Progress in information technology over the past 20 years has dramatically changed our lives — in our daily routine, at play, and at work.
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The theme of NITRD's 20th birthday symposium was to recognize that in just 20 years, computing research has made astounding progress and has had an astounding impact on our lives, setting us up for an even more amazing future.
Avoiding the Rabbit Hole of Bad Science
The scandal surrounding the recently published so-called empirical evidence for precognition has caused psychologists to reconsider the way they analyze their data, and highlights the importance of replication. What can empirical subfields of computer science learn from this?
Judea Pearl Wins 2011 ACM Turing Award
Judea Pearl, professor of computer science at the University of California, Los Angeles, is the winner of the 2011 ACM A.M. Turing Award.
COLT/ICML Open Problems and ICML Instructions
Open problems will be presented in a joint session in the evening of the COLT/ICML overlap day. If you have a difficult, theoretically definable problem in machine learning, consider submitting it for review, due March 16.
Bertrand Meyer presents data on the computer and programming knowledge of two groups of novice CS students.
Design Adventures in a Children
The first in a series of articles about the design process used in a technology and play project in a children's hospital.
Why Don’t We Use Worksheets in Computer Science Education?
Worksheets (short, constrained, sets of exercises with mostly fill-in-the-blank, true/false, and multiple choice activities) are unusual in CS education. Use of worksheets is a natural progression towards a broader audience for CS education.
Most Smartphone Apps Are Spyware
Why does this flashlight app use an Internet connection? Why does this Bible quotes app want my location data? Why does this game want my contacts list?
All Grown Up Now: Service and Serial Reciprocity
Computing is central to the debate about so many aspects of our present and future that we have a duty and responsibility to be active and enthusiastic participants. By paying it forward (serial reciprocity), we create an environment where a new generation can thrive, just as the founders of the field did for us.
Researchers’ Big Data Crisis; Understanding Design and Functionality
Michael Stonebraker issues a call to arms about research groups' data-management problems. Jason Hong discusses the nature of functionality with respect to design.
Royal Society Report Recommends CS in English Schools: Implications For USA?
The Royal Society, the world's oldest scientic academy, released a report this month calling for a radical change to English schools: Real Computer Science for all. What are the implications for the United States?
The Way Forward For Computer Science in the U.K.
The last week has seen some interesting developments in Computer Science Education in the U.K., with some sensible suggestions for improvements published in a report by the Royal Society.
Research Data Sustainability and Access
The dramatic growth of research data, the collaborative nature of international research, expectations for economic returns, and disciplinary differences all make data sustainability and access a pressing and difficult problem.
Understanding CS1 Students; Defective Software
Mark Guzdial writes about why teachers must grasp introductory CS students' theories about computing. Bertrand Meyer argues for the necessity of analyzing large-scale software disasters and publishing a detailed technical study.
We Needn’t Be Malevolent Grumps in 2012
I propose that 2012 is the year to solve the nastiness problem in Computer Science. Zero tolerance for rude reviewers starts from midnight tonight.
Online Stanford Classes Explore New Models For CS Learning
What's cool about the online Stanford CS classes is not the numbers, but the models. They are explorations of new ways to teach computer science.
Is the Computer Security Community Barking Up the Wrong Trees?
There's a big mismatch right now between what the data says about computer security vulnerabilities and what kind of research is being done and products offered.
Planting Seeds in the Field of Knowledge
In these challenging economic times, universities are under great stress--economically, politically, and socially. It is tempting for those of us in computing to ignore these issues but, like agriculture and engineering before us, I believe computing has a social responsibility to be an active and enthusiastic partner in helping chart the nature of higher education.
Hadoop AllReduce and Terascale Learning
In a breakthrough last summer, we came up with the first learning algorithm I've seen that is provably faster than any future single machine learning algorithm.
Conferences and Video Lectures; Scientific Educational Games
John Langford analyzes whether conferences should offer video lectures. Judy Robertson discusses the merits of the Game Design Through Mentoring and Collaboration project.
Enrollment and Quality: Does It Matter to Measure?
CS is declared to be the hottest major on campus based on enrollment at the top institutions. But is it rising everywhere? We don't really know how to measure computing knowledge. Is that a problem?
Computer Science Education Week 2011 is a call to action. It gives the computing community an opportunity to raise awareness about the societal impact of computing, the richness of computing careers, and the critical need for computer science education.
SC11: The Cray, Fernbach, and Kennedy Awards
The Cray, Fernbach, and Kennedy awards and the work of the recipients reflect the evolving interplay of technology, software, applications and algorithms in advancing high-performance computing. They also recognize intellectual leadership and mentoring of a new generation of high-performance computing talent.
Shape the Future of Computing
ACM encourages its members to take a direct hand in shaping the future of the association. There are more ways than ever to get involved.
Get InvolvedCommunications of the ACM (CACM) is now a fully Open Access publication.
By opening CACM to the world, we hope to increase engagement among the broader computer science community and encourage non-members to discover the rich resources ACM has to offer.
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