Understanding Computing in a Hybrid World: On the Undergraduate Curriculum Front-End Development

Computing is an interdisciplinary field that can be approached from different points of view. Each point of view has its goals, aims and fundamental assumptions. This makes computing a complex discipline. Moreover, new computing disciplines appear regularly. With the trend that ICT-professionals should have non-ICT competences as well, and non-ICT-professionals should have ICT-competences, new computing curricula are often hybrid in nature. As a hybrid computing curriculum cannot cover the full range of computing, it is interesting to investigate the 'computing part' of such curricula. Our analysis framework consists of three elements: the curricular components 'goals and objectives' and 'instructional strategies', and the underlying epistemological view on the discipline ('cultural styles'). Taking a historical perspective, we describe the origins of the ACM/IEEE Curriculum Recommendation series. We discuss the three main cultural styles of computing: theoretical, scientific and engineering. Observing that in a curriculum the above elements should be aligned, we present three trade-offs for the case of hybrid computing curricula. We apply our results to two concrete examples, Liberal Arts and Computer Science and Front End Development. Based on our investigation, we formulate recommendations for designers of hybrid computing curricula. We recommend, for example, discussing disciplinary boundaries and resulting trade-offs explicitly while designing and documenting curricula.