GSE Collaborates on Major CITRIS Education Initiative

In July 2001 The California State Legislature appropriated $100 million in long-range funding for the new Center for Information Technology Research in the Interest of Society (CITRIS). The GSE has played an important role in assembling CITRIS, a far-reaching research and development project including the University of California (Berkeley, Davis, Merced, Santa Cruz), partners from California's technology sector, and the State of California. "CITRIS gives us the opportunity to align innovative computer science instruction with technological advances so that our students are prepared for the jobs of the future," said GSE Professor Marcia Linn, one of the principal investigators on the project.

CITRIS was spurred by Governor Gray Davis's call for visionary new UC Centers for Science and Innovation. With its powerful partnership, CITRIS will deliver the technical foundations to meet California's urgent public-sector needs in years, not decades, and lead the way in creating the information technology infrastructure for the 21st century. Governor Davis recently signed the fiscal year 2002 budget with a provision of $20 million for the first year of the project.

Members of the School of Education, working with faculty in the Computer Science and Engineering Departments, are in the process of creating curriculum design systems that will be used to support classes, laboratory work, group projects, and assessment in computer science and engineering. The system will eventually be made available to other departments. The first major deployment of CITRIS technology will be to deliver the undergraduate program in Information Technology to UC Merced in the heart of California, a critical addition to state growth in education and industry. "We are devising an authoring environment for faculty teaching lower-division computer science courses that will enhance their ability to nimbly respond to new opportunities," said Professor Linn. "The environment will enable faculty to customize instruction to their educational setting and to contribute innovations for other faculty to use."

Professor Linn is joined on the project by other GSE personnel, including Alex Cuthbert, a doctoral student in Cognition and Development, who has been coordinating the initial design and development of the initial system. Dr. James Slotta, director of the School of Education's WISE project, has been providing guidance for the education components of CITRIS. The new systems will enable curriculum design specialists, working closely with faculty members such as Mike Clancy (CS), to design a new set of learning activities, collaborative resources, and online supports around the existing computer science and engineering curriculum. Instructors at the community and state colleges will be able to customize and localize the curriculum to meet their needs, goals, and constraints.

Why is CITRIS a major event for UC Berkeley and the School of Education and how did it come into existence? In the light of the rapid progress in the application of information technology and computing to all fields related to science and engineering, Governor Gray assembled a task force which proposed that it was time to revisit the disciplines of engineering and computer science and re-examine the fundamental questions: What does it really mean to be an engineer in today's world? What are the fundamental skills and understanding that make someone a successful engineer today?

The ideas that emerged from this workshop have led College of Engineering administrators and faculty to contemplate an entirely new approach to undergraduate engineering education, as well as how to organize cross-disciplinary engineering research. While the College continues to focus on engineering fundamentals, it can also embrace this new approach reflecting the interdisciplinary nature of engineering as it is often practiced today. In fact, an increasing number of cross-disciplinary research programs have emerged in the College over the years. In many ways, this thinking was the clear recognition of what was already an emerging trend and the need to embrace it even further.

The School of Education years ago embraced cross-disciplinary research programs, creating the Education in Mathematics, Science, and Technology (EMST) program. The School has also served for many years as the central player in the Search For Excellence in Science And Mathematics (SESAME) program. This experience, along with the expertise of the WISE group in developing online curriculum authoring communities, will quickly advance the agenda of the CITRIS project.

For more information on the project see the CITRIS web site: http://www.citris.berkeley.edu

the WISE web site: http://wise.berkeley.edu or

email Alex Cuthbert: alx@socrates.berkeley.edu

Marcia Linn and Jim Slotta

Alex Cuthbert