CSIT: Sharing Electives
Michael Georgiopoulos
University of Central Florida, University of South Florida, Florida International University
April 17, 2015, 1:45-2:15
TEAm Grant Innovations Convening
Tampa, FL
2015 TEAm Grant Innovations Convening – Tampa, FL
Sharing Elective Courses
Sharing course electives is the first collaborative activity included in
the CSIT TEAm proposal.
CSIT TEAm Collaborative Activities
(a) Sharing of On-Line Technical Electives
(b) Co-ordination of Student Training for Certifications
(c) Co-ordination of Career Services Efforts to facilitate Student Employment
(d) Co-ordination of Career Services Efforts to facilitate Student Employment
(e) Enhanced Tutoring for Gateway Courses and On-Line Shared Courses
(f) Recruiting Students at Freshman (FTICs) and Junior Level (Transfers)
(g) Enhancing Professional Student Advising
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Sharing Elective Courses
Summary
 The CSIT TEAm Curriculum Committee (21 faculty
members) has thoroughly examined the curriculum offered
in 11 different programs and selected a set of 10 courses for
offering in Spring 2015.
 Course syllabi and course flyers were created and posted on
the TEAm website. Also posted are step-by-step instructions
for course registration via the Florida Virtual Campus.
 A Reserve Seat portal was created; 89 students reserved seat
in the courses of their interest. Students started enrolling in
the shared courses by the start date specified by each
institution for transient non-degree students.
 The number of the students who have actually enrolled in the
shared courses and paid the tuition fees is 40 students.
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Sharing Elective Courses
Responsible Committees
Project
Committee
Curriculum & Retention Committee
CS
Curriculum
& Retention
Subcommittee
IT
Curriculum
& Retention
Subcommittee
2015 TEAm Grant Innovations Convening – Tampa, FL
CpE
Curriculum
& Retention
Subcommittee
MIS
Curriculum
& Retention
Subcommittee
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Sharing Elective Courses
CSIT Project Committee
Michael Georgiopoulos
Rafael Perez
Mark Weiss
Mostafa Bassiouni
Dean, College of Engineering and
Computer Science (UCF)
Associate Dean, College of Engineering
(USF)
Associate Director, School of Computing
& Information Sciences (FIU)
Professor and Director of the CSIT
TEAm Grant Effort (UCF)
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Sharing Elective Courses
Computer Science Curriculum & Retention Subcommittee
Gary Leavens
Annie Wu
Damla Turgut
Mark Weiss
Ming Zhao
Tao Li
Ken Christensen
Mostafa Bassiouni
Professor and Chair, CS Division (UCF)
Associate Professor, CS Division (UCF)
Associate Professor, CS Division (UCF)
Professor and Associate Director, CIS (FIU)
Assistant Professor, CIS (FIU)
Associate Professor, CIS (FIU)
Professor, CSE (USF)
Professor & Project Director, Ex-Officio
Acronyms
CS = Computer Science
CIS = Computing and Information Sciences
CSE = Computer Science and Engineering
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Sharing Elective Courses
Information Technology Curriculum & Retention Subcommitt
Gary Leavens
Ratan Guha
Mark Weiss
Nagarajan Prabakar
Dave Armitage
Jim Andrews
Ken Christensen
Mostafa Bassiouni
Professor and Chair, CS Division (UCF)
Professor, CS Division (UCF)
Professor and Associate Director, CIS (FIU)
Associate Professor, CIS (FIU)
Associate Professor and Director, IT Division, CSE
(USF)
Associate Professor and Director, School of Information,
(USF)
Professor, CSE (USF)
Professor & Project Director, Ex-Officio
Acronyms
CS = Computer Science
CIS = Computing and Information Sciences
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Sharing Elective Courses
Computer Engineering Curriculum & Retention Subcommittee
Zhihua Qu
Jun Wang
Shekhar Bhansali
Jean Andrian
Professor and Chair, ECE Division (UCF)
Associate Professor, ECE Division (UCF)
Professor and Chair, ECE (FIU)
Associate Professor and Associate Chair,
ECE (FIU)
Alexander Perez-Pons Assistant Professor, ECE (FIU)
Ken Christensen
Professor, CSE (USF)
Mostafa Bassiouni
Professor & Project Director, Ex-Officio
Acronyms
CSE = Computer Science and Engineering
ECE = Electrical and Computer Engineering
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Sharing Elective Courses
Management Information Systems Curriculum & Retention
Subcommittee
Monica Tremblay
Associate Professor and Interim Chair,
DSIS, COB (FIU)
Richard Kline
Associate Professor, DSIS, COB (FIU)
Balaji Padmanabhan Associate Professor and Chair, ISDS, COB
(USF)
Joni Jones
Associate Professor, ISDS, COB (USF)
Mostafa Bassiouni
Professor & Project Director, Ex-Officio
Acronyms
DSIS = Decision Sciences and Information Systems
ISDS = Information Systems Decision Sciences
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Sharing Elective Courses
Proposing elective courses to be offered in Spring 2015
 During summer 2014, the four curriculum subcommittees
exchanged information and examined the syllabi of a large
number of elective courses that can be potentially offered in
Spring 2015.
 Eighteen (18) courses were proposed and their syllabi were
posted on the TEAm website. Two courses were withdrawn
leaving 16 courses for possible selection.
Selecting elective courses to be offered in Spring 2015
 The next phase was to select 10 courses from the list of 16
proposed courses. Another round of rigorous discussion was
carried out over 4 weeks in August 2014 to identify the
courses that will be of most benefit to the students. Table 1
shows the ten elective courses that have been selected.
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Sharing Elective Courses
Table 1. Selected TEAm Shared Courses for Spring 2015
Area
University
Course Number and Title
CS
FIU
CEN 4083 - Introduction to Cloud Computing
CS
UCF
CAP 4453 - Robot Vision
IT
UCF
CNT 4603 - System Administration and Maintenance
IS
USF
LIS 4930 - Information Discovery in Health Information
Management Systems
IT
USF
COP 3931 - ST 1: User-level introduction to Linux
IT
USF
COP 3931 - ST 3: Linux Networks Administration
CpE
UCF
EEL 4932 - Massive Storage and I/O for Big Data Computing
CpE
FIU
EEL 4789 - Ethical Hacking and Countermeasures
MIS
FIU
ISM 4400 - Management Support Systems
MIS
USF
ISM 4480 - Electronic Commerce Systems
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Sharing Elective Courses
Creating the final course syllabi and course flyers
 The next activity for the curriculum committee was to update the course
syllabi to reflect the course offerings in Spring 2015 and produce attractive
course flyers that encourage the students to enroll in the selected courses
and give them a high level idea of the contents of the course, the workload,
along with meaningful graphics suitable to the course subject. The course
flyers were created by the IT Staff at UCF and were posted on the TEAm
website.
Specifying the course prerequisites
 An important step in offering the elective courses is to determine the
prerequisites that the students must have to take before registering for these
courses. This effort was needed because the different programs in the three
institutions have different course numbers and some courses in one
institution do not exist in another institution. The faculty advisors and
undergraduate coordinators in each program carefully examined the
syllabus of each course and identified the prerequisites for that course.
These perquisites were posted on the TEAm website.
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Sharing Elective Courses
Two example course flyers
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Sharing Elective Courses
Acceptance of the shared courses by the academic programs
 The different CS, IT, IS, CpE and MIS programs in the three institutions have
obtained formal approval for the relevant courses using the appropriate mechanism
(e.g., by a vote of the entire faculty in the program). The formal approval of the
elective courses makes it possible for UCF, USF, and FIU students majoring in CS, IT,
IS, CpE or MIS to take the shared elective online courses and have these courses
count towards their BS degree. The information about the elective courses accepted
by each program has been posted on the TEAm website.
Selecting the mechanism for course registration: Florida Virtual Campus
 The TEAm leadership and Project Committee examined different options for course
registration and selected the Florida Virtual Campus (FLVC https://www.flvc.org).
Although there are some disadvantages with FLVC (e.g., complication with the
residency requirement, extra approval effort for students receiving financial aid,
students must apply as non-degree seeking students at the institution offering the
course), FLVC was found to be the only mechanism that can be used to meet the tight
schedule of deadlines for Spring 2015.
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Sharing Elective Courses
Providing step-by-step instructions for course registration
 Details instructions for course registration have been posted on the TEAm website.
These instructions were needed because the three institutions have
- different dates for the start of registration for transient non-degree students
- different start dates of classes
- different tuition payment deadlines, and
- different student IDs that must be used with FLVC
Creating the Reserve Seat portal
 A Reserve Seat link has been created on the TEAm website for each course. The
students have been encouraged to reserve a seat in the course of their interest. The
Reserve Seat mechanism allows the administrators/staff at the three institutions to
help the students enroll in the courses they have selected and communicate with
them by email to give specific instructions or get further information.
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Sharing Elective Courses
Creating the Reserve Seat Portal
An example of the Reserve Seat window
for the Shared Course EEL 4789
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Sharing Elective Courses
Marketing the select courses and processing the reserve seat requests
 The TEAm elective courses have been announced extensively to students in
all three institutions. We have exchanged information of the students who
submitted reserve seat requests among the officials and academic advisors
at UCF, USF, and FIU.
Statistics




Total number of students who reserved seats
Number of students who registered in classes
Number of students who withdrew
Number of students currently enrolled
2015 TEAm Grant Innovations Convening – Tampa, FL
89
43
3
40
(48%)
(45%)
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Sharing Elective Courses
Enrollment Numbers in TEAm Courses for Spring 2015
Univ.
Area
Shared Course
#
Students
UCF
IT
CNT 4603 - System Administration and Maintenance
10
UCF
CS
CAP 4453 - Robot Vision
3
USF
IS
LIS 4930 - Information Discovery in Health IMS
2
USF
MIS
MIS 4480 - Electronic Commerce Systems
1
FIU
CpE
EEL 4789 - Ethical Hacking and Countermeasures
16
FIU
CS
CEN 4083 - Introduction to Cloud Computing
7
FIU
MIS
ISM 4400 - Management Support Systems
1
Total
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40
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Sharing Elective Courses
Logistics For Proctored Exams
 The Project Committee has developed rules for administering proctored exams using
the TEAm resources (personnel and testing space).
 The TEAm Project Director supervises all aspects of exam administration.
Example: Midterm Exam for EEL 4789 offered by FIU
 All transient 16 students taking the midterm exam are UCF students.
 The TEAm professional advisor at UCF contacted all 16 students and proctored the
actual exam. Students were required to bring a picture student ID for the exam.
 Students had the option to take this 90-minute closed book closed notes exam at
either 9:00 am or 4:30 pm on Monday, March 2, 2015 in Room HEC 101.
 The exam papers were shipped to the instructor by FedEx on Tuesday March 3, 2015.
 The instructor received the exam on Wednesday March 4, 2015, graded the exam in
few days and reported that the UCF transient students and the FIU local students
have the same level of performance in the exam.
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Shared Elective Courses
Methods to Evaluate the Shared Courses
 The formal institutional evaluation conducted for each course. For example,UCF's
Student Perception of Instruction (SPI) has 11 questions and the Student Assessment
of Instruction at FIU has 19 questions.
 Custom evaluation to be given to the TEAm transient students in shared courses to
assess additional aspects not covered in the formal institutional evaluation. Examples
of TEAm custom questions are
- why students took these courses (e.g., topic was of interest)
- if the students felt this course would enable them to graduate any earlier
- if the students felt the course was comparable to a home institution course
- Were you satisfied with the process to register for the course?
- Did the course meet your expectations?
Proposing and Selecting the TEAm shared courses to be offered in Fall 2015
 We have started the process of proposing and selecting shared courses using the
same process described in the earlier slides. As of 4/3/2015, 5 courses have been
proposed and accepted for offering.
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Thank You!
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