Information and Computer Sciences

Education for Sustainable Development (ESD)

This document presents a case study that encourages students to think about the issues surrounding sustainability. The case study is focused around an IT company to be used with Computing students, however, the general principle can be used widely across HE. Apart from raising awareness of sustainable development this case study encourages critical thinking, evaluation and promotes good professional practice. Through conducting the study students will improve their research, group working and presentation skills.

Engineering social change: The IS Case
Sustainable development and the curriculum, a contribution to the HEFCE consultation,John Lindsay

The course, information systems strategy was designed in 1985 when the first cohort of the degree in information systems reached the fourth year, after industrial placement. It has in essence remained the same.

Case study: SUSTROUP (SUstainable development Student Team Reach Out Project), Dr Lynne Humphries

Members of staff in the School of Computing and Technology have a broad range of backgrounds including Computing, Physics, Mathematics, Psychology, Engineering and Environmental Technology. This diversity often fosters a multidisciplinary approach to research, reach-out and the curriculum. The author, who was originally trained in Geology, took additional qualifications in computing and now teaches risk assessment courses from a socio-technic perspective. One way to build sustainable development capabilities in undergraduate students is to first raise awareness that some sections of the UK communities may not be sustainable (become more and more socially excluded) because of a lack of ICT skills and access to technology. So one of the approaches to Education for Sustainable Development for this School is to follow the UNESCO ESD for ICTs and the Media section from the Dakar Framework Action.

Case Study of an approach for embedding Sustainable Development in the curriculum in the Information and Computer Sciences, Dr Neil Gordon

This case study considers how to include Sustainable Development (SD) in the curriculum of Information and Computer Sciences (ICS) in the context of the English Higher Education system. ICS offers particular support for SD, in the importance placed on ethics as part of the ICS curriculum, and the potential for direct application of tools and technologies developed under ICS in helping accomplish SD. Incorporating SD in the curriculum may include overcoming colleagues and institutional inertia and resistance, as well as dealing with apparent contradictions between SD and the discipline, such as the continued updating and consequent environmental cost which computing can cause

ESD Case Study for HEA ICS Subject Centre: Embedding Sustainability into the IS curriculum, Nick Plant

This document presents a case study of established practice involving sustainability considerations embedded into the information systems curriculum by the author and colleagues within the School of Information Systems , at the University of the West of England, Bristol.