CIS Faculty and Students Back from Summer School at Peking University
Professors Andrzej Proskurowski, Art Farley, Stuart Faulk, and Virginia Lo lead a delegation of 20 computer science students from the Pacific Northwest to Beijing for the first Pacific Rim Summer School in Global Distributed Software Development, July 2010. This intensive two-week program brought together an equal number of students from the Pacific Northwest and from Asia to learn about global software development in a cross-cultural classroom setting.
Hosted on the campus of Peking University, the Summer School emerged from ideas developed in workshops conducted in 2008-09, as part of the University of Oregon's project CPATHi18n: Internationalization of Computer Science Education - the Pacific Rim Community Model.
The summer school program included an intensive lab-based class in which students were organized into small cross-cultural software teams; and lecture-based classes on cross-cultural communication, international computer ethics, topics in software engineering, cloud computing, and parallel programming. All instruction was in English. Students could earn 6 credits in computer science through UO's Study Abroad Program.
The 2010 faculty team are from the University of Oregon, Peking University, Beihang University and industry partners Intel, Avaya Research, and Microsoft.
Student participants were selected from CPATHi18n Pacific Rim partner universities from the U.S., Canada, China, Japan, and Korea. Representing the University of Oregon are CIS undergraduates Stephen Auker, Nicholas Chaimov, Trevor Dilley, Andrew McCornack, and Kevin Trinh; and CIS graduate students Megan Brittell, Clayton Coleman, and Linda Sato.
Students and faculty studied and lived together on the campus of Peking University, and participated in team-building and cultural activities around Beijing.
The CPATH i18n project is an NSF funded collaborative research effort to create an international community of computer science departments, high tech industry, and international programs in the Pacific Rim. We are exploring a new model of computer science education that focuses on the knowledge, skills, and competencies necessary for professional success and leadership in a flat world. Our community will serve as a resource and model for growing similar communities throughout the world. See www.cpathi18n.org for more information, or download a copy of the Summer School brochure.