Professional Accreditation for the Computing Sciences

assures the quality of all aspects of a computer science program, but also ensures that graduating students meet a uniform set of minimum requirements. O n January 8, 1985 the final processing was completed and the Computing Sciences Accreditation Board became a legally established corporation in the state of New York. This significant event capped a two-and-one-half year joint effort on the part of the IEEE Computer Society and the ACM. The joint project was formally initiated in August 1982, but the events leading up to this effort date as far back as the late seventies. Engineeringbased programs in computer science and engineering have had the quality assurance mechanism of ABET (Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology) since 1971, when the board accreditated the computer enineering program at Case Western Uriversity. Then, ABET used "nontraditional" program procedures, because computer engineering guidelines did not exist at that time. By the 1979 accreditation year, computer engineering guidelines had been developed and approved, and were in use. By 1982, there were over twenty-five ABET a¢credited programs in this area. However, this number represented a very small percentage of the approximately one thousand academic programs in existence at that time that were "computer related or based." These programs ranged from very rigorous computer science programs through information science, information systems, and data processing programs to programs that were computer "options" or "specialities" of other disciplines. Beginning in the late seventies, the Educational Activities Board of the Computer Society, the Education Board of the ACM, and ABET all began to receive inquiries from students, parents, and industrial recruiters on which were the "good" computer science programs and/or whether the societies maintain lists of approved programs. By the summer of 1982 a significant number of inquiries were being received. An exploratory meeting was held in Hartford, Connecticut, in August 1982, with representatives from both theACM Ed Board and the Computer Society EAB. After a weekend of examination, debate and review, the decision was made to initiate a joint task force whose first objective would be to investigate alternatives and determine what, if any, steps the societies should take to ensure the quality of computer science programs. The task force examined many alternatives but shortly focussed its analysis on the concepts ofprogram approval and program accreditation. The recognized model for program approval is the process sponsored by the American Chemical Society for programs in chemistry. The recognized model for program accreditation is that of ABET for programs in engi-