The University of Texas at San Antonio (UTSA) was awarded a $333,842 project grant from the National Science Foundation's Computer and Information Science and Engineering (CISE) program. The grant will fund the design and implementation of a modernized first-year introductory computer science course sequence that incorporates fundamental elements of parallel and distributed computation. The project aims to remedy a key impediment in updating introductory computing curricula - the lack of example course materials reflecting current computing systems and infrastructure.
The project will develop and evaluate the effectiveness of the new course sequence at UTSA and six additional diverse institutions. Instructors from the participating colleges and universities will receive intensive training to adopt the modernized curriculum. The project outcomes will be broadly disseminated through publications, outreach efforts, and the NSF-sponsored ACCESS program to enable widespread adoption of the updated introductory computing courses. This award supports NSF's mission to advance scientific progress and technological innovation in computing and information science.