UG Curriculum – Imperatives for CSE and IITK

Pankaj Jalote

Head, Department of Computer Science and Engineering
IIT Kanpur 208016

The goal of IIT education is, simply put, to produce leaders in the fields of research, technology development, and entrepreneurship. Having the top talent from the country as input, especially in departments like CSE which get the brightest of the bright, this has to be the goal. Besides our basic goal, there are some trends that must shape our education programs.

1.  On the technology front, particularly in IT, changes are far more rapid than ever before. Technologies come and become obsolete in short time spans. Clearly, in an education program that aims to help the person for his/her lifetime, the actual knowledge acquired is far less important than the ability to acquire knowledge, and knowledge of some particular technology is far less important than the ability to quickly understand and effectively use technology. The program should help the students not only cope with a rapid pace of change, but have the ability to shape the change and, indeed, be the agents of change.

2. The traditional paradigm of learning is a layered approach of starting with fundamentals, building more advanced concepts, till we reach the latest concepts and technology. Though this model is still a sound approach for education it can sometimes be “too slow”. Moving with new technology trends frequently require “leap frogging”. This requires “learning on demand” or “on a need basis”.

3.  Internet technology is making knowledge and courses available from anywhere in the world. There is little doubt that in a few years time a student of IITK will have the ability to take a course from a professor in IITB or a professor in MIT. Areas like computing, due to their nature, will be the ones that will witness the maximum opportunities.

There are a few implications of these on the education program. First and foremost, the program must allow, indeed encourage, flexibility to permit individualization for brilliant students. A well-structured program can “fit” the average student, but not the exceptional ones. This flexibility can also be utilized to adapt the programs, in limited degree, to the changes taking place. Second, the pre-requisite structure can be loosened both for the core/common courses, as well as for professional courses, to allow students to pursue their disciplines and topics of interest within their discipline early.

As can be expected, the current UGRC recommendations have some features that are consistent with these, while others are not. The overall structure of the proposed program is quite similar to what currently exists in IITK. It seems that due to operational considerations, UGRC has not recommended moving to a unit based system, in which the requirements of a program are specified, but it is left to the student to decide when he wants to do those courses (as long as the prerequisites are satisfied) – a structure that has the potential to give considerable flexibility. For example, for CSE, it is conceivable to have a viable program where the students do the computing and technology courses early while doing the sciences, engineering sciences, and technical arts courses later. It can even be argued that in such a structure, the students are likely to view these courses in a “technology rich” perspective, which has a potential to lead to interdisciplinary work involving the use of computing in other disciplines. The UGRC proposal, however, allows for more department courses in second year (and a 0 unit course in first year), which is definitely a step in the right direction. Though from CSE’s perspective we would have liked one or two more department courses in 2^nd year. We believe that much of the “core CS” can, and should, be finished by 2^nd year, so that the student can undertake challenging work in their last 2 years and the BTP.

Perhaps the best part of the current proposal is the introduction of independent study courses, a concept which exists in most top class institutions. It allows for a limited degree of individualization, provides possibility of pursuing a passion-project over a long period of time (by taking independent studies and then doing a BTP), gives students a chance to explore areas not covered by the course offerings (e.g. by taking a course on the internet from a professor at MIT) as well as undertake research activities, etc. However, the current proposal limits it to 2 courses, and, more seriously, does not give this as a complete right of students as it is coupled with many conditions and a department can essentially disallow its students from taking independent studies. We believe that the independent study courses should not be coupled with anything and, if possible, increased further to about 3 or 4.

There are some implications of the trends mentioned earlier on labs/environment and faculty too, which are not within the scope of the UGRC and which the individual departments will have to deal with. For continuous exposure to new technology, the environment will have to be made “technology rich” with continuous upgrading and change in technology. This environment has to be effectively woven in the courses such that technology learning becomes a natural and side activity rather than something that is taught (an approach we take even today in CSE.) The overall environment must also encourage experimentation and exploration.

The role of faculty is also likely to change in the new scenario. The current lecturing based model can be viewed as passing of knowledge and insight from the faculty to the students. This is an “efficient” process of knowledge transfer, but clearly puts a ceiling to what a student can learn. With the rapid changes taking place, with which many faculty members will not be able to keep up, this model runs the risk of making the courses out of context of current technological developments. It is perhaps better to accept that the faculty will be able to have only a top-level view of many technologies and trends and think of ways such that a faculty member does not become a ceiling to the learning of students. This can be done if the role of faculty changes from “teaching” to “guiding” or “mentoring”, at least in some areas, and the courses are designed to suit this view.

In summary, the field of education will face greater challenges in future, which the education programs must be geared to meet. The UGRC proposals have some features that will help in this endeavor. It will now be up to the individual departments to develop their programs making best use of the flexibility offered in the new structure such that the programs serve the education needs for the students in this new, fast changing world.