After the gold rush: Toward sustainable scholarship in computing

Lister, R

After the gold rush: Toward sustainable scholarship in computing

Lister, R

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Publication Type:: Conference Proceeding
Citation:: Conferences in Research and Practice in Information Technology Series, 2008, 78 pp. 3 - 17
Issue Date:: 2008-01-01

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Field	Value	Language
dc.contributor.author	Lister, R https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5780-0445	en_US
dc.date.issued	2008-01-01	en_US
dc.identifier.citation	Conferences in Research and Practice in Information Technology Series, 2008, 78 pp. 3 - 17	en_US
dc.identifier.isbn	9781920682590	en_US
dc.identifier.issn	1445-1336	en_US
dc.identifier.uri	http://hdl.handle.net/10453/12635
dc.description.abstract	In just thirty years, we have gone from punched cards to Second Life. But, as the American National Science Foundation (NSF) recently noted, "undergraduate computing education today often looks much as it did several decades ago" (NSF, 2006). Consequently, today's "Nintendo Generation" have voted with their feet. We bore them. The contrast between the changes wrought via computer research over the last 30 years, and the failure of computing education to adapt to those changes, is because computing academics lead a double life. In our research lives we see ourselves as part of a community that reaches beyond our own university. We read literature, we attend conferences, we publish, and the cycle repeats, with community members building upon each other's work. But in our teaching lives we rarely discuss teaching beyond our own university, we are not guided by any teaching literature; instead we simply follow our instincts. Academics in computing, or in any other discipline, can approach their teaching as research into how novices become experts. Several recent multi-institutional research collaborations have studied the development of novice programmers. This paper describes some of the results from those collaborations. The separation of our teaching and research lives diminishes not just our teaching but also our research. The modern practice of stripping away all 'distractions' to maximize research output is like the practice of stripping away rainforest to grow beef - both practices appear to work, for a little while, but not indefinitely. Twenty-first century academia needs to bring teaching and research together, to form a scholarship of computing that is an integrated, sustainable, ecological whole. © 2008, Australian Computer Society, Inc.	en_US
dc.relation.ispartof	Conferences in Research and Practice in Information Technology Series	en_US
dc.title	After the gold rush: Toward sustainable scholarship in computing	en_US
dc.type	Conference Proceeding
utslib.citation.volume	78	en_US
utslib.for	089999 Information and Computing Sciences not elsewhere classified	en_US
dc.location.activity	Wollongong, Australia	en_US
pubs.embargo.period	Not known	en_US
pubs.organisational-group	/University of Technology Sydney
pubs.organisational-group	/University of Technology Sydney/Faculty of Engineering and Information Technology
pubs.organisational-group	/University of Technology Sydney/Faculty of Engineering and Information Technology/School of Computer Science
pubs.organisational-group	/University of Technology Sydney/Strength - HCTD - Human Centred Technology Design
utslib.copyright.status	open_access
pubs.publication-status	Published	en_US
pubs.volume	78	en_US

Abstract:

In just thirty years, we have gone from punched cards to Second Life. But, as the American National Science Foundation (NSF) recently noted, "undergraduate computing education today often looks much as it did several decades ago" (NSF, 2006). Consequently, today's "Nintendo Generation" have voted with their feet. We bore them. The contrast between the changes wrought via computer research over the last 30 years, and the failure of computing education to adapt to those changes, is because computing academics lead a double life. In our research lives we see ourselves as part of a community that reaches beyond our own university. We read literature, we attend conferences, we publish, and the cycle repeats, with community members building upon each other's work. But in our teaching lives we rarely discuss teaching beyond our own university, we are not guided by any teaching literature; instead we simply follow our instincts. Academics in computing, or in any other discipline, can approach their teaching as research into how novices become experts. Several recent multi-institutional research collaborations have studied the development of novice programmers. This paper describes some of the results from those collaborations. The separation of our teaching and research lives diminishes not just our teaching but also our research. The modern practice of stripping away all 'distractions' to maximize research output is like the practice of stripping away rainforest to grow beef - both practices appear to work, for a little while, but not indefinitely. Twenty-first century academia needs to bring teaching and research together, to form a scholarship of computing that is an integrated, sustainable, ecological whole. © 2008, Australian Computer Society, Inc.

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http://hdl.handle.net/10453/12635