Papers by Thomas Kaczmarek
COSMIC is an NSF S-STEM graduate curriculum initiative/conversion program that strives to provide... more COSMIC is an NSF S-STEM graduate curriculum initiative/conversion program that strives to provide an accelerated pathway to a Master of Science (MS) degree for individuals who do not have an undergraduate degree in computing, but who wish to cross over into the computing field. The structure of our conversion program, the context that motivated it, and insights from conversion students\u27 instructors are presented. Program successes with students from under-represented populations and the limitations that are also experienced are discussed. Our conversion program is based on a highly focused summer bridge course, combined with a customized curriculum pathway that enables people without undergraduate computing degrees to merge quickly and efficiently into a professional MS in computing degree program. The program is similar in concept to post-baccalaureate conversion programs in New Zealand (e.g., the Master of Software Development at the Victoria University of Wellington) and the e...
Proceedings of the 26th ACM Conference on Innovation and Technology in Computer Science Education V. 1, 2021
The COSMIC: Change Opportunity-Start Masters in Computing graduate curriculum initiative strives ... more The COSMIC: Change Opportunity-Start Masters in Computing graduate curriculum initiative strives to provide a rapid entry pathway to a professional Master of Science (MS) degree for individuals who do not have an undergraduate degree in computing, but who wish to cross over to a career in the computing field. The goal of our curriculum is to minimize the time students spend preparing for graduate study and maximize experiences relevant for work after graduation. The COSMIC curriculum initiative is similar in concept to other post-baccalaureate conversion programs. However, customization of the COSMIC bridge course and curriculum pathway makes it possible for conversion students to complete the bridge course in summer, then move directly to standard graduate program courses in fall. The highly focused bridge course includes learning to program in two popular high-level languages, abstract data structures, professional practices and various computing concepts that prepare students for the rigors of the MS program. To recruit low-income students from populations underrepresented in the computing field, federal funding and institutional support was obtained. The funding provides low-income students with financial support that enables them to complete the degree in two years. With projected computing talent shortfalls and the advantages of workforce diversity, it is vital that educational institutions create conversion programs that can be completed relatively quickly, with the needs of non-traditional students in mind. CCS CONCEPTS • Social and professional topics → Model curricula.
Proceedings of the 51st ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education, 2020
COSMIC is an NSF S-STEM graduate curriculum initiative / conversion program that strives to provi... more COSMIC is an NSF S-STEM graduate curriculum initiative / conversion program that strives to provide an accelerated pathway to a Master of Science (MS) degree for individuals who do not have an undergraduate degree in computing, but who wish to cross over into the computing field. The structure of our conversion program, the context that motivated it, and insights from conversion students' instructors are presented. Program successes with students from under-represented populations and the limitations that are also experienced are discussed. Our conversion program is based on a highly focused summer bridge course, combined with a customized curriculum pathway that enables people without undergraduate computing degrees to merge quickly and efficiently into a professional MS in computing degree program. The program is similar in concept to post-baccalaureate conversion programs in New Zealand (e.g., the Master of Software Development at the Victoria University of Wellington) and the extensive conversion choices in the UK. Undergraduate and graduate student enrollment statistics from past and current (2018) CRA Taulbee Surveys strongly suggest the computing profession has a moral obligation to seek out and encourage individuals from under-represented populations to become a significant part of the computing professional community. We encourage other institutions to join in the effort to recruit and provide pathways for post-baccalaureate individuals from under-represented populations to become a significant part of the computing community. CCS CONCEPTS • Social and professional topics → Model curricula.
Proceedings of the 50th ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education, 2019
The new graduate curriculum initiative, COSMIC: Change Opportunity - Start Masters in Computing, ... more The new graduate curriculum initiative, COSMIC: Change Opportunity - Start Masters in Computing, is aimed at an adult population that is typically under-served by computing programs at institutions of higher education. The COSMIC initiative provides an accelerated pathway to a professional Master of Science (MS) degree for individuals who do not have an undergraduate degree in computing, but who wish to cross over into the computing field. The COSMIC initiative is based on a highly focused summer bridge course combined with a customized curriculum pathway that allows people without computer science degrees to merge quickly and efficiently into a professional MS in Computing degree program. In this poster, we discuss our bridge course, additional bridge curriculum and its connection to our MS in Computing program; and present preliminary data from initial COSMIC cohorts. The COSMIC initiative's goal is to provide the computing profession with a documented model for training students that seek to cross over from non-computer science undergraduate degrees to work in the computing field.
ICASSP '77. IEEE International Conference on Acoustics, Speech, and Signal Processing
A synthesis by rule system has been implemented using a computational mechanism termed the augmen... more A synthesis by rule system has been implemented using a computational mechanism termed the augmented finite state machine. This mechanism is a restricted form of the augmented transition network used in natural language processing. In this technique, the rules take the form of conditionally executed procedures which describe contextual effects. In a single linear pass the technique converts a phonetic string into synthesizer commands handling contact as well as distant assimilations. The technique may be expanded to handle general phonological rules at the expense of providing for recursive entry into an augmented finite state machine.
ICASSP '77. IEEE International Conference on Acoustics, Speech, and Signal Processing
A flexible digital speech synthesis facility has been built around a general purpose digital sign... more A flexible digital speech synthesis facility has been built around a general purpose digital signal processor, capable of computing 64 second-order filter sections at a 16 KHz sampling rate. The flexibility is derived from a software package which allows the user to describe and control a synthesizer of his own design on the processor. Synthesizer parameters are described as functions
This paper describes an effort to design and implement an interactive system involving two indepe... more This paper describes an effort to design and implement an interactive system involving two independent processors - one a display processor and the other a music processor. The goal of the work was to develop tools and techniques for the artist interested in working with the media of animation and music in an integrated fashion. Since the purpose of our
Proceedings of the SIGCHI conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems - CHI '83, 1983
Consul and CUE are two systems that combine to support an interface to interactive computer servi... more Consul and CUE are two systems that combine to support an interface to interactive computer services that is integrated across a variety of interface methods. Consul is an experimental natural language interface system designed to be customized to a set of specific interactive computer services: electronic mail, personal calendar, word processing, etc. CUE is a window- and object-based run-time support
The goal of the CUE Project is to produce a system environment in which the data and functions of... more The goal of the CUE Project is to produce a system environment in which the data and functions of different interactive services can be combined to perform a single computation task. Construction of this environment will require research on data representation, program functionalization, user interface design, and selection of appropriate levels, for inter-machine communication. CUE is designed to take advantage
Decision Support Systems, 1987
NIKL (a New Implementation of KL-ONE) is one of the members of the KL-ONE family of knowledge rep... more NIKL (a New Implementation of KL-ONE) is one of the members of the KL-ONE family of knowledge representation languages. NIKL has been in use for several years and our experiences have led us to define and implement various extensions to the language, its support environment and the implementation. Our experiences are particular to the use of NIKL. However, the requirements that we have discovered are relevant to any intelligent system that must reason about terminology. This article reports on the extensions that we have found necessary based on experiences in several different testbeds. The motivations for the extensions and future plans are also presented. .** Actually there are significant differences beyond those having to do with roles if one takes KL-ONE to be defined by the original formalization rather than the then current implementation, which did not support much of the formalism. KNOWLEDGE REPRESENTATION / 979
Uploads
Papers by Thomas Kaczmarek