Being faced with "formal methods" can raise strong negative reactions among computing students as well as among computing educators. For some, the mathematics involved is intimidating. For others, the learning curve is a huge barrier. Providing instructors and students with improved support in this area would be a positive contribution to the computing field.
This working group's primary goal will be to build a clear picture of the support that is available in the area of formal methods education, and to provide guidelines for educators who are coming to teaching formal methods for the first time. Although there is now plenty of materials and software available (for example see http://www.cs.indiana.edu/formal-methods-education/), there seems to be little or no coherent guidance and help on
The FMWG will clearly define each of these aspects and survey the field to summarize the tools and techniques in common use. The Formal Methods Working Group will produce two major deliverables. The first will be the report that, if accepted, will be published as part of the December 2000 SIGCSE Bulletin. The second deliverable from this WG will be web-based materials from the report, which will provide a dynamic and enduring resource on this topic.
The working group will be limited to five to ten participants (including the leaders) who share a common interest in the area of Formal Methods, selected on the basis of their qualifications in the area. Much of the working group's survey work will take place via electronic communication during the spring and early summer, so that the WG participants will arrive in Finland prepared to flesh out and compile the final report. We project that the major efforts toward this preliminary work will begin by May 1, 2000 (2 weeks after the application deadline).
All working groups will meet at the conference site the day before the conference, throughout the conference and the day after the conference (July 10-14, 2000). We will determine our own meeting schedule. While working group members should be able to participate in many other conference activities, their main commitment during the days of the conference is to the working group.
In order to apply as a participant, prepare about a two page (1000 word) proposal with your name, contact information, affiliation, position/title, the list of working group(s) you are interested in, in order of preference, and a description of your experience and a position statement relative to the working group(s) that you wish to join. Plain text electronic submissions are preferred. The application period ends on April 17, 2000. Send your application to Erkki Sutinen, the Working Group Coordinator, at Erkki.Sutinen@joensuu.fi.
For further details and to express an interest in the Formal Methods Working Group please contact either of the Working Group Leaders, Vicki L. Almstrum, almstrum@cs.utexas.edu, or Neville Dean, nd1@artemis.anglia.ac.uk.
The detailed CFP for this working group is at the URL http://www.cs.utexas.edu/users/csed/FM/.
Full information about ITiCSE 2000 is at the URL http://www.cs.helsinki.fi/events/iticse/.