Course Development for Computer Science Degrees

The 1970s

In the 1960s, when new departments of computing were being set up in the universities and polytechnics across the UK there was much debate about their discipline. Should they be aligned with the mathematical, physical or engineering sciences? (Some might say this has still not been resolved!) There was no engineering faculty in Aberystwyth and so the home for the new Department of Computer Science became the School of Mathematics. The department started with the appointment of Professor Glyn Emery in 1970.

The School of Maths provided a context that has some influence on the department’s development. A BSc Single Honours was available in Applied Maths or Pure Maths, and a Joint BSc Honours in Statistics with either Pure or Applied Maths. Also a general Maths Ordinary degree was running. Just as for the rest of the College, these were two-part degrees with the first year covering Part 1 and Part 2 taking the following two years. Exams were held at the end of the academic year. A pass in O level maths was required to enter the Faculty of Science and an A level for the main subject in the School of Maths. Entry was into the School rather than the departments.

The mathematicians weren’t too happy about Computer Science breaking into this structure and taking students away from their well-established degree schemes. So the way forward was to start with a joint degree and in autumn 1971 the first students started on Part 2 of a new Joint BSc: Computer Science with either Pure, Applied Maths, or Statistics. The status of computing as a discipline still rumbled on with people wondering how many computers would be “enough” and remarks about it being a “passing phase”.

Part 1 was more difficult. Part 1 in the School of Maths consisted of 3 subjects, and these were already taken up by the three maths departments, who saw this as a showcase to encourage students to select their department for Part 2. Hence a short course (10 lectures) in CS was also given to all first year School of Maths students. Eventually agreement was established to run a full Part 1 for Computer Science (in 1974).

The short Part 1 course involved simple programming using Basic. Algol 60 was used for Part 2 courses. Students were allowed one batch job per day, using punched cards on the University's Elliott 4130. By 1975 the college had land-line access to a CDC 7600 supercomputer front-ended by an ICL 2900 in the Manchester Regional Computer Center; this center served many universities in the North and West, and the overnight service complemented the local provision.

In these early days universities and colleges were offering courses on topics like ‘Compiler writing’, ‘Operating system design’ and ‘Assembly coding’. These reflected what was going on in the industry, which was growing fast but, of course, had yet to develop the technologies that take up so much of today’s syllabuses. Our courses also had quite a strong "Numerical analysis" flavour; not surprising given that Horst Holstein and Brian Rudling were experts in that area.

As the student intake grew, new partners for our Joint BSc Computer Science were started:

Year	Course
1972	Computer Science with Physics or Chemistry
1974	Computer Science with Geography, Geology, or Philosophy
1980	Computer Science with Accounting.

1973 saw the first Computer Science students graduate with Joint degrees. This year the department introduced PhD programmes and MSc by research or dissertation.

In October 1974 the Units scheme was introduced into the School of Maths. This allowed students to select modules or ‘units’ from the departments and their degree would be determined by their eventual choices. They took six units per year in Part 2 and they had a choice of three departments, out of four, in Part 1.

In 1976 the first Single Honours students graduate. An industrial year scheme was introduced.

In 1979 Pascal became the department's main teaching language, replacing Basic and Algol.

Part 2 units offered in 1980

In 1980, the set of modules offered for students in Part 2 are listed below.

Module Code	Module Title
C200	Numerical Computer Programming h
C210	Data structures
C220	Small Systems
C230	Introduction to Systems h
C240	Advanced programming h
C250	Digital Logic h
C270	Data processing h
C280	Numerical Analysis I
C330	Systems Engineering
C331	Operating Systems
C340	Programming Languages h
C350	Computer Architecture
C360	Computer Graphics
C361	Artificial Intelligence
C370	Data Management h
C371	Systems Analysis h
C380	Numerical Analysis II
C390	Major Project
C391	Minor Project h

The School of Maths coding indicates ‘C’ for computer science, 2 or 3 first digit for year, second digit for topic area, and ‘h’ signifies a half-sized unit. Students signed up to six units per year, some of which could be mathematical courses.

Microcomputers were becoming important by 1980 and a Single Honours Microelectronics and Computing degree was started. This was run by Computer Science and Physics jointly involving cooperative administration. Students on the MEC degree carried out electronic lab-work and major projects involving both hardware and software challenges.

In 1986, after many models had been discussed at length, the three maths departments merged into one. The School of Maths thus became two departments, Computer Science and Maths. Professor Ken Walters was appointed Head of Maths for five years. More than 50 students per year were graduating in CS in the 1980s.

Part 2 units offered in 1988

Module Code	Module Title
C210	Data structures and Algorithms
C230	Computer Systems
C251	Basic Computer Hardware h
C270	Files and Data Processing
C282	Control System Theory h
C321	Interactive Computer Graphics h
C322	Computational Geometry h
C330	Software Engineering
C340	Programming Languages
C362	Artificial Intelligence – Concepts h
C363	Artificial Intelligence – Systems h
C364	Industrial Robotics h
C370	Data Management h
C371	Systems Analysis h
C372	Commercial Applications h
C390	Major Project
C391	Minor Project h

Compared with the units offered at the start of the decade several trends and influences can be detected. The three numerical analysis units have made room for new courses, such as Software Engineering, Industrial Robotics, and Commercial Applications. Digital Logic has been absorbed into Computer Hardware, and Computer Graphics and Artificial Intelligence have been refined into specific half units. These developments reflect the department’s maturing interests and concerns; Software Engineering became the central discipline of the department’s teaching, mainly initiated by Mike Tedd, and the other changes emerged from the research programmes that were established in the 1980s.

The Major Project was a substantial piece of independent work undertaken in the final year. Nominally it might involve the design, implementation, and presentation of a significant software package. It could take up to 50% of the student's time and the department spent much effort in refining and tuning the assessment process. One problem with using numerical marking schemes is that the obvious 0 to 10 scale does not easily map on to university conventions for degree grades. In most subjects (an exception being maths), first class results start at 70% and failures are below 35%. This means allocating numerical marks for each aspect of the marking scheme can produce unintended errors. We devised marking schemes that used a qualitative approach for values which both maintained the examiners intentions and returned results within the scale of the university conventions.

In 1988 we became the First UK university department to adopt Ada as the main teaching language, replacing Pascal. A departmental network of SUNs were used for Ada teaching. The departmental ethernet was now linked to the university campus net. Many courses were discontinued owing to departmental closures, including, Classics, Chemistry, and Philosophy.

In 1989 the College of Librarianship Wales merged with the university and became the Department of Information and Library Studies (DILS).

A joint University of Wales course was established: an MSc in "Artificial Intelligence with Engineering Applications". This was run by three departments across two institutions: Electrical, Electronic and Systems Engineering, Cardiff, Computing Mathematics, Cardiff, and Computer Science Aberystwyth. This course used the UoW videoconferencing facilities for some of the lectures and student interaction. Five colleges of the federal university each had a purpose-build studio with multiple cameras, white-board and document projection equipment. The video facilities were booked centrally through JANET and a high speed rented BT line gave excellent service. Students on the course attended their local studio and a fully interactive lecture environment was created. Some of the students came to Aberystwyth to work on their major project. Patrick Olivier joined us by this route.

In 1990 a new IT BSc degree was introduced. A level maths was now preferred, rather than required, (but still necessary for entry to Maths). The Masters conversion course expanded dramatically with ESF and SERC funding. New degrees included a BSc with modern languages and a single-honours in Information Science (run by CS and DILS).

New BEng and MEng in Software Engineering were introduced in 1992. These were 3 or 4-year courses respectively, or 4 or 5 years if an industrial year was included.

Part 2 units offered in 1996

Module Code	Module Title
CS21020	Program Design, Data Structures and Algorithms
CS22120	The Software Development Lifecycle
CS22210	Operating Systems and Concurrency
CS23110	Small Real-Time Systems
CS23710	C and UNIX Systems Programming
CS25110	Communications and Telematics
CS25410	Digital System Design
CS26210	Artificial Intelligence Concepts
CS27310	Relational Database Systems
CS28010	Professional and Personal Development II
MA24010	Mathematics for Software Engineering
CS31010	Object-Oriented Programming and Design
CS32110	Interactive Computer Graphics
CS32210	User Centred Design and Human Computer Interaction
CS33310	Formal Methods in Software Engineering
CS33610	Software Maintenance
CS34210	Topics in Programming Languages
CS35110	Advanced Telematics
CS35210	Issues in the Information Society
CS35410	High Level Digital Design
CS36310	Artificial Intelligence Systems
CS36410	Industrial Robotics
CS37410	Information Systems Analysis and Design
CS38010	Professional Issues in Software Engineering
CS38410	Management in Computing
CS39030	Major Project
CS39110	Minor Project

More engineering issues have now entered the syllabus. The MEng modules also show this with courses such as: Safety-related Systems, Quantitative Methods in Software Engineering, and Professional Studies II. Java becomes the main teaching programming language.

In 2017 the results of the Teaching Excellence Framework were published. Aberystwyth was awarded the highest grade of gold for quality of teaching.

By 2020 the department was offering twenty-two separate Single Honours degrees, five Joint degrees, and six Single Honours Masters programmes:

Single Honours

Course	Qualification and number of years
Artificial Intelligence and Robotics	BSc, 3 Years
Artificial Intelligence and Robotics (with integrated year in industry)	BSc, 4 Years
Business Information Technology	BSc, 3 Years
Business Information Technology (with integrated foundation year)	BSc, 4 Years
Business Information Technology (with integrated year in industry)	BSc, 4 Years
Computer Graphics, Vision and Games	BSc, 3 Years
Computer Graphics, Vision and Games (with integrated year in industry)	BSc, 4 Years
Computer Science	BSc, 3 Years
Computer Science (with integrated foundation year)	BSc, 4 Years
Computer Science (with integrated year in industry)	BSc, 4 Years
Computer Science (with integrated year studying abroad)	BSc, 4 Years
Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence	BSc, 3 Years
Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence (with integrated year in industry)	BSc, 4 Years
Data Science	BSc, 3 Years
Data Science (with integrated year in industry)	BSc, 4 Years
Robotics and Embedded Systems Engineering	BEng, 3 Years
Robotics and Embedded Systems Engineering (with integrated year in industry)	BEng, 4 Years
Software Engineering (with integrated year in industry)	BEng, 4 Years
Space Science and Robotics	BSc, 3 Years
Web Development	BSc, 3 Years
Web Development	BSc, 4 Years
Web Development (with integrated year in industry)	BSc, 4 Years

Joint Honours

Course	Qualification and number of years
Accounting and Finance and Computing	BSc, 3 Years
Business and Management and Computing	BSc, 3 Years
Computer Science / Mathematics	BSc, 3 Years
Computer Science / Physical Geography	BSc, 3 Years
Computer Science / Physics	BSc, 3 Years

Integrated Masters

Integrated Masters courses are where students undertake 4 or 5 years of study. The final year is a Masters level year with several modules in common with the MSc students. The distinction is that the students are undergraduates until they finish the whole course, which enables them to access undergraduate finance to cover all of the years.

Course	Qualification and number of years
Computer Science	MComp, 4 Years
Computer Science (with integrated year in industry)	MComp, 5 Years
Robotics and Embedded Systems Engineering	MEng, 4 Years
Robotics and Embedded Systems Engineering (with integrated year in industry)	MEng, 5 Years
Software Engineering (with integrated year in industry)	MEng, 5 Years
Space Science and Robotics	MPhys, 4 Years