Organization of Readings

			  CSc 630 The "Science" of Computer Science

MODULE 1 Philosophy of Science			        6 weeks

Excerpts will be taken from four books.

Peter Achinstein, Law and Explanation, Oxford, 1971.

Frederick Aicken, The Nature of Science, Heinemann Educational Books, 1984.

A. F. Chalmers, What is this thing called Science?, third edition, Hackett
      Publishing Company, 1999.

J. T. Davies, The Scientific Approach, Academic Press, 1973.

I. Truth and Knowledge

    Aicken, What is Truth?
    Aicken, Facts
    Aicken, Fancies
    Chalmers, Science as knowledge derived from the facts of experience
    Chalmers, Observation as practical intervention

II. Experiments and Falsification

    Aicken, Experiments
    Chalmers, Experiment
    Chalmers, Deriving theories from the facts: induction
    Chalmers, Introducing falsificationism

III. Models and Prediction

    Aicken, Predictions
    Aicken, Models

IV. Theory

    Davies, The Origin of Theories
    Davies, The Testing of Theories
    Davies, Confirmations and Discrepancies

V. Laws

    Davies, The Simple Laws of Science
    Davies, The Credibility, Truth, and "Inner Perfection" of Scientific
               Theories 
    Achinstein, Laws and Regularities
    Achinstein, The Generality of Laws

VI. Limits of Falsifiability

    Chalmers, Ch. 6 Sophisticated falsificationism, novel predictions,
            and the growth of science
          Ch. 7, The limitations of falsificationism

VII. Kuhn's Paradigms and Feyerabend's Anarchistic Theory of Science

    Chalmers, Ch. 8 Theories as structures I: Kuhn's paradigms
          Ch. 9 Theories as structures II: Research programs

    Chalmers, Ch. 10, Feyerabend's anarchistic theory of science
          Ch. 11, Methodical changes in method

VIII. Recent Developments

     Chalmers, Ch. 12, The Bayesian approach
          Ch. 13, The new experimentalism

MODULE 2 Philosophy of Computer Science			4 weeks

I. Herb Simon

     Chapter 1, Simon, The Sciences of the Artificial, MIT Press.
     Simon and Newell, Computer Science as Empirical Inquiry, CACM
             19(3):113-126, March 1976.

II. Peter Denning

     Denning, What is Experimental Computer Science?, CACM 23(10):543-544,
 	October 1980.
     Denning, Is Computer Science Science?, CACM 48(4):27-31, April 2005.
     Denning, The Locality Principle, CACM 48(7):19-24, July 2005.

III. Robert Glass

     Fenton, Pfleeger, and Glass, Science and Substance: A Challenge to
	Software Engineers, IEEE Software, July 1994, pp. 86-95.
     Glass, A Structure-Based Critique of Contemporary Computing Research,
        Journal of Systems Software, 38:3-7, 1995.
     Glass, Ramesh, and Vessey, An Analysis of Research in Computing
        Disciplines, CACM 47(6):89-94, June 2004.

IV. Information Systems

     Nunamaker, Chen, and Purdin, Systems Development in Information Systems
	Research, Journal of Management Information Systems 7(3):80-106,
	Winter 1990-91.
     March and Smith, Design and natural science research on information
	technology, Decision Support Systems 15:251-266, 1995.

     Burnstein and Gregor, The Systems Development or Engineering Approach to
        Research in Information Systems: An Action Research Perspective,
        Proc Australasian Conference on Information Systems, pp. 122-134,
        1999.
     Khazanchi and Munkvold, Is Information Systems a Science? An Inquiry into
        the Nature of the Information Systems Discipline, The DATA BASE for
        Advances in Information Systems 31(3):24-42, Summer 2000.

     Hevner, March, Park, and Ram, Design Science in Information Systems
	Research, MIS Quarterly 28(1):75-105, March 2004.

V. Walter Tichy

     Tichy, Lukowicz, Prechelt, and Heinz, Experimental Evaluation in Computer
        Science: A Quantitative Study, Journal of Software and Systems
        28:9-18, 1995.
     Tichy, Should Computer Scientists Experiment More?, IEEE Computer,
        pp.32-40, May 1998.

VI. Theory in Software Engineering

     Zelkowitz and Wallace, Experimental Models for Validating Technology, IEEE
	Computer, pp. 23-31, May, 1998.
     Hannay, Sjoberg, Dyba, A Systematic Review of Theory Use in Software
	Engineering Experiments, IEEE Transactions on Software Engineering
	33(2):87-197, February 2007.

MODULE 3 Group and Semester Projects		        2 weeks

I. Status at midstream: 8 minutes per project

II. Final Presentations: 20 minutes per project