Date
Oct 18, 2021
Attendees
J. Allen, U. Bhowmik, Z. Cheng, K. Driggs-Campbell, M. Hasegawa-Johnson, Y.-C. Hu, R. Iyer, N. Kani, j. Kim, E. Kudeki, T. Moon, C. Radhakrishnan, U. Ravaioli, A. Schwing. Guest: Eric Chitambar
Minutes
The first item of discussion was the approval of ECE 398AS "Programming Methods for Machine Learning," to be submitted as temporary offering for the second time. Alexander Schwing, who besides being the chief course developer is also a committee member, introduced the course and reported on the ongoing class being taught in Fall 2021. A comprehensive array of Python notebooks have been developed for this course, which illustrate all the relevant topic with hands-on applications examples. Erhan Kudeki commented that he had a chance to review these instructional modules and expressed appreciation for the quality and breadth of the material. He also commented that it would be desirable to popularize this material at some point, making it available as a start to ECE faculty. Alex indicated that this may indeed happen once the development is completed and polished, adding that he has already received request for access from outside the university as an indication that there is already growing interest. A brief discussion followed about whether there should be a policy in place for opening up access to educational material. The chair expressed the opinion that although material developed by faculty is under the general "ownership" of the Board of Trustees, it is stated that faculty members developing the material ultimately retain the copyright and that a broader discussion needs to take place. The Curriculum Committee could consider the issue and provide recommendations but any policy should be formulated and implemented according to the regulations in place by the appropriate administrative units. It was suggested that the department head could be invited to attend a future meeting to discuss the possibility for a uniform policy regulating public access to faculty developed material and to review opportunities and potential benefits of doing so. Mark Hasegawa-Johnson also posed the question whether a junior course, like this ECE 398 one, could replace eventually the CS 225 requirement. Ravi Iyer and Alex Schwing followed up expressing the opinion that the coding experience provided by CS 225 is very valuable for the development of students' skills in Computer Engineering and that the existing requirement should stay in place. The chair noted that in any case students would be in a position to take this ECE 398 course even before CS 225, due to the practical orientation of the material, for an early exposure to machine learning and then could take CS 225 with another skill set added to their repertoire. It was agreed that both courses would be desirable for securing good internship opportunities. Perhaps, after the course is fully established, the committee could revisit whether this course could become one of the computing options for the 3-of-5 list that EE must take. ECE 398AS was approved for a second offering in Spring 2022 with unanimous consent and no objections raised.
The discussion then moved to ECE 398EC "Quantum Systems I". Eric Chitambar joined the meeting as a guest and introduced the course as well as the broader portfolio of 400-level courses for which this course would be a pre-requisite while at the same time replacing the existing ECE 487. The plan has already identified ECE 306 as the number for this new course once approval for permanent offering is gained. Eric also discussed the existing coordination with Physics faculty. Erhan Kudeki added that the existing sophomore course PHYS 214, which introduces quantum topics for the first time in the curriculum, is undergoing a revamping to make it more relevant to ECE students. The general discussion covered the interrelationship between the various courses in the quantum curriculum. At some point the issue was raised about the possibilities to include a laboratory component. Eric commented that in general experiments based on quantum optics would be more feasible than the ones requiring superconductors or ions entanglement. He added that the Physics Department is considering the development of related instructional laboratories and there may be opportunities to latch onto this effort in the future, which could also be favorably considered under the umbrella of the IQUIST quantum information initiative on campus. The chair asked whether "field trips" could be organized for students in the class to get familiar with the ongoing experimental efforts in the Physics Department. In a further comment, Erhan wondered whether there would be an interest in pursuing educational development of virtual reality visualization, following the example of what is done in electromagnetics by Raluca Ilie. It was agreed that there may be a good chance to pursue funding with NSF. After the wide ranging discussion, the committee approved also this course for offering in Spring 2021 with unanimous consent and no objection.