Abstract:

Since the 1960s, some professional and scientific computing societies have tried to define standard curriculum recommendations. In 2005, Computing Curricula 2005 (CC2005), a cooperative project of the most important societies related to computing (The Association for Computing Machinery, The Association for Information Systems and The Computer Society), established an educational standard for the different kinds of undergraduate degree programs in computing. The main objective of this project was to unify the dramatic increase in the number and type of computing degree programs available to students. The CC2005 defined five basic computing degree programs: computer engineering (CE), computer science (CS), information systems (IS), information technology (IT), and software engineering (SE).

Computing is in continuous evolution and new computing-related fields emerge every day. Because of this, the CC2005 has been updated and additional reports with updated versions of the five basic disciples have been published since 2005: in 2008, the Computing Curricula Information Technology was approved; in 2010, the Computing Curricula Information Systems was completed and published; Computer Science 2013 (CC2013), the curriculum guidelines for undergraduate programs in Computer Science published in December 2013, has been the last update of the CC2005. Therefore, the last version of Computing Curricula 2005 can be named Computing Curricula 2013 (CC2013).

Despite the existence of the CC2005/CC2013, not all higher education centres have adopted it as a reference or have fully met their guidelines. Because of this, the existing variety of degree programs in computing presents a huge barrier for the international mobility of students. For example, the European Higher Education Area tries to ensure more comparable, compatible and coherent systems of higher education in Europe. Although important results have been achieved in that direction, e.g. the definition of the Diploma Supplement or the European Credit Transfer and Accumulation System, there are still important differences in important areas such as the subjects and the content of the subjects of the degree programs. Due to this, an Erasmus student can face severe difficulties when travelling to another university in a different European country.

In this paper, we present a comparison of the computing curricula degree programs from five countries (Ecuador, France, Germany, Poland and Spain) and the CC2013. The comparison takes into account both the duration and the content of the studies. This comparison can provide several benefits. Firstly, this comparison highlights the differences that exist among the five analyzed countries; it can be used to define correspondence tables between different degree programs. Secondly, this comparison also shows the differences from the CC2005 and the following updates (e.g. CC2013) and it shows what should be changed to align with the latest updates.

Keywords:

Computing curricula, curriculum design, student mobility, educational trends.