What should the curriculum of undergraduate computer science programs be in the 2020s? What are the best curricular practices in creating and sustaining such programs? Since the late 1960s, in almost every decade, the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) has created successive curricular guidelines for computer science to help answer these questions, with the IEEE-Computer Society collaborating on the effort since the 1990s. The latest iteration—Computer Science Curricula 2023 (CS2023)—is being carried out by a joint task force of three leading computing professional societies. This article presents a preview of this effort including its vision, structure, and status, and invites readers to contribute to and improve CS2023 before it is finalized.

Background

To assist computing educators navigate the fast-evolving discipline of computer science (CS), several successive curricular guidelines have been published over the last 50 years. The Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) published the first of these guidelines, Curriculum 68 [6], followed by Curriculum 78 [7] that distinguished between core and elective CS courses.

ACM teamed up with the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers–Computer Society (IEEE-CS) to produce subsequent revisions, starting with Computing Curricula 1991 [2]. Computing Curricula 2001 [4] focused solely on CS, while other disciplines such as computer engineering and software engineering were spun off into their own volumes. Computing Curricula 2001 was followed by an interim revision in 2008 [3] and a complete revision in 2013 called Computer Science Curricula 2013 (CS2013) [5]. Many computer science programs across the world have used these guidelines, in part or in whole, to develop their programs.

Computer Science Curricula 2023 (CS2023) is the next decennial revision of CS curricular guidelines. The revision has been led by a Joint Task Force of ACM and IEEE-CS, and for the first time, the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence (AAAI), given the increased emphasis on Artificial Intelligence (AI) in undergraduate CS. This effort was launched in early 2021 and is planned for release by the end of 2023.

The Design of CS2023

As depicted in Figure 1, the design of CS2023 is driven by earlier work in curricular guidelines.

  • CS2013 [5]: CS2023 builds upon the 18 knowledge areas identified in CS2013. It is revising the concepts of Tier I and Tier II core topics identified in CS2013, and designing alternatives to exemplar courses and curricula listed in CS2013.
  • CC2020 [1]: Computing Curricula 2020, usually abbreviated as CC2020 [1], led by the ACM and IEEE-CS in collaboration with several other international computing bodies, views computing as a collection of disciplines, such as whose central focus is computing. Given the emergence of cybersecurity, data science, software engineering, and information technology in addition to computer science. The CC2020 report attempted to "situate and contextualize [baccalaureate degree programs] in the landscape of computing education globally" [1, p. 14]. It also promoted competency-based learning.
    CS2023 will address computer science and will incorporate a competency model that comprises knowledge, skills, and dispositions, as elaborated in CC2020.
  • Recent changes in CS since the release of CS2013. These include dramatic changes in artificial intelligence, mathematical foundations, security, and social, ethical, and professional practices.

Some of the principles that have guided the work of the CS2023 task force to date include the following.

  • Collaboration: Each knowledge area is being revised by a committee of international experts from academia and industry.
  • Continuous review and revision: The Version Alpha draft of each knowledge area was anonymously reviewed by at least three outside experts. The same is planned for Version Beta to be released in early 2023.
  • Transparency: The ongoing work of CS2023 is documented for review and comments by the community at https://csed.acm.org. Available information includes composition of knowledge area committees, results of surveys, and the process used to form the task force.
  • Community engagement: The CS2023 task force has reached out to the community through periodic postings to over a dozen ACM Special Interest Group (SIG) mailing lists. It has provided multiple channels for the community to participate and contribute. These include conference events such as Birds-of-a-Feather sessions at the ACM SIGCSE Technical Symposium [8]), and email address and feedback form dedicated to each knowledge area posted at https://csed.acm.org.
  • Data-driven change: The early work of CS2023 was informed by surveys of academic institutions and industry practitioners conducted in 2021. Similar. surveys are planned for other aspects of the curriculum such as math requirements and core topics.

One of the planned features for CS2023 is the presentation of the curricula in machine-readable online format. Another pertains to curricular practices: previous curricular guidelines included brief descriptions of important curricular practices to raise awareness among CS educators. Instead, in CS2023, committees of experts are being constituted to write detailed scholarly articles to inform CS educators about issues that are becoming increasingly important as matters of curricular practice.

CS Curricular Content

The curricular content of CS2023 includes a knowledge model, a competency model, identification of core topics and hours and guidelines for creating courses and curricula.

This work is being carried out by the committees in charge of the 18 knowledge areas, each led by a member of the CS2023 Steering Committee shown in Table 1.

The 18 knowledge areas inherited from CS2013 are listed in Table 2. The table also lists the names of several knowledge areas updated from CS2013 to CS2023 for a variety of reasons, such as:

  • to emphasize additional needs (from Discrete Structures to Mathematical and Statistical Foundations),
  • to reflect the specific needs of undergraduate CS (from Computational Science to Modeling),
  • to reflect more common usage in CS (from Intelligent Systems back to Artificial Intelligence, from Information Management back to Data Management),
  • to remove outdated terminology (from Information Assurance and Security to simply Security), and
  • to emphasize newer emphases (from Graphics and Visualization to Graphics and Interactive Techniques, from Platform-Based Development to Specialized Platform Development).

Each knowledge area is being revised subject to the principles of collaboration, continuous review and revision and community engagement as explained earlier. The latest drafts of the knowledge areas have been posted on the CS2023 website [8].


Not only will these scholarly articles summarize the state of the art and inform educators, but they will also attempt to advance a shared understanding of CS education at the undergraduate level.


A knowledge area typically is a silo of related material. Multiple courses can be carved out of a knowledge area and a course can span multiple knowledge areas. Therefore, the CS2023 task force is exploring the following:

  • Instructions on how to carve out courses from a knowledge area,
  • Topics that all CS graduates must know and topics that anyone taking courses in a knowledge area must know,
  • Concepts shared between knowledge areas (e.g., depth-first search shared between AI and Algorithms) and crosscutting themes that span across most of the knowledge areas (e.g., abstraction, trade-off, and efficiency).

CS Curricular Practices

Articles on curricular practices covering the design and delivery of CS education. International experts have been invited and committees have been created to write these articles. Not only will these scholarly articles summarize the state of the art and inform educators, but they will also attempt to advance a shared understanding of CS education at the undergraduate level. As these articles will describe the challenges and best practices of creating CS programs, they will complement the content that should be covered in the curriculum. Broad categories of articles include the following:

  • Social aspects: These include covering in the curriculum accessibility, ethics, computing for social good, and others. Given the ubiquitous nature of computers in everyday life, the importance of covering these issues in CS curricula cannot be underestimated or overlooked.
  • Professional practices: Whereas in the past, release of curricular guidelines was followed by attempts to adapt the guidelines to the needs of different types of institutions such as liberal arts institutions or community colleges, these attempts will happen concurrently in CS2023. To increase awareness of the opportunities and challenges of teaching CS across the globe, the CS2023 task force is also soliciting articles on the practice of CS education in geographic areas such as Africa, the Arab world, and Latin America.
  • Programmatic considerations: These include crosscutting themes in CS, the future of educational materials in CS, and CS + X interdisciplinary programs that permit undergraduates to study two disciplines while minimizing the overhead of double/dual majors.

The CS2023 task force invites the participation and contribution of CS educators and other stakeholders on multiple fronts, including Curricular Content and Curricular Practices.


Invitation to Participate

The CS2023 task force invites the participation and contribution of CS educators and other stakeholders on multiple fronts, including the following.

  • Curricular content: Contribute to knowledge areas and suggest potential reviewers for future drafts; and
  • Curricular practices: Propose additional topics and experts who can contribute to those topics.

Details about these opportunities, as well as others, can be found at the website [8]. Some of the opportunities shown on the website include:

  • describing the characteristics of Computer Science graduates,
  • suggesting topics and contributors for Curricular Practices articles to be published alongside Curricular Guidelines,
  • providing targeted feedback on any of the Knowledge Areas by studying the posted versions and commenting on them via email or a web form, and
  • reviewing drafts of one or more Knowledge Areas by self-nomination.

Finally, other comments or suggestions can be directed to the authors of this paper, who serve as co-chairs of the CS2023 Joint Task Force

Acknowledgments

The CS2023 effort owes a great deal to many individuals. On the ACM side, we thank Elizabeth Hawthorne, Lisa Kline, Alison Derbenwick Miller, John Otero, Mihaela Sabin, Christine Stephenson, and Yan Timanovsky. On the IEEE-CS side, we acknowledge Eric Berkowitz, Bruce McMillin, Allen Parrish, Michelle Phon, and Hironori Washizaki. We thank Jens Palsberg, and Mehran Sahami for their assistance and numerous subject matter experts who have provided feedback on earlier drafts of the CS2023 knowledge grant award DUE-2231333.

References

1. ACM/IEEE-CS CC2020 Task Force. Computing Curricula 2020 (CC2020): Paradigms for future computing curricula. (New York, USA: ACM Press and IEEE Computer Society Press, 2020).

2. ACM/IEEE-CS Joint Curriculum Task Force. Computing Curricula 1991. (New York, USA: ACM Press and IEEE Computer Society Press, 1991).

3. ACM/IEEE-CS Joint Curriculum Task Force. Computing Curricula 2001 Computer Science. (New York, USA: ACM Press and IEEE Computer Society Press, 2001).

4. ACM/IEEE-CS Joint Task Force on Computing Curricula. Computing Science Curricula 2013. (New York, USA: ACM Press and IEEE Computer Society Press, 2013).

5. ACM/IEEE-CS Interim Review Task Force. Computer Science Curriculum 2008: An interim revision of CS 2001. (New York, USA: ACM Press and IEEE Computer Society Press, 2008).

6. Atchison, W. F., Conte, S. D., Hamblen, J. W., Hull, T. E., Keenan, T. A., Kehl, W. B., McCluskey, E. J., Navarro, S. O., Rheinboldt, W. C., Schweppe, E. J., Viavant, W., and Young, D. Curriculum 68: Recommendations for academic programs in computer science, Communications of the ACM, 11, 3 (1968): 151–197.

7. Austing, R. H., Barnes, B. H., Bonnette, D. T., Engel, G. L., and Stokes, G. Curriculum '78: Recommendations for the undergraduate program in computer science, Communications of the ACM, 22, 3 (1979): 147–166.

8. CSC2023 Website, https://csed.acm.org/, accessed 2022 Dec 4,

9. Kumar, A. N. and Raj, R. K. (2022). A first look at the ACM/IEEE-CS/AAAI computer science curricula (CS202X) in Proceedings of the 53rd ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education. (New York, USA: ACM, 2022).

Authors

Rajendra K. Raj
Rochester Institute of Technology
Computer Science
102 Lomb Memorial Dr
Rochester, NY, USA 14623-5603
[email protected]

Amruth N. Kumar
Ramapo College of New Jersey
505 Ramapo Valley Road
Mahwah, NJ, USA 07430-1680
[email protected]

Figures

F1Figure 1. CS2023 Drivers and Guiding Principles.

Tables

T1Table 1. The CS2023 Steering Committee.

T2Table 2. The 18 Knowledge Areas of CS2023.

Copyright held by authors. Publication rights licensed to ACM.

The Digital Library is published by the Association for Computing Machinery. Copyright © 2022 ACM, Inc.

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