Proposed Minor Revision to the EE Curriculum (10/8/13)
The ECE Curriculum Committee recommends a minor revision to the EE Curriculum. The proposal is to replace the following courses in the EE curriculum:
ECE 110 (4 hours) Introduction to Electrical and Computer Engineering, Prerequisite: Credit or registration in calculus
ECE 190 (4 hours) Introduction to Computing Systems, Prerequisite ECE 110
ECE 290 (3 hours) Computer Engineering I, Prerequisite ECE 190
ECE 385 (2 hours) Digital Systems Laboratory, Prerequisite ECE 290
with the following
ECE 110 (new 3 hour version) Introduction to Electrical and Computer Engineering, Prerequisite: (Basically, some calculus)
ECE 120 (4 hours) (Prototype ECE 198JL) Introduction to Computer Engineering, Prerequisite: None
ECE 220 (4 hours) (Prototype ECE 198KL) Introduction to Computing Systems, Prerequisite: ECE 120
ECE 385 (new 3 hour version) (Prototype ECE 298DC) Digital Systems Laboratory, Prerequisite: ECE 220
Reduce number of technical elective credits required from 33 to 32 hours to maintain a total of 128 hours.
Notes: The primary goals of the replacement of ECE 190 and ECE 290 with the new courses ECE 120 and ECE 220 are:
- Revitalization of the digital design content of ECE's computing core.
- Improvements in both motivation and retention.
- Extension of the time allotted to introductory programming in the ECE sequence by spreading current ECE190 content into an earlier semester.
- Enabling substantially more ECE students to be prepared for advanced classes, summer internships, and software-based research opportunities by the end of sophomore year.
- Decoupling the computing core from the electrical core topics, allowing students to progress separately on either/both and thereby shortening the overall length of the core prerequisite chain.
- Preparing students without prior programming experience for ECE 190, to address the current bimodal distribution that makes the course difficult for many such students.
The new courses recast these two semesters by reversing the order of the core material (digital design first), revise and update the digital logic aspects, and more carefully integrate the introductory material with both hardware and software elements in a way that excites and motivates new ECE students. Experimental versions of the courses have been offered several times (every semester starting in Fall 2012 for ECE 120/ECE 198JL, and every semester starting in Spring 2013 for ECE 220/ECE198KL).
The reduction in hours in ECE 110 from 4 to 3 will be accomplished by removing some of the material overlapping with ECE 120 and ECE 220.
The revised version of ECE 385 will hold two lectures per week, thus covering more depth and breadth for the topics important to digital systems design. This also makes the course pace slower than the current 385 and is adjusted to a level where students can absorb what they learn from lectures and translate that into practice effectively. Some relatively complicated concepts (such as the add-and-shift algorithm for multiplier design with 2's complement values) can be covered using two lectures for a better learning experience. The course also switches from VHDL used in 385 to SystemVerilog, which is more popular for modern circuit design. There will be a final exam that examines the concepts, design techniques, and general knowledge covered through the course.