Writing in the November issue of Communications of the ACM, Education Board co-chairman Andrew McGettrick and past ACM president Peter J. Denning say that the public associates computer science with programmers, and in recent years, the definition of programmer has narrowed to mean "coder" and not someone concerned with the broader issues of the design, development, testing, debugging, documentation and maintenance of software.

McGettrick and Denning argue that innovation is something that can be taught. They stress that it isn't just the invention of novel technologies but can also take the form of new processes, new functionality and new business models. They propose embedding "the foundational practices of innovation into the curriculum, so that students learn innovation by doing, without necessarily being aware they are engaged with systematic processes." The curriculum begins with the study of great innovations. There is also a notable lack of math in their proposed first- and second-year course work. a New computer science Curriculum

Innovation themes proposed for freshman and sophomore computer science courses by Andrew McGettrick and Peter J. Denning:

First-year courses and modules

-- Programming and multimedia