Arts, Law and Information Technology combined degrees:
notes for debate

ANU FEIT Dept of Computer Science

Chris Johnson 9.3.00

Proposition

Introduce combined degrees in BArts/BInfTech, BVisual Arts/BInfo Tech, Law/Info Tech to start in 2001.

Rationale

• meet society and student demand for information technology to pervade more university education
• support ANU student numbers in Arts by combination with job-oriented skills
• meet society demand for lawyers with IT background knowledge
• exciting possibilities in Visual Arts and Technology

Market research

• numbers of BSc/LlB taking computing units within Science component
• numbers of students taking COMP units as options in BA
• anecdotal stories from students at enrolment time
• Dean's discussions with Director of School of Art

Implementation options

Note: current combinations of 3 year degrees from Arts, Economics, Commerce normally require 96 credit points on each side of the combination. Combined degrees with Information Technology require "parts (a0 and (b) of the BInfTech rules" which requires 108 cp.

Our combined degrees with Commerce, Economics, Forestry and Engineering meet these principles within a total of 192 credit points by requiring Maths/Stats/Econometrics/Commerce/Law units within the "other" half, which are counted towards satisfying the BInfTech content requirements. There do not appear to be the same oppportunities for constructive double-counting in Arts, and very little in Law.

Options for BA/BInfTech:

1. add the 96 credit points Arts to 108 credit points InfTech: require 4years plus 2 units, by overload or by longer time.
2. cut two units from the InfoTech and Maths required content of the BInfTech component to make 96 credit points

Pro

• more students for DCS and FEIT hence potentially more financial resources
• continue to share use of COMP units in BInfTech and BSEng
• option 2 puts BInfTech in its place beside other combined degrees as a 96 cp component, needs less degree rule maintenance and less re-enrolment administration for students' combinations
• existence of the combinations will attract more, better students to ANU
• previous professional strength of BInfTech no longer need be upheld because of existence of 4 year professional BSEng

Con

• more students for DCS, hence thinner spread of available teaching resources
• option 2 reduces professional strength of BInfTech, lowers professional nature of degree (ACS accreditation at risk? probably not, depends how Maths is counted)
• lowering the strength of the BInfTech further increases political pressure to lower inter-faculty weighting of COMP units
• lowering professional strength of BInfTech makes sharing of units with BSEng harder
• option 2 puts pressure to reduce requirements in other combinations
• few arts or visual arts students are likely to meet current maths prerequisites
• current BInfTech based on programming/maths is the wrong approach for university wide IT literacy within degrees - this would be better built from comp1900 and user-oriented basis as minor sequences within degrees
• option 1 looks odd beside other 3+3=4 year combined degrees in the university (the nail that sticks out get hammered down)
• very small market does not justify another set of rules, offerings, UAC categories
• there are many more important things on the DCS/FEIT agenda: accreditation, 4th year structure and units, getting up to speed on teaching full BSEng, maintaining and increasing staff numbers for teaching coverage and research, building research activities in existing and new opportunities (build on strengths in theorem proving, algorithms, parallel environments and algorithms, software engineering, operating systems, database and ecommerce, virtual environments, programming languages)