COM271, Week 13

Web Development Curricula in Research Universities

Syllabus | Table of Pages | Assignments | References and Useful Links

In 2005, I attempted to get permission from the University's Curricular Affairs Curriculum to teach, in essence, this course (COM271) and a second course on server-side technology. There were no such courses at the University. HTML was briefly covered in one introductory computer science course, as it still is in 2011, but nowhere else. There was an obvious need. The CAC denied the request, on the basis that I had indicated I would be using Dreamweaver ("We don't teach applications at URI.") and on the belief that all incoming freshmen already knew enough about web development ("They all know how to use FrontPage to make web paqes.") such that it would be inappropriate to award college credit for this subject. The following case was put together to bolster a second attempt to get these courses approved. Two years later, I was given formal approval.

Information Technology and Research Universities

In 2002, the National Research Council issued Preparing for the Revolution, its report on "the implications of information technology for the future of the nation’s research universities." The Executive Summary included these essential points, which form the basis for this article.

  1. The extraordinary pace of information-technology evolution is likely not only to continue for the next several decades but could well accelerate. It will erode, and in some cases obliterate, higher education’s usual constraints of space and time. Institutional barriers will be reshaped and possibly transformed.
  2. The impact of information technology on the research university will likely be profound, rapid, and discontinuous— just as it has been and will continue to be for our other social institutions (e.g., corporations and governments) and the economy.
  3. Digital technology will not only transform the intellectual activities of the research university but will also change how the university is organized, financed, and governed. The technology could drive a convergence of higher education with IT-intensive sectors such as publishing, telecommunications, and entertainment, creating a global “knowledge and learning” industry.
  4. Procrastination and inaction are dangerous courses for colleges and universities during a time of rapid technological change, although institutions will also need to avoid making hasty responses to current trends. Just as in earlier periods of change, the university will have to adapt itself to a radically changing world while protecting its most important values and traditions, such as academic freedom, a rational spirit of inquiry, and liberal learning.
  5. Although we are confident that information technology will continue its rapid evolution for the foreseeable future and may ultimately have profound impacts on human behavior and social institutions such as the research university, it is far more difficult to predict these impacts with any precision. Nevertheless, higher education must develop mechanisms to at least sense the potential changes and to aid in the understanding of where the technology may drive it.
  6. It is therefore important that university strategies include: the development of sufficient in-house expertise among faculty and staff to track technological trends and assess various courses of action; the opportunity for experimentation; and the ability to form alliances with other academic institutions as well as with for-profit and governmental organizations.

The panel recommended that research universities "develop a continuing dialog...to help understand the advances in information technology and address their potential impacts." The dialog would address the "many aspects of the question: How will the research university define and fulfill its missions in a twenty-first century characterized by ubiquitous and rapidly evolving digital technology," with an ultimate goal "to expand and strengthen the research university's intellectual resources and institutional infrastructure not only to manage the anticipated transformation but to lead it."

The strength of the NRC's title word Revolution was deliberate, meaning fundamental change. The dialog called for by the panel was meant "to help the research university not only to survive the coming era of rapid change as a vital American institution but to fulfill its traditional roles of education, research, and service more effectively and in as yet undreamed-of ways." Frank Newman, when he was director of The Futures Project at Brown University, repeated the word in an interview in early 2003:

"What should institutions do to prepare themselves for these changes? First and foremost, there needs to be a campus conversation about the impact, the promise, and the risks of technology. Second, each campus needs a faculty support group that can provide the diverse skills and knowledge to allow faculty to move into ever more comprehensive uses of technology. Finally, institutional budgets need careful restructuring—with the recognition that investment in technology is not a one-time cost."

"We have a revolution coming toward us, and we need to think about how we are going to respond. It will continue to be a bumpy road in the immediate future, but there is no turning back. The shift toward greater use of technology is not only inexorable, it offers higher education the possibility of great gains in our most critical task—learning. We cannot simply accept that change is coming and "tack on" the use of computers and the Internet to our current way of doing things. We need to rethink how we teach from the ground up. Our bet is that this will be an extraordinarily positive period for learning."

The premise of the NRC study was that "many of the most significant issues are not well understood by academic administrators, their faculty, and those who support or depend on the institution's activities." Today, research universities are responding slowly, if at all, to the coming revolution, as though they either are unaware of or do not believe the NRC or Newman, or as though they feel no need to make significant changes to prepare for the future.

There are exceptions. At Cornell, a Research Futures Task Force was charged by President Rawlings to "outline research goals for Cornell, set forth research priorities, make recommendations and suggest a strategy for allocating limited resources within the physical and biological sciences and engineering. The Task Force assumed "that Cornell must have a more focused strategy for investments in research in order to retain its position as a world class research University." Much of the report focused on areas "which are characterized by a breadth of impact in basic and applied research throughout the sciences, the social sciences and the humanities, with an importance over decades. To this end the Task Force suggests that the following broad research themes are likely to strongly influence future scientific research: (1) genomics and integrative molecular biology, (2) information sciences, and (3) advanced materials." The Task Force recommended redirecting resources to support these "strategic enabling technologies [emphasis added]," while taking advantage of existing natural advantages present in the faculty (e.g., leadership in Information Retrieval), placing the future directions of specific strengthening moves into the hands of collaborating faculty.

While Cornell's research plans originated from a top-down directive, another example illustrates the potential of a grass-roots approach. Michigan State's Computer Science and Engineering Department has an online vision statement and underlying white paper which echo the "revolution" theme of the NRS and Newman. This white paper offers a useful view of a department contemplating change.

"Computer science began as an established discipline in the early 1960's. During its developmental stages, it focused inward on the challenges of building hardware and software and on understanding the theoretical and practical limitations of computing. Early research focused on core areas such as algorithms, data structures, operating systems, and compilers. Computers and computing significantly improved existing processes, but were relatively expensive and not sufficiently accessible to affect underlying paradigms.
However, the last several decades brought about a series of technological breakthroughs with profound effects. Today, computing devices are small, fast, inexpensive, and interconnected to provide nearly ubiquitous access to digital information and computational power. With computers now integrated into virtually all aspects of our lives, we are seeing fundamental shifts in existing paradigms as well as the emergence of entirely new ones. Research areas once considered core have become spring boards for new interdisciplinary research and are producing leapfrog advances in emerging fields.
Like the discipline, computer science at MSU is turning its focus outwards. Founded in 1968 as a department within the College of Engineering , computer science reached its current size of 25 FTE with strengths in core foundational areas in 1993. Since then, but particularly over the last five years, the department has consciously broadened the composition of its faculty and embarked on a number of innovative interdisciplinary endeavors that hold great promise for the future.

The white paper then describes interactions with linguists, evolutionary biologists, humanists, criminologists, and campus network security officials as examples of outward focus.

A similar integrative philosophy also marks Georgia Tech's Human-Centered Computing PhD Program (press release):

"The HCC Ph.D. program focus is not on computer technology, but rather how computers affect lives in terms of advanced product development and human capabilities for many areas of research. The degree leverages Georgia Tech's strongest programs and concentrations, including multimedia and digital media studies, human factors, ergonomics, assistive technologies, industrial design, cognitive science, sociology, and public policy. This interdisciplinary approach to computing that supports human needs allows possibilities for new discoveries in underlying issues of science, engineering, art and design."

Examples of human centered computing include "The Aware Home," which allows adult children to be more aware of the health of their elderly parent living far away; "Computational perception," an automatic sign language interpreter that helps the hearing impaired communicate; "Technology and Learning," a complete curriculum and software to help kids to learn through design activities with technology; and "Visualization," a project to help people actually understand all the information computers display.

Web Development as a Metaphor for Information Technology

At least a few research universities are thinking along the lines of of the NRC, "exploring means to track unfolding technologies, to experiment across untraditional lines, and to develop new experimental alliances." These examples also illustrate that the key to Newman's vague "faculty support group that can provide the diverse skills and knowledge to allow faculty to move into ever more comprehensive uses of technology" is the engaged faculty themselves, not merely an ancillary group of technical staff. Despite these examples, the questions remain, if there is a national movement in response to the "revolution," how can we detect its progress or gauge its significance and how can we assess just how extensive this repositioning is nationally?

A difficulty in tracking the information technology revolution is the breadth of information technology activities and the myriad academic approaches to appropriate teaching and research. The 2001 NRC publication Building a Workforce for the Information Economy defined "IT workers" as "those persons engaged primarily in the conception, design, development, adaptation, implementation, deployment, training, support, documentation, and management of information technology systems, components, or applications." This excludes most "front office" users of these systems (e.g., office workers who use word processors and spreadsheets are not be included as IT workers). The 1999 National Academy publication Being Fluent with Information Technology suggested general traits that would make a worker "fluent with information technology (FIT)" saying that "FITness integrates skills, concepts, and capabilities into an effective understanding of information technology, enabling citizens to use information technology to solve personally relevant problems and apply their knowledge of information technology to new situations." I do not find the FIT notion substantially different from common definitions of "computer literacy", at least as an instrument to restrict focus to a tractable set of technologies, as both terms remain vague and all-encompassing.

A more useful instrument may require a narrower metaphor for information technology, and I suggest that we use for this a focus on contemporary developments in web based technologies, viewed in the context of Cornell's critical concept of "strategic enabling technologies." The reason for this choice is that the current state of web functionality makes it the center of attention of most information technology agendas nearly everywhere I look. And there is, in turn, a reason for this.

The University and the Company Next Door

In 1993, I escorted two delegations from the University to visit the nearby headquarters of American Power Conversion, a global manufacturer of uninterruptible power supplies for computers. The company's CEO had explained to me that APC was using contemporary information technologies to reduce costs of clerical and design personnel to compete with efficient and low cost German and Japanese rivals. We were shown how APC used a global distributed computer network and Lotus Notes so that workers in Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Scotland, Paris, and Tokyo all had access to the same information.

At that time, APC was using the Lotus Notes / replicating server approach because the world wide web lacked a level of "full functionality" that could meet the company's needs for global distribution of information. In the decade since that visit, the web has matured sufficiently so that management of the types of major corporate databases that meet APC's information needs is now a widespread web technology, allowing fast querying and updating of databases on global networks. The APC discussions helped to stimulate the University's transition to less paper-dependent systems that are internet-based.

Shortly after that visit, I asked what, if anything, the University could be doing that would benefit APC. I was told that although APC welcomes University graduates as employees, our students must often first be sent off to Northeastern (Boston) for additional training. I arranged one follow-up exchange visit of an APC information systems officer to the University's Computer Science and Management Information Systems programs. Hearing APC say that it needed people with skills in both information management AND computer technology, nevertheless, neither department felt it was incumbent upon themselves to provide such training or to explore development of a hybrid curriculum. Rather, it seemed, each department felt it was their role to provide training in fundamentals (theory, concepts, and core skills) and industry's worry to train for specific applications. Apparently, Northeastern has a different answer, which still works for APC. I submit that if the University is to take seriously its land grant role as a key component in the local economy, it must reflect on these exchanges.

Web Development Technology as a University Curriculum

In what follows, I use web development technology, herein defined, to track research universities as they reposition their use of information technology to prepare for the "revolution." I realize that there are many existing and innumerable yet-to-be-imagined ways in which other forms of information technology can be used to advance the missions of research universities. Nevertheless, the narrower focus on web development is expedient and useful to gauge the state of transition taking place in leading US research universities.

The study of web technology is a relatively new academic subject. It is not generally agreed upon whether or where a curriculum in web technology belongs in a typical research university structure. Certainly, the normal practice of forming a department full of PhD's in the subject matter is complicated by the fact that there are no PhD programs in web technology today, no surprise for a body of knowledge that is still a teenager. Does web technology (i.e., client-side and server-side programming, such as is outlined below) belong in the realm of computer science departments? Should access to web-based information (both acquiring and publishing) be a dominant concern within information or communication studies or library science? Does the increasing significance of e-commerce or the increasing functionality of web databases argue that web technology should be taught under schools of management information systems? Alternatively, does the web transcend disciplines? Is knowledge of the web primarily a matter of technical skills that should be taught in a tech school or community college? Does "chasing web technology" distract from a more important focus on fundamentals or underlying concepts if it becomes a primary focus at research universities? Or is the ubiquitous web a proper object of scholarship in its own right, warranting significant attention at the nation's top research universities? For such a young subject, these are all appropriate and at this point still difficult questions to ask at research universities.

Perhaps the question of where a web curriculum belongs can be aided by a perspective from the web development community itself. Contemporary web technology is driven by the World Wide Web Consortium's (W3C) XML standard. Current W3C thinking emphasizes the separation of content (text and images) from structure (XHTML) and layout (CSS). This distances the delivery method from the information itself. Case Western Reserve uses the phrase "Information Systems" to describe the whole:

"Computer Science and Engineering are technology focused and technology driven. They are concerned primarily with building new technological objects. The use of those objects is a secondary concern. The primary focus of information systems is putting these technological objects to use in real organizations. The study of computer science or engineering and information systems are complementary; without the technologies, there would be nothing for the information systems students to worry about using; but, if the technologies cannot be used effectively, there is little reason to worry about developing them. Information Systems is an applied discipline that draws on a number of the social and mathematical science fields in addition to computer science and engineering."

Thus, a web developer would see the subject of web technology as being distinct from its use, i.e., as matter for its own curriculum, independent of application. Adopting this perspective in setting out to survey how other institutions are approaching web development technology, I have chosen to look at a somewhat narrowly defined curriculum, recognizing that the object I am looking for in other institutions may well be linked in various ways to a larger information systems whole, in Case Western's sense. That is, I am primarily focused on software that exists and is evolving, with less concern on the technology of writing software, and even less for the engineering and computer technology to implement that software: This focus is not centered in traditional computer science or computer engineering. On the other hand, I am also not primarily focused on the processes for defining communications needs of a client, except for that aspect of problem definition that is necessary to focus the building of an individual web site: My focus is not communication, business, or management. From the perspective of wanting an expedient search object, I would search for a relatively narrowly defined model of "web development technology." Perhaps this can be made clearer if I attempt to describe the model by outlining a hypothetical "major," which I can do by proposing a set of hypothetical new courses. These courses might fall under the logical purview of more than one existing academic department, which may complicate approval through the normal academic processes. Undaunted, I submit the following as a starting point for discussion and planning.

A Discussion Model for a Web Development Technology Curriculum

The purpose of a major in Web Development Technology (WDT) would be to promote offerings of new courses which would concentrate and define critical training and educational needs for individuals who could serve society as "web developers," working throughout academia, government, and the private sector. The goal is to produce a graduate who is competent to use contemporary web technologies to construct dynamic (database-driven) sites, managing data and site servers, producing sites following contemporary standards. This graduate is adept at programming using a full spectrum of client-side and server-side technologies. The major focuses on technology, separate from application, but can draw real-world applications from a variety of disciplines. As such, it can be created as a cross-disciplinary initiative, involving courses and faculty from many potential academic units, for example

The major would cover fundamentals of design (with an emphasis on writing and presentation for usability), business, art, and programming. Programming technologies would encompass the client-server model, open-source and leading-edge industry methods, security, accessibility, and efficiency. There are myriad opportunities for real-world apprenticeships and practical applications at all levels of learning.

For purposes of discussion, I suggest the following array of courses, with approximate course code level and principle topics as outlined, to comprise the major:

A Survey of Web Development Technology Curricula in Research Universities

To assess the current state of web development curricula at research universities, I conducted an informal survey. The survey involved surfing through the web sites of 134 universities, made up of the joined sets of 1994 Carnegie Research I and II Universities, all 1862 Land Grant Universities, and 13 institutions considered peers by the University. (I also added to the appendix six institutions—CCRI, RIC, Roger Williams, Providence College, Bryant U, and Johnson and Wales—of local interest.) Methods are explained at the beginning of the appendix, but essentially involved a concerted effort to find "web development," "web technology," or terms like "asp.net", "PHP", or "C#" using the university site search, plus an effort to peruse sites for departments like computer science, management information systems, information technology, etc., which have various names but are usually recognizable in lists of academic departments at each institution web site. In a handful of cases, the course descriptions for the university are available only as PDF's from the published catalog (e.g., Syracuse, Carnegie Mellon), making the search very difficult. (This is considered a bad practice by web developers.) For future reference, I recorded a few notes about relevant departments, courses, or in a few cases online documents, with links from the appendix. Links were current at the completion of the survey in mid March 2005.

Survey results were diverse. If a research university chooses to address contemporary web technology in its classrooms, there are many ways and academic niches in which to do so. The following is based on a summary of survey results.

From the 134 institutions, I was unable to find at least one course that would approximately fit the above model in 54 institutions (40.3%). In 47 of the remaining 80 institutions (35.1% of the 134), I found 1-4 courses that fit my model, but not enough to be called a full curriculum. In 33 research universities, I found at least 5 "web technology" courses in individual departmental course offerings, fitting the model above, which I consider to be a minimum to be called a "minor" curriculum.

Without benefit of a comparison survey taken 4-5 years ago, I am unable to say whether the strength of warnings of the revolutionary impact of information technology on research universities may be having an effect. That is, I cannot say whether having a web curriculum is becoming more common. From the survey, it is clear that some institutions are taking the necessary programming and technology courses seriously even as others continue to ignore the entire subject, or to give it token recognition in the classroom. In many institutions, web development technology is taking academic roots, both as an object of study in its own right and as a key technology for computer, information, or management sciences.

For those institutions that offer studies involving the web, it is also clear that there are many possible organizational perspectives. On some campuses, the subject is seen as predominantly technical and belonging to computer science (32 departments, or 37.6% of the 80 universities with a web curriculum); on others, the internet is seen as primarily a matter of managing information for business (11 departments, 13%), or as a subset of information technology in general (15 departments, 17.6%). Others see a more ubiquitous role for the web—with equal importance to science, education, commerce, or myriad other applications—and offer in-depth coursework through professional "continuing education" schools or certification programs (27 programs, 31.8%), focusing on the technology itself.

Most programs have an introductory course. In 76 of the 80 universities with one or more web course, there is an introductory coverage. Usually this involves an overview of the world wide web, an introduction to programming with the standard markup language HTML (or XHTML), often with mention of style sheets (CSS) and scripting (JavaScript). I did not include a few instances of "internet" courses, where the approach was to look at protocols (TCP/IP) or unusual approaches to web programming (Java or C++, used for specialized "applets," but not generally as a multipurpose "web site" language). There appears to be some variance in the course descriptions which suggest either slight lags in keeping up with current technology, or a lag in revising the course description.

I also made note whether an institution's courses used certain kinds of indicator technologies. That is, use of .NET (dot-net) technologies is certainly relatively recent. ASP.NET was first released mid-year in 2000, along with a new version of the programming language C# (C-sharp), developed by Microsoft for use with the .NET framework. The exact meaning of all this isn't important here, except that it reflects the current leading edge in web technology (more precisely, the leading edge is probably marked by ASP.NET 2.0 and the Visual Basic 2.0 development environment, both of which are now (March 2005) available in a Beta test version.) Of the 80 institutions with 1 or more web technology courses, 16 (20%) offered instruction in the older ASP. Twenty-five (31.3%) had an offering using the .NET Framework. Occasionally, this was a stand-alone course (no other web courses in the curriculum) in which VB.NET (visual basic .NET, the default programming language for .NET) was used in the context of an information systems curriculum (requiring another technology, ADO.NET, to connect to databases), and I included these courses in the survey as they mark a common web use of the technology. Fifteen (18.8%) of institutions had a course in C#. Also, there were 14 institutions offering a course with PHP and 15 with a course in Perl. Perl is a scripting language that is used along with CGI (common gateway interface) to provide programming capabilities and data access. It is slightly older, and it comes from the "open source" community, as does PHP. Current versions of PHP (PHP5) (with the open source database technology MySQL) mimic most of the functionality of ASP (from Microsoft). I found no mention of MONO, the open source equivalent of the .NET framework, however.

In setting out the model curriculum that I was searching for, I had decided to focus on the technology itself, as explained above. Because the technology is not simple, it is common practice to use a development environment to expedite code writing. For example, Microsoft's FrontPage and Macromedia's Dreamweaver are both used for simple HTML pages and also to code ASP, ASP.NET, and other server-side technologies. Most web sites depend heavily on graphics, which are most commonly developed in Adobe's Photoshop or Illustrator applications. Flash technology (from Macromedia) is a serious rival to standard web HTML / CSS and image technologies. I did not initially include courses that dealt primarily with the application itself in my model, due to an aversion to this approach locally. However, several institutions do offer significant coursework, largely through professional schools or certification programs. When the apparent number of class hours approximated a 40 hour standard class, I added it to the survey. Thus, 16 institutions were recorded as offering courses on Macromedia applications(Dreamweaver or Flash) and 11 offered coursework (in the context of a web development curriculum) in Adobe's Photoshop or Illustrator.

Of the 80 institutions with web courses, I submit that seven are of particular use as real world models. These are Cornell, Harvard, NYU, Northeastern, UC San Diego, Washington U, and Cal Poly Pomona. The latter probably doesn't belong in the survey, as it is not one of the Carnegie's, Land Grants, etc. However, Cal Tech openly references it as a nearby resource where students can obtain web tech courses. Of the others, only Cornell seems to have a core web curriculum within a regular academic department (Computer Science), a set of courses that span the undergraduate program. Cornell also appears to be the most open institution in the survey in expressing a university-wide commitment to information technology "as a key enabling discipline vital to nearly all of its scholarly and scientific pursuits," and this community awareness appears to strongly influence the perspective of the Computing and Information Science Department. If there is an information technology revolution, Cornell appears to "get it."

The other six models all have varied and leading edge course offerings in the context of Professional / Extension Schools. None of these are remedial night school programs, to be sure. All reflect rigorous offerings in state of the art technology for demanding professional clientele. Washington University's Center for the Application of Information Technology (CAIT) is nearly 30 years old. It was built to respond to regional (St. Louis) needs for training in IT. Its course offerings are very diverse, including the full spectrum of current technologies, as well as offerings focused on the development environments (Dreamweaver, Flash, Photoshop). While seven of the University of California schools (the exceptions are UC San Francisco and UC Santa Barbara) all have extensive state-of-the-art web curricula, UC San Diego seems to have a particularly broad range of offerings, again in both technologies and applications. Harvard, Northeastern, and NYU have well established world-class professional schools, and their web curricula reflect that tradition with leading edge, demanding offerings.

To Sense and Understand

The NRC warned, ..."higher education must develop mechanisms to at least sense the potential changes and to aid in the understanding of where the technology may drive it." As I look at my sampling of research universities today, it remains unclear how well positioned most universities are to act on this admonition. Although all of the sampled institutions seem to have an internal web services division, with staff to aid in web project development, these service providers are not an adequate mechanism. With few exceptions, those best suited to sense and understand the revolutionary impact of information technology on higher education will be those faculty within the institution who are able to maintain contact with the technology, and its applications, over time. Although there may eventually come to be a corps of astute observers, interpreters, and commentators in varied information technology departments, I believe the best watchdogs will be found among faculty who are practicing web developers and engaged teachers themselves. If this is the case, then a still very small fraction of today's research universities have shown signs of "joining the chase." They are not in a position to understand what they see or what it may mean in the near future.

Among the research institutions surveyed here, some of the most prestigious are emerging as leaders most capable of not only tracking the revolution, but also of leading it. Ironically, the best examples appear to be first addressing the needs of professionals returning to school after graduation. If this group of universities, however, is the source of the majority of future PhD's in science, engineering, and business, it is critical that we as a nation continue to ask ourselves whether the research universities collectively are doing enough to meet the web needs of sufficient numbers of graduates? Do enough of our graduates have sufficient web skills to take advantage of available technologies, as surely those with the capacity to use the web effectively as producers will enjoy appreciable advantages over web-ignorant graduates in all fields?

If interest in web technology has been slow to take off in the research universities, at least we can say that there are several examples of excellent programs now emerging within these institutions. It is critical that the academic reward structure, particularly in computer science and management information science departments, begins to promote the intense commitment that it takes for teaching faculty to remain on the leading edge of these technologies. Institutions must also encourage collaborations between staff and faculty web developers and their colleagues for the production of disciplinary-specific teaching, research, or outreach projects, which fall outside of the usual structure of rewards for grants or publications. If students coming out of the research universities begin to sense that their preparation in this area was deficient, the reputation of those institutions that are failing to move forward will fall. Certainly, the warnings are clear enough about the folly of procrastination as universities position themselves to sense, understand, and eventually lead with applications of critical enabling web-based information technology.