerging as a suite of curricula for a variety of needs as evidenced by the ACM 2004 Computing Curricula Overview. Indiana University has been at the forefront of this transformation, culminating with the establishment of a School of Informatics which embraces the diversity of computing needs with an emphasis on interdisciplinary programs. This paper profiles the establishment of an Informatics Bachelor's degree at the Indiana University South Bend campus from concept to expression. As a part of the process description we include a discussion of requirements evolution, the rewards and challenges of cross-disciplinary integration, and faculty/tenure issues. Index terms ⎯ Informatics, program development, interdisciplinary IT integration,curriculum benchmarking