This report is based on a roundtable discussion held on January 21 and 22, 1970. The meeting was called by the American Federation of Information Processing Societies (AFIPS) because of the concern felt by many in the computing profession for a better understanding of what is meant by "professionalism," and the associated question of "professional…

The materials and methods described in this report constitute an integrated system which allows a professional educator with a minimum of data processing experience to teach a course in computer technology. The course is divided into three teaching modules--(1) general background and programing, (2) techniques and applications, and (3) advanced…

Investigated was the management of computer centers with emphasis on managing the programming effort. Problems and objectives of programming management were examined and techniques used in various business and governmental organizations are presented in the report. The aspects of the problem discussed in this report emphasize programming…

The Chemistry Department at the University of California, San Diego, has 35 members, 20 of whom are experimentalists with either computers or plans to acquire one. Within the department there are turn-key systems connected to mini-computers or the department computer, an IBM 1800. There is little control over computers in the department and little…

An overview is provided of the Experimental Time-Sharing System (ETSS). Few manufacturers of small-scale and medium-scale computers offer operating systems capable of supporting both terminal-oriented time-sharing and multiprogramed batch processing. ETSS was developed to demonstrate that a powerful, general purpose operating system of this type…

Three basic notions--version, session and command language--are discussed which are essential for a user of the Rapidly Extensible Language (REL) system. The first is defined as a language--data base package consisting of a language, data and definitions. A session is stipulated to be the period during which the user operates at a terminal, and…

In the Project Solo classification scheme for interactive computing Category IV encompasses those activities where the student takes the role of lesson designer. Similar programs written by a teacher or fellow student are frequently the starting point for such a would-be author. The transition from the role of student to that of student-author is…

The general public's attitudes towards continually expanding computer usage is frequently speculated about but is far from understood. This study is aimed at providing objective data on the public's attitudes towards computers, their uses, their perceived impact on the American economy as well as on the individual, and their future uses. The…

The May 1971 issue of "College and Research Libraries" featured an article by Dr. Ellsworth Mason which constitutes an all-out attack on the application of computer technology to library systems. Dr. Mason views the computer-based technology to library systems developed to date (at least the ones he has studied) as unqualified disasters from a…

The bibliography contains 308 abstracts of unclassified Rand studies dealing with various aspects of computing technology. The studies selected have all been issued during the period January 1963 through August 1971. The intention is to revise the bibliography at periodic intervals to incorporate new publications. Both subject and author indexes…

All the most commonly-used high-level computer languages are discussed in this book. An introductory discussion provides an overview of the basic components of a digital computer, the general planning of a computer programing problem, and the various types of computer languages. Each chapter is self-contained, emphasizes those features of a…

These instructional objectives have been selected from materials submitted to the Curriculum Laboratory of the Graduate School of Education at UCLA. Arranged by major course goals, these objectives are offered simply as samples that may be used where they correspond to the skills, abilities, and attitudes instructors want their students to…

Although the report is specifically about Argentina, Uruguay and Paraguay, the considerations presented are valid for all of Latin America. In September, 1969, Argentina had approximately 200 electronic computers. The annual growth is estimated at 15-20% and the implementation of teleprocessing and time-sharing systems have made evident the…

This report describes the initial evaluation of a text compression algorithm against computer assisted instruction (CAI) material. A review of some concepts related to statistical text compression is followed by a detailed description of a practical text compression algorithm. A simulation of the algorithm was programed and used to obtain…

The primary aim of these five technical papers is to indicate aspects of proof theory which may be of use in the study of non-numerical computing. The three main papers are entitled: "Checking of Computer Programs;""Consistency Proofs and Programs for Translators;" and "Experiments with Computers on the Complexity of Non-numerical computations."…