School of Information Sciences Receives NIST Award
February 19, 2014
The University of Pittsburgh School of Information Sciences is one of three schools awarded the FY 2013 Curricula Development Cooperative Agreement Program by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). The school’s project, “Standards: People, Process, Products and Productivity – Focus on Information Technology Standards,” earned top honors by proposing ten modules on technical standards that can be used in the undergraduate or graduate information science curriculum. The school will work with NIST to strengthen education and learning about standards and standardization under PI Michael Spring and co-PIs James Joshi, Prashant Krishnamurthy, David Tipper and Martin Weiss.
The initial modules will provide an introduction to standards, standards setting organizations and the standards development process. Later modules will address select topics spanning a range of disciplines central to the curriculum of the school, including security standards, web standards, standards for cellular telephony and wireless networks, discussions on standards, big data and data mining.
Professor Michael Spring, who is coordinating the efforts of the five faculty working on the project, speaking about the project said, “I am delighted that we were picked to work on this project. Several of us have been working in the area of standards for more than two decades. All of the involved faculty have worked with NIST on other projects and we look forward to this opportunity to work with our colleagues at NIST to improve the information and educational materials available to other institutions in this important area.”
NIST was established in 1901 to promote US industrial competitiveness at a time when the country’s measurement infrastructure was insufficient when compared to economic rivals, England and Germany. Today NIST measurements support a vast range of technologies to increase US competitiveness in the global marketplace.
Learn more about the Curricula Development Cooperative Agreement Program and NIST.