Curriculum Committee Agenda 2021 May 3
- Mark Hasegawa-Johnson
Attending
Anu Aggarwal, Yuliy Baryshnikov, Can Bayram, Ujjal Bhowmik, Simeon Bogdanov, Mark Hasegawa-Johnson, Volodymyr Kindratenko, Erhan Kudeki, Kirill Levchenko, Andrew Miller, Thomas Moon, Shaloo Rakheja, Chris Schmitz, Jonathan Schuh, Ilan Shomorony
Time and Place
Monday, May 3, 4:00pm, https://illinois.zoom.us/j/96972752638?pwd=Z3hqdUxYamNJazNYRkR0V1JmM0padz09
New Business
a. IB 362 as a Tech Elective
Proposal to count IB362 as a Tech Elective. IB362 Course Description.png, IB 362 Syllabus.pdf
Definitions of Technical Elective.
- They include courses in ECE, other engineering departments, and the basic sciences and mathematics departments. (https://ece.illinois.edu/academics/ugrad/curriculum/ee-curriculum-06).
- Courses that are “same as” ECE courses are counted as ECE courses.
- Campus Humanities course which meets the Comp II requirement does not count as an ECE Elective.
- Special Topics courses without technical content will not count as ECE electives.
- Specifically required ECE courses (e.g., ECE 220) do not count as electives.
- Courses for non-majors (e.g., ECE 205) do not count except by permission.
- No student may take more than 4 hours special problems with the same instructor, nor count more than a total of 6 hours towards graduation as a technical elective or a required advanced ECE course or lab. https://ece.illinois.edu/academics/ugrad/curriculum/tech-electives-06
Comments from committee members unable to attend:
- I don't have a strong objection to IB 362, but I do wonder how we choose the ones that we allow--just when someone asks, perhaps? 362 has no prereqs, whereas 364 has a chain (strong bio background--IB150 AND MCB150, followed by IB 204). Why wouldn't we allow 364 as a tech elective?
- For the IB362, my questions would be related to the course content. For example, algal blooms can be modeled with rate equations, or we can be shown pretty pictures. I don't know where on the scale between these two endpoints this course happens to be...if it is a nice mix, I would be in favor of it.
STATUS: Tabled pending examination, by the committee, of representative homework assignments from this course.
b. Revision of ECE 417
Proposal to modify the pre-requisites for ECE 417: ece417_revision_2021.docx
c. Tech Elective Credit for AP Courses
Our recent curriculum revision proposed Tech Elective credit for Chem 102; we now must decide whether this includes students who get Chem 102 credit for passing the AP exam. We have been told that there are only three options: (a) all AP science and math courses get Tech Elective credit, (b) exactly one AP science or math course, of the student's choosing, gets Tech Elective credit, others are free electives, or (c) AP courses count only as free electives, not Tech Electives (this is the status quo). OUTCOME: no vote was taken, but opinions expressed during discussion were in favor of the status quo.
d. CBTF
CBTF will stop offering exam proctoring services. Many ECE courses have depended on CBTF to permit closed-book exams for remote sections. It was proposed that the Curriculum Committee should write a letter to the College of Engineering, urging the college to find a replacement for CBTF, possibly in the form of a standardized interface that can be staffed by course TAs.