ABET Accreditation: A Way Forward for PDC Education

• Main Authors: Aly, Sherif G, Harmanani, Haidar, Raj, Rajendra K, Sharafeddine, Sanaa
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: 04-05-2021
• Subjects: Computer Science - Distributed, Parallel, and Cluster Computing
• DOI: 10.48550/arxiv.2105.01707

EduPar-21: 11th NSF/TCPP Workshop on Parallel and Distributed
Computing Education, May 2021 With parallel and distributed computing (PDC) now wide-spread, modern
computing programs must incorporate PDC within the curriculum. ACM and IEEE
Computer Society's Computer Science curricular guidelines have recommended
exposure to PDC concepts since 2013. More recently, a variety of initiatives
have made PDC curricular content, lectures, and labs freely available for
undergraduate computer science programs. Despite these efforts, progress in
ensuring computer science students graduate with sufficient PDC exposure has
been uneven.
This paper discusses the impact of ABET's revised criteria that have required
exposure to PDC to achieve accreditation for computer science programs since
2018. The authors reviewed 20 top ABET-accredited computer science programs and
analyzed how they covered the required PDC components in their curricula. Using
their own institutions as case studies, the authors examine in detail how three
different ABET-accredited computer science programs covered PDC using different
approaches, yet meeting the PDC requirements of these ABET criteria. The paper
also shows how ACM/IEEE Computer Society curricular guidelines for computer
engineering and software engineering programs, along with ABET accreditation
criteria, can cover PDC.