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This paper presents a critical look at the likely demise of Computer Science (CS) as a discipline, in the light of various mishaps that academics in Universities have met with due to trial and error. We trace the issues of the past and present and, identify the reasons why computer science as a discipline in many Universities has not moved with time -- in particular why it is not kept up with the pace required by the field. The loss of computer science is also well-reflected in the huge downturn in CS student enrolment across the Anglo-Saxon world. The paper also details some steps on how to change the ways and means of CS academics. We record that some of the arguments and recommendations presented in this paper can be controversial and may not necessarily relate to scenarios that exist in other countries. Further, some of the assertions made are without comprehensive statistical data, as we could not gather them, besides gathering anecdotal evidences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Computers, digitalization and the Internet have transformed modern society. Commerce, education, communication and socialization will never be the same. Surprisingly, many universities do not require a computing course in the core curriculum. Critical information technology (IT) competencies are often taken for granted, to the detriment of students who lack computing and Internet skills. This paper describes an initiative undertaken by a computer science and information systems department to assess and remediate IT skills needed by all university students, regardless of major. The project is evolving along several dimensions: identification of discipline-independent IT competencies, assessment of IT skills among current and incoming students, and curriculum development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Efforts to define IT curriculum and accreditation standards began at the first Conference on Information Technology Curriculum (CITC-1) in December 2001, which included representatives from 15 Information Technology (IT) programs at four-year schools in the United States, and representatives from the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM), the Institute for Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE), and the Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology (ABET). Since this conference, this work has been ongoing at CITC-2 (April 2002), CITC-3 (September 2002), and CITC-4 (October 2003), and through committee work which has progressed between these conferences. The three main thrusts of this work have been to define standards for accreditation of IT programs, to define a model curriculum for IT programs, and to distinguish IT programs from the most closely-related academic programs, such as Information Systems and Computer Science. Membership in SIGITE (Special Interest Group on Information Technology Education) of the ACM is now over 300 members and represents most 4-year IT programs and several 2-year IT programs in the United States; the outcome of these three main thrusts should therefore be of wide interest to all those in related programs or at institutions considering forming a similar program. This paper gives some of the details of the results of the work on these three thrusts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]