Guidelines for Establishment of Contract Areas Computer Science Department

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1 Guidelines for Establishment of Contract Areas Computer Science Department Current 07/01/07 Statement: The Contract Area is designed to allow a student, in cooperation with a member of the Computer Science Graduate Faculty (the Advisor ), to design a customized area of specialization. It will consist of 2 courses, selected by the student and the Advisor. The area can be used as one of the two areas tested by the Comprehensive Exam; the questions for the exam will be set by and graded by the Advisor. Alternately, the Contract Area may be used to design and implement a major software development product, possibly in connection with a business or other application area need. In this case, the Comprehensive Examination may take the form of a written and oral report. The student s advisor together with the Director of Graduate Studies will determine when this is appropriate. In addition to the customized areas, certain pre-defined Contract areas may be available. These are described below. Any course included in a Contract Area, especially one being taught for the first time or any Reading Course, must have a well-defined syllabus (including a topic list). Procedure for Establishing a Contract Area: 1. The student identifies and secures the cooperation of a member of the department s Graduate Faculty to serve as an Advisor. 2. The student and Advisor write a description of the area of study and specify the two courses to be taken. The description should a) state the purpose of the Area and b) should explain the learning outcomes and knowledge to be gained as well as c) the rationale for the particular course combination proposed. 3. This proposal and the syllabus/topic list is submitted to the Director of Graduate Studies for approval. It is expected that if any disagreement should arise, the Graduate Studies Committee will be consulted. Pre-defined Contract Areas: The department may from time to time specify pre-defined contract areas which reflect the department s special expertise and/or ongoing research activities. Current Predefined Contract areas may be found here.

2 Further Notes: 1. The creation of a contract area must not be retroactive. That is, the latest that a Contract Area can be established is before the end of the first course in the twocourse sequence. 2. All courses in a Contract Area must be well-defined. That is, a syllabus and topic list, normally including most of the following items must be available: a reading list, a project to be undertaken, software to be developed, specification of a final report, or other activities to be undertaken or products to be produced. This definition must be sufficiently detailed and specific that the Director of Graduate Studies is satisfied that the student s performance in the course can be clearly established. These materials are part of the Contract Area proposal. 3. Two Reading Courses (CSCI 597) may constitute a Contract Area. Students and advisors should be aware that a maximum of 6 credit hours of CSCI 597 is allowed by the catalog rules. 4. There is nothing to prevent a student from using two Contract Areas to fulfill the Comprehensive Exam requirements. 5. If the Director of Graduate Studies rejects a proposed Contract Area, the faculty Advisor for the proposal may appeal to the Graduate Studies Committee. 6. A Director of Graduate Studies wishing to serve as an Advisor for a Contract Area should consult the head of the Graduate Studies Committee for approval.

3 Pre-Defined Contract Areas Computer Science Department Current 07/01/07 The descriptions given below are meant to provide recommendations, but may be modified to some extent according to the student s background and interests, in consultation with the student s Advisor. The Director of Graduate Studies can suggest which faculty members can be approached for further information and to serve as an advisor for these areas. CyberSecurity Contract Area CyberSecurity involves protecting information that is maintained and handled by computer systems by preventing, detecting, and responding to attacks. It seems that everything relies on computers and the Internet now communication ( , cell phones), entertainment (digital cable, mp3s), transportation (car engine systems, airplane navigation), shopping (online stores, credit cards), medicine (equipment, medical records), and the list goes on. Our new courses on CyberSecurity teach the risks and threats that exist in modern computer systems and networks and how to counteract and protect against them: Contract Area Details: The student must take 2 courses (6 credit hours), consisting of CSCI 550 Principles of Computer Security And one of the following: CSCI 552 Telecommunications and Network Security CSCI 554 Computer Security Management. The comprehensive exam will have a section covering this area. Course Details: CSCI 550: PRINCIPLES OF COMPUTER SECURITY is a survey of security considerations as they apply to computer and information systems. Topics include access control, security models and architecture, physical security, networking security, cryptography, disaster mitigation and recovery, and legal and ethical issues. Computer security, privacy, and authentication are perennial problems in modern networked computer systems. This course will provide graduate students with an opportunity to study the nature of the threats, some of their technical details, prevention, recovery and countermeasures. CSCI 552: TELECOMMUNICATIONS AND NETWORKING SECURITY is a survey of security threats and countermeasures as they apply to a telecommunication and networking system. Topics covered include: network security threats, security protocol

4 and implementation, firewall design, wireless network security, and network security architecture. Telecommunications and networking use various mechanisms, devices, software, and protocols that are interrelated and integrated. Security professionals must know networking software, protocols, services, devices and interoperability issues in order to identify the vulnerabilities within a network. This course studies the nature of the threats in a network, network security protocols and security system that could provide various countermeasures to secure the network. CSCI 554: COMPUTER SECURITY MANAGEMENT is a survey of security considerations as they apply to the management of business processes and information. Topics include: planning, policies, protocols of security practices, access models and frameworks, incident response plans, asset protection and recovery. Information Security is no longer the sole responsibility of technology personnel. Business managers must be aware of the importance and impact of business models and decision on the security of essential business processes and information.

5 Bioinformatics Bioinformatics is the use of mathematics, statistics, computer science, artificial intelligence, chemistry and biochemistry to solve biological problems, usually on the molecular level. An important subfield of bioinformatics is genomics, which deals with the genome, the DNA that stores the sum of an organism s hereditary information. The representation of DNA as a very long string over a 4-character alphabet (A, C, G, and T) allows a variety of computer science concepts and techniques to be brought to bear on important problems in biology. Genome annotation, for example, deals with finding the substrings of the genome that represent genes. Once the genes are located, scientists try to identify the biological function of each gene. Major research efforts in bioinformatics include sequence alignment, gene finding, genome assembly, protein structure alignment, protein structure prediction, prediction of gene expression and protein-protein interactions, and the modeling of evolution. Work in bioinformatics involves many areas of Computer Science, including algorithms, databases, pattern recognition, data mining, string processing, visual display of information, and topics related to storing and processing of very large data sets. For both historical and practical reasons, much programming in bioinformatics is done in Perl. Students interested in further study, research or possible employment in Bioinformatics may be interested in this contract area. Students may also be interested in this contract area if they are interested in understanding modern biological science from a computational point of view, or if they simply are interested in a novel application area where they can apply techniques from almost every area of Computer Science. To ensure a solid grounding in the fundamentals of Bioinformatics, the two required courses for the Bioinformatics contract area will generally be: Bioinformatics (may be taken as CSCI 580G or BIOS 545). Pattern Recognition (CSCI 580R). These courses may be taken in either order. The Comprehensive Exam for the Bioinformatics contract area as defined here will be based on these two courses. For students planning continued study, research, or possible employment in Bioinformatics, the following elective is highly recommended: Programming for Bioinformatics (BIOS 546). Students who have completed the Bioinformatics course and are ready for a research experience may be eligible for the following research workshop: Genome Annotation (CSCI 580N).

6 Students interested in the Bioinformatics contract area should contact Dr. Freedman. Information specifically regarding CSCI 580R Pattern Recognition may be obtained from Dr. Zhou. Further study in biology is valuable for advanced work in Bioinformatics but requires an undergraduate background in biology. Students who believe that their background may be suitable should contact Dr. Johns in the Department of Biological Sciences.