CS2013: Computer Science Curricula 2013

J ust over a year ago, the Association for Computing Machinery and the IEEE Computer Society jointly published the Computer Science Curricula 2013 (CS2013) (www.acm.org/education/CS2013-final-report.pdf), an update to the undergraduate computing programs guidelines they've been publishing about once every decade since 1968. If you're like most people, undergraduate computer science curricula guidelines aren't foremost on your mind, unless you are or soon will be an undergraduate student, a faculty member teaching undergraduates, or someone concerned with computer science accredita-tion or the funding of computer science programs and research. CS2013 provides a baseline for expectations of computer science graduates. Thus, you might also care about this if you're hiring and managing or depending on technology created by new CS graduates. Computing has changed since 2001, which was the last time the guidelines were completely updated (though there was a partial update in 2008). We started CS2013 by asking how the previous guidelines were used; we surveyed approximately 1,500 computer science (and related disciplines) department chairs and undergraduate studies directors in the US, and an additional 2,000 department chairs internationally. Respondents were from a wide range of institutions—research universities, teaching universities, undergraduate-only and liberal arts institutions , and community colleges. These institutions range in size from less than 1,000 to more than 50,000 students. According to the survey, the Body of Knowledge (BOK) is the most-used feature of the guidelines. In addition, respondents' two most common comments about the BOK were that new topics—such as security, distributed