April 15, 2003

In early January, UCSD inaugurated its first information technology course designed to impart conceptual, problem-solving as well as technical skills to campus undergraduate students. The Winter-quarter course, called "Fluency in Information Technology," is the first created by the Computer Science and Engineering (CSE) Department in a series of courses on information technology to be offered under the auspices of a new Center for Information Technology (CITE). The Center, now in the planning stages, stems from widespread interest among faculty from disciplines ranging from engineering, sciences and social sciences, to arts and humanities. "Conceptual understanding of information technology is crucial to our students at UCSD as our society is fundamentally influenced by the pervasiveness of information technology," said CSE chair Ramamohan Paturi. "Knowledge of information technology is now as important as basic mathematical and language skills for all college students, so we decided to take the initiative and develop a curriculum to promote information technology education among undergraduates."

The course was taught by Walter Savitch, a long-time professor of computer science and engineering. "My hope is that students came away both with a sense of wonder about information technology as well as an appreciation for the challenges and opportunities modern computation presents to society," said Savitch. Class topics included a review of how rapidly the technology is developing; an exploration of 'capacity issues' such as scaling demands for computer resources including memory and storage; security, privacy, and ethical issues; and the spread of Internet computing.

"This was not a how-to class," said Savitch, "but the work contained a lab component with instruction to enable students to complete their assignments." For example, Savitch taught HTML programming as well as an introduction to Adobe Photoshop so that each student could develop a "fictitious" Web page, emphasizing the point that "not all information on the Web can be trusted," added Savitch. "Each Web page was required to contain some fictitious data presented as fact, or as misleading information."

The class is included in the basic education requirements within Sixth College, UCSD's newest undergraduate campus. The college welcomed its first class of students in September 2002. "Our theme is technology, art and culture, and information technology is central to all three elements," said Gabriele Wienhausen, Provost of Sixth College. "This course plays an important role in giving all our students the common skills they will need to explore new technologies and create a learning community that reaches beyond the campus." CSE chair Paturi is hopeful that interest will spread to other colleges and departments as well, and he expects that one day "Fluency in IT" will be a campus-wide requirement.

Savitch is a leading expert in computational linguistics and complexity theory. He is widely known for his books on programming languages, including "Java: An Introduction to Computer Science and Programming" (Prentice-Hall, 2nd Edition, 2002); "Absolute C++" (Addison-Wesley, 2002); and "Problem Solving with C++: The Object of Programming" (Addison-Wesley, 2nd Edition, 1998). Savitch served as director of the Interdisciplinary Ph.D. Program in Cognitive Science at UCSD for over ten years.

Links
Walt Savitch Research Profile
Walt Savitch Home Page
UCSD Sixth College

Story Adapted from Jacobs School Press Release
Full story can be found in the Jacobs School News Room
Media Contact: Doug Ramsey, (858) 822-5825