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University of Waterloo has signed part of the agreement with Microsoft that caused so much controversy last year. It is, however, in a modified form.
UW and Microsoft Canada announced a deal as part of the National Academic Innovation Alliance on the 14 August last year. The deal included resources for research in hand-written equation recognition for tablet PCs, the on-line delivery of some ECE course components using .NET, and use of Microsoft's programming language C# (C-sharp) in first year programming and in a pre-university course.
VP Academic and Provost Amit Chakma announced in October of this year that the second part of the Microsoft agreement had been signed.
In an interview this month Chair of Electrical and Computer Engineering Tony Vannelli explained the ECE parts of the agreement and some of the changes.
The first year programming course, ECE 150, is no longer part of the deal.
"I think the real contention was the [ECE] 150," said Vannelli. Last year people protested that part of the deal suggesting that it was a curriculum change that had not been approved and that it compromised UW's academic independence.
The high school programming course, to which Vannelli refers as a "high school outreach course," will be delivered on-line and includes three languages VisualBasic, C++, and C#.
"It gives it a multi-language flavour," Vannelli said.
The course will be developed by co-op students under the supervision of Bill Bishop. Vannelli described the project of developing the programming course as a showcase of what UW students can do.
Another component of the agreement is the online delivery of some course components, including labs.
On the subject of companies trying to get ECE to use their products Vannelli emphasized that "We dictate what happens in our program."
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