computer science - boston university

BOSTON UNIVERSITY METROPOLITAN COLLEGE

COMPUTER SCIENCE DEPARTMENT

STRATEGIC PLAN 2006 Submitted by Lou Chitkushev, Chairman ad interim

1. Executive Summary

Entering its 27th year of existence the Computer Science Department at Metropolitan College is the oldest CS program at Boston University. The Department has successfully coped with many challenges and new developments and has advanced in a nationally recognized program for its excellence in teaching. CS department has changed notably over the last three decades, and it has evolved from a classical CS program that offered fundamental CS courses to a department that has ventured in the state-of-the-art areas like Information Assurance, Telecommunications, Medical Informatics, Computer Information Systems, Biometrics, Digital Forensics and others. CS department is well-positioned to continue the strategy and path of academic excellence and growth. It will continue to develop and offer academic programs that reflect rapid changes in the areas of computer and information sciences and to provide students with the most up-to-date selections of individual courses, certificates, and degree programs. The developed curricula will continue to combine the latest theoretical advances and modern practical skills, thorough innovative methods of delivery including online and onsite programs customized to specific student needs.

L. Chitkushev BU MET CS Strategic Plan 2006

2. Background

2.1. Mission

In order to establish a direction for serving our students in a best way and setting the highest standard within the global community, the Computer Science department at BU Metropolitan College has adopted a formal strategic planning process and has established set of values around which all of its programs and initiatives revolve.

The mission of the Computer Science Department at Boston University Metropolitan College is to offer a broad range of world class academic programs in computer and information sciences. Our programs, driven by outstanding full-time faculty adhering to the highest standards of Boston University, enable students to advance academically by using the most convenient times, locations and available delivery methods.

We are devoted to remain the first choice for students dedicated to continuing academic development regionally, and committed to be leaders in focused areas of computer and information sciences education globally.

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2.2. Brief history of the department

In 1979 when MET CS was established to serve the regional part-time student population in the, it had little local competition as the CS area was in its infancy. The CS department was traditionally one third of the student body of MET College. The steady growth of the department was due to the outstanding full-time faculty body and innovative new programs, such as the Master of Science in Telecommunications, which was introduced in 1996 by MET CS for the first time at BU and in New England. The changes in the IT industry, and specifically the burst of the Internet bubble in 2000, followed by the increased local competition with competitively priced programs , didn’t work in favor of the CS department. However, MET CS was able to maintain and grow the enrolments in this extremely difficult environment by quickly responding and strategically positioning itself in the online education arena. In 2000 MET CS was the first department at BU, along with the College of Engineering, to introduce number of distance online courses by developing them fully in-house. It was the broad experience of the full-time faculty in the area of computer science and telecommunications that made this possible. For the same reason, several years later, when the distance education initiative was started within the then Division of Extended Education with an outside partner, MET CS became the strongest proponent of bringing the BU online course development and hosting in-house. As a result of that, in 2005, MET CS department, partnering with Distance Education office, launched an online Masters of Science program in Computer Information Systems developing it completely in-house. Further, to ensure quality of the online programs, the CS department initiated and adopted a requirement for all their online courses to have a proctored final exam. This requirement was implemented, and it ensured that the online courses offer a consistent and similar educational experience to students as the on-campus courses.

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In 2004 MET CS department played a pivotal role for BU to be recognized as Center of Academic Excellence in Information Assurance by the National Security Agency of the DoD and by the Department of Homeland Security

To celebrate its 25th anniversary in 2004, the CS department organized a very successful Distinguished Lecture Series, which included prominent speakers from the industry, academia and government, such as Dr. Will Leland, Chief Scientist from Telcordia Technologies, Bob Stott, President of Verizon Wireless for New England and Richard George, Director of Information Assurance at the National Security Agency. In 2005 the Department also organized the first Boston University Student Conference on Information Assurance and Cyber Security, which gave students a forum to present their research in the field. There are three laboratories in the CS department: Biometrics Lab, Network Performance and Security Lab (Telecom Lab), and Enterprise Lab. They are all equipped with the latest technologies and are continuously being updated. Numbers of students are involved with the faculty in development of various lab exercises and research projects. The department has spent considerable resources and faculty time to equip and maintain the laboratories, which are the essential components of hands-on teaching in our curricula

The MET CS department continues to have active collaborations with many other departments and schools throughou the University. The department faculty collaborate on research and teaching projects with the CAS CS department, ENG ECE, Physics department as well as with BU MED School. Collaboration with the industry is also an essential component within the department fabric and has been expanding lately. The department maintains relations with leading IT companies in the area, such as Verizon Wireless, RCA,

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Siemens, Philips and others and offers onsite customized programs for some of them. In addition, the collaboration of the CS department with various government departments, such as NSA, DoD and DHS, continues to grow successfully. 2.3. Description of the Department MET CS Department has 8 full time and more than 80 part time faculties. The full time faculties are the driving force behind the department’s success and the main differentiator from similar programs in the area and globally.

2.3.1. Educational program

The department offers 7 degrees, one undergraduate, BS in Computer Science, 3 graduate MS degrees in Computer Science, Computer Information Systems and Telecommunications, and 3 MS degrees with concentration in Security. In addition, the Department offers one undergraduate and 8 graduate Certificate programs and an International Graduate Diploma in Information Systems and Security. The Department offers more than 150 course sections per academic year, including the summer term. Following the trend in the global IT industry the Boston campus enrolments have been decreasing over the last 3 years. The enrolment figures at Tyngsboro campus have had similar trend. Although there was a decrease in the on-campus enrolments, the introduction of the online program not only balanced but contributed to overall increase of the total departmental enrolments over the last 2 years, after a dip in 2004, as shown on the graphs. The success of our online program was outstanding. In 2005, one year after the program was launched, there were 336 enrolments, which

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expanded to 1150 a year later - a remarkable annual increase of 342 percent! In 2003 the total enrolments of the Department were 2701, they went down to 2017 in 2004, to bounce back to 2137 in 2005 and 2553 in 2006.

CS Dept Total

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CS Dept Total

The change in distributions between the on campus and online enrolments is depicted at the following graph, where the recent trends of increased online demand are clearly noticeable.

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MSCIS onlineTelecomCS enrollments

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2.3.2. Faculty and concentration areas

There are 8 full time faculties in the Department. The list of faculty and their areas of specializations is included in the Appendix 1. Each of the faculties in the department is responsible for one or more academic concentration areas, as shown in the table.

Area of Academic Concentration MET CS Faculty Database Schudy/Kanabar Information Systems Braude Programming Languages Shtern/Zlateva Information Security Zlateva/Chitkushev Software Braude Operating Systems Kalathur Networks and Telecom Chitkushev CS Theory Temkin WEB Applications and IT Kanabar/Braude/Chitkushev

2.3.3. Peers and competitors

The man local competitor of our program has been the Harvard Extension, however MET CS has traditionally been better positioned due to our full-time faculty and diversity of offered courses and programs. We have been able to attract students despite the fact that Harvard Extension has had considerably lower course prices than MET. The other local universities that have attracted the same student population as MET CS are Brandies and Northeastern University. In the case of NEU, our competition is in the School of Computer and Information Sciences, rather than University College, their traditional part-time school. Nationally, we have competed with NYU and Columbia in many of our online offerings.

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3. Long-term Goals and Strategies of MET CS Department

Long term goals and strategies of the Department are based on the projections and expectations in each of the concentration areas. The general focus of the Department will remain on excellence in teaching and provisioning of courses and programs based on the most relevant areas of computer and information sciences. The Department has selected the following areas∗ in which it will continue to offer and expand the educational excellence:

1. Core Computer Science areas 2. Information Assurance and System Security 3. Computer Information Systems 4. Telecom and Networking 5. Advanced Databases 6. Medical Informatics 7. Software Engineering and Information Systems 8. Financial Information Systems

3.1. Core Computer Science Computer Science core provides the bases for practically all other concentration areas, and will remain the principal focus area of the Department. We will continue to provide fundamental courses in theoretical and applied CS as well as advanced ones in the areas of computer languages and systems.

∗ In the light of the academic areas that are currently covered at MET CS, probably more

appropriate and up-to-date name for the department would be Computer and Information

Sciences, which is the name used by the NSF to designate these academic areas.

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3.2. Information Assurance and System Security The department will continue to expand in this area by introducing new courses as well as a new Masters Degree in Information Assurance (MSIA). Being a national Center of Excellence in Information Assurance, BU has yet to offer an exclusive graduate degree in the IA area. This new degree will align BU with other universities who have successfully introduced MSIA over the last several years. MSIA degree is offered by number of other institutions in the country, such as James Madison University, Johns Hopkins University, Iowa State University, as well as two universities in New England – Northeastern and Norwich Universities, where the later offers an online program (through Embanet). By introducing the MSIA degree BU will attract students who want to specialize in this rapidly expanding area. The existing concentrations in Information Assurance offered by MET CS department will enable swift and efficient introduction of this new degree. The development of this degree at MET CS will be coordinated with other departments at BU, through the Center for Reliable Information Systems and Cyber Security. This coordination and collaboration will ensure that our Department and will continue to be leaders in Information Assurance education. These new courses in IA will also contribute to the BU accreditation renewal by the NSA and DHS which is due in 2007.

One of the sub-areas of IA that the Department plans to expand in the future is Biometrics. The Department currently has the only Biometrics lab at BU, which has been developed over the last 3 years. We plan to introduce Biometrics courses as well as lab exercises. This may lead to MSIA degree with concentration in Biometrics, which will be a unique specialization and our differentiator in this area of high demand.

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The other IA area that will play a key role and will be in the focus of the Department is Digital Forensics. Increasingly large number of private sector corporations and institutions are developing internal forensics capabilities to address acceptable network and computer usage, intellectual property, civil and criminal liability, and related issues. Computer and digital forensics is emerging as separate curriculum at an increasing number of colleges and universities at the undergraduate degree and graduate certificate levels.

Our long term goal for computer and digital forensics is to transition from reactive to pro-active capabilities and involve interdependencies with network and computer security, information assurance, and disaster recovery capabilities. The computer forensic professional requires specific training and skills not included in traditional information technology or computer science curriculums. The Computer Science department will need to interact with other key areas within the Metropolitan College and outside if we want to maintain a leadership position in this area. Based on the above aspirations and purpose, the long term goal of our Department in the area of Information Assurance is:

• To continue to be leader in Information Assurance Education in New England

• To become a global leader in the IA area by introducing MSIA degree both on campus and online

• To become leader in Biometrics and Digital Forensics education by introducing concentrations of the MSIA or MSCIS degrees in Biometrics and Digital Forensics

• To develop the best Biometrics laboratory in the region where single and multimodal biometrics technologies can be explored

• To develop state-of-the-art Digital Forensics lab • To be leader and offer the best applied Biometrics and Digital Forensic

Sciences graduate programs in the country in various formats within the

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IA and other concentrations such as CIS security concentration. • MET CS to be recognized as one of the top five programs in the country in

the area of IA. To achieve the above goals we will consider the following short term steps:

• Introduce MS in Information Assurance degree • Focus on implementing a graduate certificate program in the area of

Digital Forensics • Introduce courses and develop a concentration in Biometrics • Build contacts with the forensics organizations. • Support student and faculty research in the above areas. Organize a

student track on forensics and biometrics for presentation under RISCS. • Since computer and digital forensics is a multidisciplinary field, which

includes information technology (networking and security), computer science (operating systems, file systems and media, and database systems) and legal (privacy and evidentiary issues)—we must ensure that the above topics are fully covered in our curriculum.

• Introduce a course on Principles of Computer and Digital Forensics, which would address critical foundation topics in detail, such as principles, procedures, legal issues, and file system analysis.

• Offer a new course on Computer and Digital Forensic Analysis, which would offer a practical base involving actual scenarios and problem sets requiring the acquisition and analysis of different types of digital media. This course could also include advanced forensic topics and techniques that could reflect the state-of-the-art in forensics as this field continues to evolve.

• Develop state-of-the-art IA capacity with Biometrics and Forensics labs.

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3.3. Computer Information Systems The involvement of the Department in the CIS area has been expanding rapidly, especially in our online program. The long term goal of the Department is to have a world-class on campus and online Masters in Computer Information Systems program, with significant online components contributing to the success of our on-campus and industry programs. Our online program should be widely recognized as one of the highest quality programs in each of the concentration areas. The online program is complex, and it requires careful management and planning. Consequently, a year-by-year plan is going to be developed.

The following short-term goals will present steps in the direction of achieving the previously stated long term goals. The department will:

• Further improve all aspects of course and program quality both in class and online

• Derive precise steps for improving the online course quality: conducting peer reviews of the courses, improving facilitation quality and student to facilitator ratios, introducing facilitators-at-large etc.

• Introduce academically important courses such as business intelligence. • Introduce additional concentrations in the areas of IT Project

Management and Telecommunications • Improve interactivity with dynamic labs and portal technology techniques • Begin leveraging our online content to improve our on-campus courses • Establish our program as the MSCIS online quality leader in each

concentration. • Coordinate online experience within the College and the University

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3.4. Telecom and Networking Being the first department that introduced a Masters degree in Telecommunication MET CS is committed to continue its development and growth in the area of Computer Networks. Our long term goal is to become the leading Telecom program globally by introducing online MS in Telecommunications program. Our short term goal is to introduce networking courses that will respond to the changes in the field and students’ demands, such as wireless LANs, optical networks, multimedia protocols, ATM and Frame Relay networks and Network Security. The immediate goal will be to further develop the Telecom and Network Security labs, by introducing new equipment and software. 3.5. Advanced Databases The long-term goal of the Department in Database related areas is to be a leader and offer the best applied Computer Information Systems graduate program in the country in various formats in the concentration area of databases including general databases, data warehousing, data mining, business intelligence, data and knowledge management, and data privacy and security. We should be widely recognized as one of the top ten programs in these areas.

This long term goal can be achieved by the following short-term and mid-term steps:

• Complete the online database area offerings, by adding business intelligence courses

• Add significant knowledge management to our IT Management courses • Add significant data analysis in one or more courses • Introduce a graduate certificate program in data warehouse and business

intelligence. • Create a state of the art Data Warehouse and Data Mining Lab that

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focuses on the analysis of very large data sets, especially those that arise in the application areas of text mining, business data mining, network security data and bioinformatics.

• Encourage and foster student and faculty research in this area • Identify important research problems such as aspect-oriented databases,

particularly the security and privacy aspects of databases (returning encrypted challenge-response objects, etc.), which are currently weak compared to the performance aspect (index, cluster, and data type transparency etc.).

• Obtain funding from internal, government and industry sources for students and faculty.

• Organize a conference for presentation of research in the above areas. • Develop collaborative work within BU, with industry and with

government.

3.6. Medical Informatics As a long term goal the Department will be positioned as the educational center in Medical informatics for students with CS and medical background. Short-term goal is to develop at least 3 more courses in the areas of Medical information systems, Medical decision making systems, Telemedicine and Privacy and Security of Medical Data. This will define the concentration in Medical Information Systems of the MSCIS degree. The newly introduced courses should be developed online as well, so that the program of MS in Medical Informatics can be launched both in class and online. This program will be attractive for the numerous biomedical industries in the region.

3.7. Software Engineering and Information Systems There are several priorities in the area of Software Engineering that are dictated

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by the changes in the global IT market and the increasing presence of offshoring in the IT industry. According to the recently completed study by ACM of offshoring and its impact∗ “more attention must be paid to large applications, standard tools and platforms that will be used by IT workers around the world, such as J2EE or .NET.” They recommend that “industry should be given greater opportunity to participate in model curriculum development, as there has been rapid change in software development. In addition, a more global perspective should be taken in preparing the model curricula and it should be updated more often than once a decade.” The study also pointed out that “students must be taught to be innovative and creative, such as by giving them a research experience”. The study also identified types of work that are not readily offshored such as “situations in which offshoring would place the procuring company at too great a risk to its data security, data privacy, or intellectual property and proprietary information” or “business activities that rely on an uncommon combination of specific application-domain knowledge and IT knowledge in order to do the work properly.”

Although very well positioned in the above areas the MET CS Department needs to adapt to the international environment by accommodating our curriculum to prepare students to operate in a globally distributed development market. We will also introduce emerging methods such as Aspect-oriented programming, Service-oriented architectures, and model-driven methods. Information Systems concentration area will also need to accommodate the international environment, by introducing new areas and disciplines such as Service-Oriented System Architectures and others. The details of the long-term plans of both of these programs are provided in Annexes 2 & 3.

∗ Patterson, David. Offshoring: Finally Facts vs Folklore. Communications of the ACM, Vol 49,

No.2 , February 2006

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3.8. Financial Information System The Department will develop an MSCIS concentration in Financial Information Systems, where students with CS background will learn the advanced systems, tools and algorithms used in the financial industry. Given the concentration of financial institutions in Boston area, this can be a very interesting program for our students. This can evolve into MS in Financial Informatics degree. 3.9. Faculty Research and Other Essential Areas of Improvement In order to accomplish the ambitious plan of expansion and growth in all of the listed academic disciplines, we need to address and improve several very important areas that are critical for our success.

3.9.1. Full-time Faculty Development The first and most important goal is development of the full-time faculty by establishing conditions for their scholarly progress. MET CS faculty have very high responsibilities, usually higher than the full-time faculty at other colleges at BU. In addition to the full load of teaching 3 courses per semester, with evening lectures lasting 3 hours, and the usual College committees’ duties, each faculty has administrative responsibilities as a Coordinator of a Concentration area. The coordinating full-time faculty is responsible for recruitment, interviewing, supervision and coordination of part-time faculty, introduction of new courses, development of on-line courses and programs (which is usually done as overtime), as well as research in the area of interest. It is very important to perform unbiased analyses of all these factors so that we can achieve and sustain the best quality of our program, which is in the best interest of both our students and the reputation of the University. It is well know that this is also the best way to increase our enrolments and revenues, by not focusing on the

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finances but on the overall quality of our products. We also need to develop a mechanism that will enable our full-time faculty to get more involved in research, and promote the Department, College and the University by writing scholarly papers and attending conferences. These projects and activities contribute directly to the reputation and quality of our programs. Since the competition for government grants is very high, we need to direct our faculty towards industry sponsored research. Also, the Department and the College have to look into the option of allocating small amounts of research seed money for which full-time faculty would be able to apply by submitting research projects. The faculty who will be awarded the grant will be accountable for presenting and publishing their research results. These focused internal grants would be used to help with the initial research projects and pay a Research Assistant who would be working on the project with the faculty. The benefits of this would be multiple – number of students will be supported to do research, faculty will have graduate students to assist with the research, and the College and University will be promoted through publications, which are one of the most efficient marketing tools for a scientific educational institution. Fostering scientific research will enable our faculty to organize more student conferences, establish collaboration with other Colleges at BU and achieve national recognitions. This will also enable MET College to establish an efficient promotion mechanism for its full-time faculty, which is currently missing, and if properly implemented, will also contribute to the overall quality of the programs.

3.9.2. Part-time Faculty Development The second important area is development of the part-time faculty. Large number of MET courses is taught by part-time instructors, who are real BU representatives. They are the front man of the educational experience for our students and sometimes the only contact the students have with BU. We need to foster high-quality part-time instructors and allow them to be a real part of the BU community. They should be reviewed and promoted in accordance with their

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performance, and should have the opportunity to have other advantages of being BU part-time faculty.

3.9.3. Improvement of the Educational Experience We need to carefully look into possible improvement of all the components that affect quality of the educational experience for our in-class and online students, such as: number of Teaching Assistants, number of course Graders, maximum number of online students per instructor, maximum number of facilitators per instructor, maximum number of online students per facilitator. We need to expand our Labs and to establish true Cyber-Labs for our online students.

3.10. Increased diversity of faculty and staff The CS department should grow responsibly over the next 5 years, in order to cover all the hot areas of computer and information sciences that are currently missing from our curricula. During that process, whenever possible, we plan to hire more qualified women and minority faculty and staff, and further contribute to the diversity.

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4. Short-term Priorities of MET CS Department The following short-term initiatives are the highest priorities within the MET CS department:

• Regionally, CS department needs to improve the existing and introduce new programs such as Information Assurance, IT and Software Project Management and Medical Informatics, followed by an aggressive marketing and recruiting campaign, which will enable us to grow responsibly in these strategic areas according to the highest standards and interests of Boston University.

• Globally, we need to maintain a strong presence in the online MSCIS

program by improving the content and the delivery methods of the online courses, and by introducing new concentrations which will develop in separate degrees. The department needs to explore new international opportunities, both by increasing the number of international students domestically, and by expending our online presence internationally.

• We need to carefully develop and invest in a process of fostering excellence

among full-time faculty, who are the driving force of all the other academic advances in the Department, such as new program developments, part-time faculty expansion and involvement, and improvement of both on-campus and online programs by maintenance of the delicate balance between the two.

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5. Appendix 1 Full-time Faculty and areas of research interest

Eric Braude Associate Professor, Computer Science Ph.D. Columbia University M.S., University of Illinois B.S. University of Natal (South Africa)

Software Engineering with Object Oriented Methods and Software Design.

Lou Chitkushev Associate Professor, Computer Science

Chairman ad interim, CS Department Ph.D. Boston University M.S. Medical College of Virginia M.S. B.S. University of Belgrade

Network Performance Analysis and Optimization, Network Security, Self-similar traffic modeling, Telemedicine, Medical Applications of Computer Networks, BioMedical Informatics, Security and Privacy of BioMedical Data.

Suresh Kalathur Assistant Professor, Computer Science Ph.D. Brandeis University M.S. Indian Institute of Technology B.S. Regional Engineering College (Warangal, India)

Programming Languages, Compilers, Constraint Prog-ramming ; Object-Oriented Programming, Parallel and Distributed Computing, Multi-Agent Systems.

Vijay Kanabar Associate Professor, Computer Science Ph.D. University of Manitoba (Canada) M.S. Florida Institute of Technology M.B.A. Webber College B.S. University of Madras (India)

Database Systems, Client/Server Systems, Project Management.

Robert Schudy

Associate Professor Ph.D. University of Rochester, USA M.S. Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, USA B.A. University of California, San Diego, USA

Oracle, Java, Internet-Based Application Development, Database Management, Artificial Intelligence

Victor Shtern Associate Professor, Computer Science Ph.D. Leningrad Aluminum Institute (Russia) M.S. Leningrad Institute of Technology M.B.A. Boston University

Software Construction, Software Testing, Computer Simulation.

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http://metcs.bu.edu/%7Eebraude/

http://csatmet.bu.edu/people/ltc/LTC_page.htm

http://people.bu.edu/kalathur/

http://www.kanabar.com/drkanabar/index.htm

http://metcs.bu.edu/%7Evshtern/


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Anatoly Temkin Assistant Professor, Computer Science Graduate Academic Advisor Ph.D. Kazan University (Russia) M.S. Moscow University

Pattern Recognition and Cryptography.

Tanya Zlateva

Associate Professor, Computer Science

Associate Dean of Academic Programs

Ph.D. Dresden University of Technology (Germany) M.S. B.S. Dresden University of Technology (Germany)

Computational Modeling of Visual Perception, Recognition, Three Dimensional Representations of Object Shape, Parallel and Distributed Processing.

http://people.bu.edu/temkin/




http://metcs.bu.edu/%7Ezlateva/index.html

Appendix 2

Strategic Plan for Software Engineering Pri orities

1 Adapt our curriculum to prepare students to operate in a globally distributed development environment

2 Introduce emerging methods such as Aspect-oriented programming, Service-oriented architectures, and model-driven methods

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 x create distributed development curriculum implement distributed development curriculum establish agile an alternative methods in curriculum x introduce AOP in curriculum implement AOP in curriculum x introduce Service-Oriented Architectures in curriculum implement Service-Oriented Architectures in curriculum x introduce MDA/Automation in curriculum implement MDA/Automation in curriculum


Appendix 3

Strategic Plan for Information Systems Prior ities

1 Adapt to international environment 2 Medical I.S.

3 Service-Oriented System Architectures

4 Semantic Web (describes Web sites rather that relying on content to understand purpose)

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015

x create distributed system curriculum

Implement distributed system curriculum

x Introduce Medical I.S. curriculum Implement Medical I.S. curriculum x Present SOA through WS x Allow for Service-Oriented Architectures in curriculum Implement Service-Oriented Architectures in curriculum x Try semantic Web course x Create semantic Web - oriented course(s) Implement semantic Web - oriented course(s)

Implement business intelligence course(s)

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