[game_edu] watered down CS programs

[Yusuf Pisan]

At 01:52 PM 28/03/2005 -0800, Buchanan, John wrote:
>...
>The major reason that many academics are jumping on the 'lets
train game
>people' is that the industry is lucrative.  By that very same
metric we
>should be instituding specialized Microsoft word programs since that
>product is also very lucrative.

Academics are jumping in on the "let's train game" because

	- Demand from students. They have played games, they know games
are cool and now they want to make games, and they want it now.

	- Demand from "senior" university administrators. They worry about
the bottom line. If most of your funding is from student numbers,
you will be very sensitive to the demands.

	- Junior academics trying to carve a name for themselves. Making a
dent in theoretical computing, algorithms, operating systems and
other traditional fields is very difficult, many years of research
that must be digested. Games is relatively virgin territory.

In fact, given these three major forces it is hard not to jump into
the game. Games industry is lucrative, but the funds from industry
has not been flowing towards academia so far, at least not as far
as I have seen.

You are not too far off the mark in Microsoft programs.  Microsoft
gives a great deal to universities under MSDNAA, where all staff
and students can install development programs (Visual C++ and
others) and operating systems at no cost in their home and work
computers. When it comes to deciding on what software to go into
the labs, hard to beat Microsoft's deal of free software unless
there is very compelling reason. As a result, we have freeware/open
source and Microsoft installed in most of our labs.

CISCO has been providing hardware, software and educational
material that gets used in classes. The alternative would be
students would learn about "theoretical" networking rather than the
hands-on practical approach. We do go beyond the mere CISCO
supplied materials, but there is no denying their strong influence
in out networks subject. Students love the possibility of their
university subject covering part of their CCNA requirements. Many
students get the CISCO certification which help them in getting jobs.

As far as I know, Microsoft education/training material has not
infiltrated that mush into the undergraduate curriculum, but it is
just a matter of time. MS has chosen to set-up parallel training
institutions so far.

How do we reverse the trends? Err, I don't know. Stand firm on your
principles and doing the "right thing" will only go so far.

Cheers,

Yusuf
Ps: I work at an Australian university, but my comments are valid
for most academic institutions that feel the financial squeeze.

--
Yusuf Pisan
Senior Lecturer
Department of Software Engineering
Faculty of Information Technology
University of Technology, Sydney
http://staff.it.uts.edu.au/~ypisan/
ypisan[AT]it.uts.edu.au