Met: March 16th, 2023 at 5pm
Adjourned at 6:30pm with extended discussions until 8:30.
Key Action Item Overview
- Equipment
- (IMPORTANT): SSDs in the lab machines (update: this was completed. Thank you)
- Laptop cart (Windows, ChromeOS and Apple Machines)
- VMWare on Server
- Field Trips:
- Gannon (Connect with Mei)
- Tentatively scheduled for Sept 29, 2023
- Update: 43 students attended: see here
- Erie Insurance (Contact through Eric)
- Emailed Jon O’Camb 4/18/2023
- (update 9/26/23) Continued discussion into Sept. Aiming for field trip this year. Currently corresponding with Jason.Arndt@ERieInsurance.com (part of Talent Optimization Management team within IT)
- Emailed Jon O’Camb 4/18/2023
- Whitethorn(?) (Email response pending)
- Gannon (Connect with Mei)
- Possible Articulation Agreements (article):
- Gannon (Connect with Mei)
- UPDATE: Per discussion with Mei-Huei Tang: Students who pass the AP Computer Science A Exam with a score of 4 or higher will qualify to bypass the CIS 180/181 course (while still earning the credits). Students will need to show evidence of their test score to admissions, and if any issue is encountered it would be resolved by the comp sci department.
- Erie County Community College (talk with Sandy/Toni)
- Gannon (Connect with Mei)
- Skills employers are looking for
- Soft skills (Eg. ability to communicate and function in a professional environment) were deemed most important, assuming basic competence
- Additional technologies to possibly incorporate
- Mongo DB (after establishing a good understanding of JSON)
- still in the backlog
- GitLab
- Update:
- Looked into gitlab which seemed like a lot of overhead for our purposes, but will continue to explore its possibilities when possble.
- Looked into github classroom, but it will not verify anyone without a .edu email (this is a fully automated system and a recent change by github)
- Started getting all students into github within the first few weeks of their first year to try and make it more second nature.
- Update:
- Apache Kafka – event driven architectures (publish/subscribe)
- Still in the backlog
- Mongo DB (after establishing a good understanding of JSON)
- Task list update
- Explore more granular task list (checkbox style); Possibly leverage GitLab in conjunction with it to further complement the more individualize pace the course is aiming for.
- Began work on a possible updated task list: [DRAFT] Possible new CMP Task List.xlsx
- Note: The formal way to update a task list is through DACUM where representatives come in from the community to hash one out, but I think it’s important to have some kind of draft first. We had a DACUM in 2018, but it was based off of something that did not really align with other expectations of the PA Dept of Education and the NOCTI.
- Began work on a possible updated task list: [DRAFT] Possible new CMP Task List.xlsx
- Explore more granular task list (checkbox style); Possibly leverage GitLab in conjunction with it to further complement the more individualize pace the course is aiming for.
- Career Opportunities
- No new CoOp opportunities were identified by the group
- Paul suggested sharing some of his open source projects he is working on with some students to work on, with him to help mentor them. – Connect with Paul.
- Encouraged a few students to reach out, but I don’t believe any did.
Meeting Minutes
| Name | Organization | Present (INITIAL) | Absent |
| Chairperson: | |||
| Eric Robert Bach | Erie Insurance Group | x | |
| Nathan Ciavarella | Mercer County Career Center | x | |
| Gabriella Clemente | Howard Industries | x | |
| Kevin DiGilio | KMD Technology Solutions | x | |
| Nathan DiGilio | KMD Technology Solutions | x | |
| Michele Hunter | Crawford County Technical Center | x | |
| Greg Kilgas | Industrial Machine Repair & Programming | x | |
| Weston Kilgas | Erie County Technical School | x | |
| Jack Meyer | Larson Texts | x | |
| Jason Patalon | Erie Insurance Group | x | |
| Venkata Ralapalli | Erie Insurance Group | x | |
| Kerry Reinsel | Parker Hannifin Corporation | x | |
| Manish Sharma | Erie Insurance Group | x | |
| Tanmay Sharma | Erie County Technical School | x | |
| Paul Sherer | WolfyMaster Media | x | |
| Donna R Smolko | MacDonald, Illig, Jones & Britton LLP | x | |
| Daniel Steeneck | Akuret Solutions | x | |
| Mei-Huei Tang | Gannon University | x | |
| Daniel Tupitza | M&T Bank | x | |
| Luke Wilmoth | Erie High School | x | |
| Mary Jo Zimmer | Erie Insurance Group | x |
| Agenda Items | Discussion & Recommendations | Instructor Response |
| 1. Call To Order | ||
| 2. Director Tarasovitch’s opening remarks and ARP-ESSER Grant video | OAC 3-23 Welcome.mp4 OAC ARP Revision Approval.mp4 | |
| 3. Minutes Motion to approve the minutes of the previous meeting | CMP OAC Minutes 10-10-2022 – JT Review.pdf Laptop cart request: Laptop Cart Request.docx The server is working and has been used by some students for small projects and experiments, but it has not been set up with a Windows Server Environment or HyperV for virtualization. At this point, the request has been made for the lab to have its own network with less restrictions and have it managed by the networking lab once we move from the renovations. Discussion: VMWare has a school program that can be installed (includes MySQL) Oracle has Virtual Box The goal is to have the server set up with virtual environments for each student to work on. We will aim to collaborate with CMN (probably after the labs move) to get this set up so that students have a linux environment they can work in with no risk to disturbing other development environments (eg. Other students’ work) Motion: Eric, Luke | I will continue to request the laptop cart as grants become available. I will continue to push for a separate network for the CMP lab. I will keep sight of the virtualization goal on the server and work with the Computer Networking lab (after the move) to set up and maintain individual environments for the students (probably with VMWare). |
| 4. ARP-ESSER Grant Acknowledgement and Approval Motion to endorse the ARP-ESSER Grant as presented by J. Tarasovitch. | Motion: Nathan, Greg | |
| 5. Curriculum & Performance Objectives Motion to endorse the curriculum and performance objectives as being critical to successful employment. | Course sequence: CMP_course_sequence_updated_2020.docx Course sequence broken down with subtopics: CMP_course_sequence_broken_down-2022.docx Discussion: The option to rework the sequence was put on the table by the instructor, but no one felt there was anything that required major changes. It was discussed that possibly some coverage of NoSQL (document database) is added to the course (markLogic/MongoDB). This would have to be preceded by lessons on JSON. VB and Java considered fine in the curriculum as very stable technologies, especially in larger companies with large code bases that have been around for a while. Discussed making sure that the languages being taught were the best fit for preparing students for the field. Ultimately, it was the opinion of the group that “Hiring is less about the specific languages and more about the quality of the person”, “[for entry level] you’re not hiring for specific skills, you’re hiring the individual” Also discussed the instructor’s initiative to try and give students more “free” time (time to work on programming areas of their particular interest). This was idea was liked by the committee and agreed upon that it can lead to better, more invested, young developers. Senior Projects were discussed as well. These would be much larger, more involved projects for 3rd year students. Motion: Dan, Michele | I will leave the course sequence as-is for now, but explore developing content/lessons for MongoDB, with the possible outcome of changing out (or reducing) one of the SQL Server quarters with something like “JSON and Document Databases” I will be mindful that the traits deemed most important (aside from general competence) are more like soft skills. I will seek ways to drive this point home with students. I will continue the experiment of providing more time for students to explore on their own, while seeking to extract those experiences into the ecosystem. Thereby allowing for self-direction, while also developing critical skills (eg. Writing/communication), and better portfolios. |
| 6. Industry Standards (or Licensing Board Criteria) Motion to endorse the program as meeting industry standards (or licensing board criteria). | Current Task List: ECTS CMP Task List.docx Note: This task list was made to directly align with the NOCTI. If the group feels it would be better to create something less vague and more granular, we can talk about a DACUM. Discussion: Some members voiced an interest in seeing a more “granular” and measurable (“checkboxes”) task list. Others recognized the value in the abstraction, and then it was recognized that the overall goals for the course should dictate the task list (since this cip code is not a POS). The overall goals for this course are to prepare students as well as possible to enter directly into an entry level position in the field, should the opportunities become more available. Discussed possibly redoing the task list as sets of granular tasks (extracted from syllabi?) and then even tying it in with gitlab with tasks each quarter to allow students to develop at their pace with evidence in github for each task completed. Motion: Dan S, Dan T | I will explore the idea of a more granular task list, possibly resulting in a draft for the committee to look over and expand on. I will also seek opportunities to become familiar with gitlab, and try to incorporate it into the class, possibly in the form of task tracking. Eg. Maybe each lesson is an article and/or video in the ecosystem. The lesson is linked from a task. The student follows the link, completes the task, pushes the code, and marks the task complete for review. |
| 7. Resource and Instructional Materials Motion to endorse the resource and instructional materials as meeting industry standards and the needs of the program | In addition to custom assignments/programs/lessons and internet resources, we use the following textbooks New Perspectives on Computer Concepts 21st edition. https://www.cengage.ca/c/new-perspectives-computer-concepts-comprehensive-21e-parsons-parsons/9780357674611/ Programming with Microsoft Visual Basic (Note: I think VB is great for the students, but I would love it if anyone knew of a good textbook that uses WPF) Java Programming New Perspectives on HTML5, CSS3, and JavaScript A Guide to SQL ALWAYS SEEKING NEW PROGRAM IDEAS! If anyone ever encounters a task they need to develop, if it is going to be non-proprietary, please share those requirements with the class. Seeing real world requirements/tasks would be an invaluable resource. Discuss: “The Ecosystem” : https://ecosystem.ects-cmp.com/ Discussion: Most developers are using VS Code as their IDE. No recommended changes to text books. Instructor shared that they are mostly used for guidance and supplemental materials, but leaning too much on them leads to a restless and less engaging class. Quickly demoed “The Ecosystem”. Members were invited to request logins so that they may become contributors to the site. This would be invaluable to the students and the learning/developing environment. ChatGPT was briefly talked about with regard to its weight in the field. It was noted that, for anything used from a bot or a website (eg. Stack overflow), you should understand every line of code before you run it. ChatGPT was also noted as having some value as a tool in validating a solution. Also discussed using kafka (https://kafka.apache.org ) on the class server and touch on event streaming (“choreography”)…could be fun and extremely educational. Gitlab could also be installed on the server and used for student task tracking. Sample DBs: StackOverflow has various sizes that can be pulled down and worked with. CodeCademy has the IMDb db for exploring. Motion: Dan S, Eric | We currently use VS Code for web development, and will strive to use it for other languages. I will follow up with the committee members and offer to create author credentials for anyone interested in contributing to the ecosystem. I will look into kafka (or put an advanced student on the job), and then see about developing a “choreography” lesson. I will look more into how I might best incorporate gitlab. |
| 8. Equipment & Tools Needed and Laboratory Size NOTE: Along with the motion to endorse below, please identify any existing equipment that is outdated, and no longer relevant for curriculum. Identify any new equipment to submit in the equipment request. Motion to endorse the facilities and equipment as meeting industry standards, insofar as practical. The equipment and tools needed MUST be clearly reflected/documented in these minutes and OAC motion supporting requests MUST be submitted as evidence as part of Supplemental Equipment grant applications. | Issues with lab computers. Need solid state drives, monitors overheat. Still requesting laptop cart: Laptop cart request: Laptop Cart Request.docx Discussion: Solid state drives ABSULUTELY MUST be installed into the machines. No developer should be working on machines with mechanical hard drives. This should be done before the next school year. Motion: Dan T, Nathan | IMPORTANT The committee emphatically agreed that the machines should have solid state drives as soon as possible (no later than the start of next school year) I will continue submitting my request for the laptop cart. |
| Agenda Items | Discussion & Recommendations | Instructor Response |
| 13. Discuss ideas for Co-op work opportunities, Internships and Shadowing Opportunities | 1 student (junior) going out on coop at ECCA. https://www.goecca.com/ If this is a success we will pursue giving additional students the opportunity there. Hoping to eventually set something up with Erie Insurance for a “High School” program. Working with Eric B on that. Discussion Erie Insurance is working on a “high school” program, but it is going extremely slowly. Eric B is keeping an eye on it. No new ideas surfaced for CoOp opportunities. Paul S discussed many open source projects he is currently working on. We talked about him using those to help mentor students (possibly building initial connections/interests through the ecosystem). | I will connect with Paul about his open source projects and see how we can get students involved in real-world development with his guidance. |
| 15. Discuss ideas on Post-Secondary Articulation Agreements | Working to develop something with Gannon (AP: “I’ll start at this site https://apcentral.collegeboard.org/courses/ap-computer-science-a and explore integrating it into the course material. If you have any tips on how to best leverage what is offered there, please let me know. “)…need to pick undergraduate courses and discuss putting this on paper. Email out to Behrend, with follow up, but have not heard back. Discussion Mei and I are going to set up a meeting at a later date to further discuss how to get the articulation agreement set up with Gannon. | I will set up a call with Mei to discuss articulation agreements and a field trip. |
| 16. Discuss ideas on Field Trip Experiences, Guest Speakers, etc. | Guest Speakers? The Ecosystem? Went to Behrend. Next year, maybe in Sept, Field trip to Gannon? Field trip to ERIE? Request for field trip (or speaker) to whitethorn games Discussion Field Trips Gannon Field Trip. Erie Insurance Field trip (Eric to put me in touch with John O’Camb) Speakers: Dan Tupitza Paul Sherer Nathan D (with Michael P and Dan P) | I will reach out individually to Dan, Paul, and Nathan to establish times/topics for them to come in and talk with the group(s). |
| 17. New Business/Additional Discussion Topics | ||
| 18. Meeting Adjournment | Motion: Dan T, Nathan D |
