Academic Careers for Experimental Computer Scientists and Engineers (1994) / Chapter Skim
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Executive Summary
Executive Summary
Pages 1-8
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to request a study by the Computer Science and Telecommunications Board of academic career tracks for practitioners in the field. The NSF request was motivated by the concern that experimental computer scientists and engineers may face special chal 1
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In ECSE, artifacts may be the subject of a study, the apparatus for a study, or both. Artifacts often embody a substantial portion of the intellectual contribution of ECSE research, and their creation represents a significant intellectual effort.
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in which the interplay and coupling between experiment and theory are rather tight, an "experiment" in ECSE generally does not verify a prediction from theoretical computer science or rely heavily on a model developed theoretically. The reason is that the complexity of most real computing problems precludes the direct application of analysis: a problem can be made theoretically tractable only by abstracting so extensively that the problem that emerges may not capture the essence of the original problem.
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The production of computing artifacts depends on a substantial infrastructure. Equipment needs are generally well understood, although few outside the computer fields realize just how quickly "stateof-the-art" equipment loses its cutting edge and utility for research.
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Funding, which is important to researchers in any field, must be sufficient to cover the long time horizons and large demands on resources that characterize ECSE research. However, programs intended to support junior faculty who have not yet established their professional reputations (e.g., the NSF Young Investigator program and the Research Initiation Awards program of the Computer and Information Science and Engineering Directorate of NSF)
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The ECSE research community depends heavily on conferences to communicate new knowledge, and conferences are widely regarded as the preferred medium for maximizing the intellectual impact of ECSE research. However, the tenure and promotion process at many universities does not give conference presentations and publications a weight appropriate to their significance in the field, preferring instead publications in archival journals.
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. In addition, department and university evaluators must strive to use standards and criteria for tenure and promotion decisions that normally characterize productive work in the ECSE discipline, rather than standards that may be applicable to more traditional academic disciplines, taking care not to exclude meaningful evidence of achievement (e.g., artifacts with substantial impact on the ECSE community)
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Most importantly, the federal government should realize that a variety of funding structures are needed to support ECSE research, including small, relatively short term grants or contracts that focus primarily on the development of a concept; medium-scale group funding; and large, relatively long term grants or contracts associated with deliverable computing artifacts. Postdoctoral support for new Ph.D.s in ECSE would help to overcome some of the limitations and constraints imposed by the six-year probationary period for assistant professors.
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