Development of an Information Sciences Certificate

Arizona State University has created a new School of Computing and Informatics (SCI). SCI currently consists of the Department of Computer Science and Engineering and the Department of Biomedical Informatics. SCI was created to house the core computer science, computer engineering, software engineering, biomedical informatics and other computing and informatics programs and concentrations. The informatics programs will serve as trans-disciplinary bridges to other disciplines. One of the initial activities of the new school was the creation of an information sciences certificate. This paper describes the process used in developing this certificate, the tradeoffs made and the detailed course requirements. Lessons learned regarding how computer science departments can better collaborate with other disciplines on meeting computing educational needs will also be shared