Using History To Teach Computer Science and Related Disciplines

319 Pages·2004·1.744 MB·English

by  Atsushi Akera, William Aspray (eds.)

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1100 17th Street, NW, Suite 507 s Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
Washington, DC 20036-4632
E-mail: [email protected] William Aspray
Tel: [phone] Indiana University—Bloomington
Fax: [phone]
URL: http://www.cra.org
The workshops and this report were made possible by the generous support of the Computer and
Information Science and Engineering Directorate of the National Science Foundation (Award DUE-
0111938, Principal Investigator William Aspray). Requests for copies can be made by
e-mailing [email protected].
Copyright 2004 by the Computing Research Association. Permission is granted to reproduce the con-
tents, provided that such reproduction is not for profit and credit is given to the source.
Table of Contents

I. Introduction ………………………………………………………………………………. 1

1. Using History to Teach Computer Science and Related Disciplines ............................ 1
William Aspray and Atsushi Akera

2. The History of Computing: An Introduction for the Computer Scientist ……………….. 5
Thomas Haigh

II. Curricular Issues and Strategies …………………………………………………… 27

3. The Challenge of Introducing History into a Computer Science Curriculum ………... 27
Paul E. Ceruzzi

4. History in the Computer Science Curriculum …………………………………………… 33
J.A.N. Lee

5. Using History in a Social Informatics Curriculum ....................................................... 39
William Aspray

6. Introducing Humanistic Content to Information Technology Students ……………….. 61
Atsushi Akera and Kim Fortun

7. The Synergy between Mathematical History and Education …………………………. 85
Thomas Drucker

8. Computing for the Humanities and Social Sciences …………………………………... 89
Nathan L. Ensmenger

III. Specific Courses and Syllabi ………………………………………....................... 95

Course Descriptions & Syllabi

9. History in the First Course in Computer Science ……………………………………..... 95
J.A.N. Lee

10. History of Computing for Computer Science and Information Systems Students .… 109
Thomas J. Bergin and Jack Hyman

11. Enhancing Learning Using the History of Computing: Opportunities to Use
History in an Introductory Computers and Information Course ……………………… 139
Thomas J. Bergin

12. An Introductory Informatics Course …………………………………………………….. 147
Mehmet M. Dalkilic
13. Engineering and Computer Science in Action: A Course on “The Structure of
Engineering Revolutions” ……………………………………………………………….. 157
Eden Miller Medina and David A. Mindell

Additional Course Syllabi

14. STS.035: From Analog to Agents: Introduction to the History of Computing ……… 167
(course syllabus)
David A. Mindell

15. Informatics 303: Organizational Informatics …………………………………………... 175
William Aspray

16. Informatics 400/590: Internet and Society …………………………………………….. 179
William Aspray

17. Informatics 400/590: Privacy, Security, and Information Warfare ………………….. 185
William Aspray

18. HSSC120: Computer Learning for the Arts and Sciences …………………………... 193
Nathan L. Ensmenger

19. ITEC-1210: IT Revolution—Myth or Reality? …………………………………………. 197
Kim Fortun

20. ITEC-1220: The Politics and Economics of IT ………………………………………… 217
Atsushi Akera

IV. Historical Case Studies for Computing and Information
Systems Education …………………………………………………………….. 225

21. What Was the Question? The Origins of the Theory of Computation ……………… 225
Michael S. Mahoney

22. History in the Study of Computer Architecture ……………………………………….. 233
John Impagliazzo

23. Bringing Women into the Curriculum ………………………………………………….. 239
Jennifer S. Light

24. Human Computers and their Electronic Counterparts ………………………………. 245
David Alan Grier

25. Integrating Ethics into a Computing Curriculum: A Case Study of the Therac-25…. 255
Chuck Huff and Richard Brown
V. Resources for Instructors ………………………………………………………… 279

26. Key Resources in the History of Computing …………………………………………. 279
Thomas Haigh

27. Resources for a Course on the History of Computing ……………………………… 295
Thomas J. Bergin and Jack Hyman

Appendix
1. List of Additional Workshop Participants ………………………………………………3 09

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1. Using History to Teach Computer Science and Related Disciplines

William Aspray
Indiana University at Bloomington

Atsushi Akera
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute

This volume on using history to improve computing education came out of conversations
that the first author had in 2000 with Andrew Bernat, the current executive director of the
Computing Research Association who was then a program officer at the National Science
Foundation, on leave from the University of Texas at El Paso. Andy and I had wide-ranging talks
about various means for improving computer science education. He encouraged me to submit a
proposal to NSF on using history to improve undergraduate computing education and talked
with me on several occasions as I was preparing the proposal. Since Andy and I previously had
written a report together, he was not permitted, under conflict-of-interest rules, to be the
program officer for this proposal. The proposal was turned over to Harriet Taylor, who helped
me through the proposal process. NSF awarded grant number DUE-0111938 to support this
activity.

The grant was used to hold two workshops: the first at Amherst College August 6-7,
2001, and the second at the University of Minnesota April 26-28, 2002.1 Each was attended by
about forty people, primarily undergraduate teachers of computer science.

The original plan for disseminating the results was to make a few presentations at
meetings such as the annual ACM SIGCSE conference or the annual Frontiers in Education
conference. The organizing committee’s frugality meant that attendees of the first workshop
suffered through 100-degree weather in dorm rooms with no air conditioning, and attendees of
the second meeting had to trek almost a mile through snowstorms to the meeting space.
However, this frugality also meant that we had funds left over to collect and edit papers, publish
them, and post them on a website where they could receive much wider dissemination than any
workshop talk would achieve.

In meetings held in Chicago in April 2004 and in Needham, Mass. in May 2004, the
contributors to this volume met to critique one another’s papers. The contributors include most
of those who spoke at one or both of the workshops, plus a few additional historians and
computer scientists who were invited to submit papers. Professor Atsushi Akera of Rensselaer
Polytechnic Institute, who was one of the workshop speakers, kindly offered to take principal
responsibility for editing the publication. Jean Smith of the CRA staff has undertaken her usual
exemplary work as the copyeditor for the volume, under a very tight set of deadlines.

1 The programs for those workshops can be found online at:
http://www.cra.org/Activities/workshops/history/august01.html and
http://www.cra.org/Activities/workshops/history/april02.html
The volume itself is organized into five parts. Part I includes this introductory paper,
followed by one by Professor Thomas Haigh that provides a basic introduction to the history of
computing, as relevant to computer scientists and professionals.

Part II assembles a set of papers addressing broader issues of curriculum development
and strategy. Paul Ceruzzi opens this section with a reflective essay on the challenges of
introducing history into a computer science curriculum. This is followed by J.A.N. Lee’s broad-
based discussion about doing just this, especially in the context of the ACM/IEEE Computer
Society’s jointly produced report “Computing Curriculum 2001,” which specifically calls for
broadening a computer science student’s education.2 William Aspray describes his work in
developing a broad, social informatics curriculum at the new School of Informatics at Indiana
University in Bloomington. Atsushi Akera and Kim Fortun offer a complementary account of their
efforts to develop a coherent curriculum in the humanities and social sciences for information
technology (IT) students at Rensselaer.

As well, Thomas Drucker provides an account of the classic synergy between the history
of mathematics and mathematics education. In a way, history has been integrated into
mathematics far more effectively than into computer science education, so his paper provides a
good role model for more intensive interaction between history and computing-related
disciplines. Lastly, Nathan Ensmenger describes a special program established at the University
of Pennsylvania to provide basic computer literacy to non-computing majors within the School of
Arts and Sciences. The premise of this work was that students in fields such as history,
anthropology, and comparative literature were even more likely to benefit from using historical
sources to develop a different kind of awareness about computing and information technologies.

The papers in this section provide a surprisingly coherent picture of how historical
materials can be incorporated into a computing curriculum. Moreover, in describing the
curricular needs of computer science departments, information technology programs, and
schools of social informatics as well as general arts and sciences, the papers collectively
provide an account of the different approaches that need to be taken in supporting the different
curricular needs of these programs.

Part III of this volume provides a specific set of course descriptions and course syllabi.
Rather than speaking abstractly about how to use history, we felt that a set of fully developed
course descriptions and syllabi would be most useful for computer science and other faculty
who are serious about introducing historical materials into their courses. We have been careful
to select a set of syllabi that reflect different degrees of engagement with history and other
humanistic disciplines. To enhance student learning in computer science, we find that it is as
important to use historical case studies as it is to use a much more integrated approach that
seeks to use humanistic content to help transform the professional identity of various computer-
related disciplines.

The primary course descriptions provided in Part III include J.A.N. Lee’s efforts to
integrate historical materials into an introductory computer science course, specifically in an
effort to conform to the ACM/IEEE Computer Society’s “Computing Curriculum 2001.” Also
included is a description of the work of Thomas Bergin and Jack Hyman at American University
in developing a history of computing course for computer science and information systems
students. This is followed by Thomas Bergin’s description of a separate course, where he uses

2 ACM/IEEE Computer Society, “Computing Curriculum 2001” (Steelman Report),
http://www.computer.org/education/cc2001/steelman/cc2001/index.htm.
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historical case studies to improve student learning and retention within an introductory
computing and information systems course for non-majors. Mehmet Dalkilic—whose students,
we have heard, truly admire as a superb instructor—describes a similar effort to use historical
materials in an introductory informatics course at Indiana University in Bloomington. Eden Miller
and David Mindell then describe an upper division course in which students are taught not to
read history, but to write it. The course was developed as part of an institutional push at MIT to
broaden a computer science and engineering student’s education, especially during the last
year of a five-year program for a Masters in Engineering. As suggested by Miller and Mindell,
such a course has been very effective in getting students to realize that what they label as just
being “politics” is, in fact, integral to their disciplinary practice as engineers.

In compiling this volume, we also decided that it would be useful to have all of the course
syllabi assembled in one place, rather than having them appear as separate appendices to
other chapters within the volume. In addition to the syllabi for the courses described in Part II by
Aspray, Ensmenger, Fortun, and Akera, we have also included in Part III an innovative syllabus
for the history of computing at MIT assembled by Mindell.

Part IV of this volume offers instructors an array of historical case studies that could be
incorporated into a computer science and related curriculum. Most of the case studies should
work in different kinds of courses and curricula. Also, these case studies are primarily meant to
illustrate the kinds of case studies that are available. Clearly, we are unable to provide a
comprehensive set of case studies in this volume.

In the first of the case studies, Michael Mahoney of Princeton University offers material
from his extensive investigations into the history of computer science that might be suitable for
incorporation into a computer science curriculum. John Impagliazzo provides similar material
from the history of computer architectures, which he suggests can enhance student
engagement and retention in a contemporary computer architectures course. The paper is
based on his experiences at Hofstra University. Jennifer Light, Northwestern University, draws
on material about early women programmers to suggest how understanding the social dynamics
of technical labor can provide a deeper understanding of tacit knowledge and the process of
technical innovation. She argues specifically for bringing women back into the computing
curriculum. David Alan Grier, George Washington University, offers a highly complementary
account of human computers in general and their contribution to modern programming practice.
His paper is based on a forthcoming book on the general subject of the time when computers
were human. Lastly, Chuck Huff and Richard Brown from St. Olaf College revisit a classic case
study in engineering ethics, the Therac-25, a medical diagnostic instrument whose software
engineering flaws generated intermittent failures that produced numerous fatalities. Through
their careful consideration of this case study, Huff and Brown are able to draw out the real
nature of the ethical dilemmas integral to software engineering design. They also suggest ways
in which a “socio-technical” view of engineering practice can be integrated into other computing-
related curricula.

The final section of this volume, Part V, provides a set of complementary resources for
instructors. Thomas Haigh’s “Key Resources in the History of Computing” offers an extensive
list of current books, articles, websites, and other material for instructors who wish to find
relevant historical material for their computing and computer science courses. Haigh has kindly
annotated this selected compilation of sources, and has done so in a lively style. All instructors,
including historians teaching a course in the history of computing, should find this to be a
valuable resource. Also, Thomas Bergin and Jack Hyman have developed a truly extensive
online resource for teaching the history of computing. In addition to a variety of visual materials,
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they have placed online all of the lectures and handouts that they have used in their history of
computing course. Whether or not these lectures are used in their entirety, the array of images
contained in the lecture slides should be an indispensable resource for instructors seeking to
locate such images.

In addition to NSF and all of the people named above, we would like to thank Dana Neill,
the business manager at the Computing Research Association, for meeting arrangements and
other administrative support; Burt Grad, head of the Software History Center, for allowing us to
piggyback our May 2004 meeting on his software history conference as a means to attract more
historians to help with review of the draft papers; and the staff of the Charles Babbage Institute,
in particular Beth Kaplan, the archivist, for hosting the meeting in April 2002.
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