CSCI 170 Spring 2008, Journal 1

To prepare for the critical reading/writing assignments you are to work through the XU library's xu.tutor tutorials.

There are five tutorials:
  1. Defining the Question
  2. Identifying the Resources
  3. Improving a Search
  4. Evaluating Websites
  5. Preventing Plagiarism
Each tutorial is between 9-18 pages. At the end of each tutorial is a short quiz. While you are asked to work through all five tutorials, you are only required to take the quizzes at the of the "Evaluating Websites" and "Preventing Plagiarism" tutorials. Please select CSCI 170-01 as the course you are doing the tutorials for - the results of your quizzes will be emailed to the instructor.


Please read Michelle A. Hoyle's "The History of Computer Science".
  1. Based on the definition of computer science and algorithm that we have discussed, where in Hoyle's history of computing science would you say computer science really began? Explain your answer.

  2. Considering the definition of computer science and the history given, do you think all four aspects of the field are equally important? For example, would computer science be as interesting if computers were still pretty slow, or if fewer applications were known or were affordable, or if no good analytical techniques or languages had been created? (It would be particularly interesting to know if you think the field would have the same importance to you, and why...)

  3. Describe either one question you have after reading the history, or one aspect of the history you found particularly intriguing.